Mediterranean Architecture and the Green-Digital Transition

In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the post-industrial urban conditions in most cases in the world cities can be identified with the following characteristics: As the industry has closed, brownfield sites on inner-city locations, and waterfront lands in some cases, have become available for large-scale urban redevelopment. However, the transformation of these frequently polluted brownfield sites requires sensitive adaptive reuse and huge investment. Urban regeneration in the central urban areas of decay has been encouraged by many localities to attract people back to cities and persuade others not to leave. However, it is questionable whether these activities are leading to actual lasting change, whether they contribute to the making of successful places, and whether the impacts of regeneration compromise the sustainability of the area or city. In terms of sustainability, successfully implemented urban regeneration projects demonstrate that holistic approaches deal firstly with “densification through brownfield development,” ensuring that historic complexes and buildings are properly reused, public spaces are retrofitted as places, good, compatible mixed-use is provided, culture is promoted, and ecological sensitivity is safeguarded. The paper, in this vein, will explore three successful precedents of sustainable regeneration accommodating the mentioned methods.

The theme of urban regeneration of public housing settlements, where disadvantaged and often marginalized communities live, has gained increasing attention in the last decade also in Italy, and several studies have been conducted in the Mediterranean area with the aim to identify methodologies of analysis and project synthesis and specific solutions of intervention. In particular, in COVID-19 and post-COVID conditions, the assurance of healthy living conditions has been and continues to be a known determinant of discrimination in health and social inequalities. As public housing settlements have been among the most affected by this kind of inequality, it is increasingly urgent to investigate the physical, social, and economic determinants that affect citizens’ health.In this context, this research is the result of multidisciplinary work conducted within the PDTA Department, Faculty of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome, relative to the development of methodologies of environmental technological intervention that can build a shared language and approach on the theme of “urban regeneration,” understood as operation at the level of urban space and building construction to improve quality not only of architecture but also of life and well-being of the population of many public housing districts built between the 1970s and 1990s in the Mediterranean area that present strong social and environmental hardships.

In the biggest island of the Mediterranean, Sicily, there are territories that still preserve their original identities and characteristics. At its center, the Madonie Park, a UNESCO Geopark, encloses twenty-one villages with an attractive location and naturalistic and cultural and architectural qualities, but they are plagued by depopulation and technological backwardness. The abstract presents the research’s results aimed at the implementation of green communities in this inner rural area for the establishment of a network of smart villages, reducing environmental impacts, meeting global goals, and being resilient. The main objective of the research is to create a network of smart villages creating an effective collaboration between public and private entities with a network of stakeholders and investors in order to have a transformative project of these small centers. The Madonie District still needs innovation, digitalization, and green and sustainable strategies to play a large role in territorial competitiveness. One of the strategies that need to be implemented is the constitution of energy districts to share and produce energy from renewable sources and to have companies that invest and project the tradition of the past toward the future optimizing the state of fact. The establishment of a territorial network in which all stakeholders put into the system produce circular economy is a warranty of the formation of a virtuous short chain to accredited Madonie companies that know the architecture of the place and enhance it without compromising it. Through energy communities, sustainability is improved, reducing, for example, the emission of CO2, having an increased energy self-sufficiency and guaranteeing saving in bills thanks to the self-production and energy sharing between members of the green community. The creation of guidelines is useful to propose and concretize a program of green sustainable technological development in the Madonie area. A “modus operandi” to be implemented in this area and transposed in other ones with the same characteristics, assisted by control systems for monitoring results.

Technological and environmental design for climate adaptation in urban areas, today cannot be separated from the generation, collection and use of data (big data) and the use of ICT tools for the modelling and simulation of the built urban environment, identified as measuring devices and for the knowledge of the impacts of climate change on buildings and open spaces. The integration of low and smart enabling technologies and ICT tools dedicated to design practice, which increasingly upstream define the role of technical information as the cornerstone of an assisted decision-making model, direct information, therefore the idea, in a conception of design practices increasingly based on an approach environmental data-driven.The object of the study is the definition of a framework for the evaluation of environmental parameters related to health and comfort, applicable to simulation tools, with a specific focus on thermal and environmental exchanges for the definition of those factors that condition the perception of the user’s well-being in conditions of thermal stress (eg. heatwaves), both indoor and outdoor.Through the introduction of smart technologies within data exchange and simulation processes with ICT tools (Rhino, Grasshopper+LadyBug+Honeybee+Dragonfly, EnergyPlus, ENVI-met), such as sensors connected to hardware platforms (Raspberry Pi) for site-specific environmental and microclimatic monitoring, the aim is to optimize and get closer real conditions as results obtainable from processes of simulation of the energy behavior of buildings and the environmental performance of open spaces. Particular reference is given to the increase in urban temperatures, and the simulation of the interaction between outdoor and indoor performance, also through the administration of a daily survey for the collection of perceived thermal sensations, to confirm the validity of the data obtainable to design experimentation of climate-adaptive urban regeneration.

The purpose of this paper is to prove the positive contribution of transformative interventions on existing neighborhoods and districts in the transition to sustainable cities. According to the goals of climate adaptation and mitigation and of reduction of climate-altering emissions of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, cities are responsible for about 70% of CO2 emissions, so urban settlements are the main field where changes can be experimented. Today, the number of conversions of existing neighborhoods into PEDs is increasing, pointing out a growing interest in this direction.Three different cases of study are analyzed. The reason behind the choice of the three PEDs comes from their similar environmental context and comparable characteristics on themes of energy, resource circularity and retrofitting. In fact, all the cases studied fall within the climatic range of the Mediterranean area performing their climatic characteristics—and therefore also housing—in different ways. The result consists in a description of the strategies used in the three ecodistricts that has been integrated through a comparative analysis: from the energetical point of view different sources are analyzed in relation to the context where the site is placed; the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy is analyzed in relation to the environment and the site’s history; from the retrofitting point of view the actions on the built environment are analyzed in order to promote passive behavior of the buildings. The benefits generated from the ecodistricts are analyzed also to the zones nearby, in order to contribute to decrease carbon emissions and to the wellbeing all over the urban ecosystem.The conclusion is that small transformative interventions at district scale become a driving force improving sustainability actions and CO2 emissions reduction and could contribute to trigger the change into the whole urban ecosystem they belong to.

The evolution toward sustainable mobility models must go on with the increase of the quality of public spaces in cities, as the European Green Deal clearly indicates. Response strategies must be integrated with respect to urban demand with a view to reducing emissions and vehicle traffic and increasing the safety of cities. In Pescara, an Adriatic city still lagging behind on these issues, urban planning and civil society policies have found a happy convergence of action. The multiscale projects on the Greenway along the Pescara River, an infrastructure with urban connections to be reconstructed and rediscovered, lay the foundations for concrete planning. It starts from a single objective and defines the strategies and actions of a series of stakeholders, within a more organic and complex picture. The joint actions are from the Municipality (through the Biciplan and the River contract), of civil society (through contemporary projects financed by national bodies working on street art and narrative and physical construction of the river ecomuseum Fluvia) and of companies based along the “infrastructure axis” (through high-level mobility management). The bottom-up joint actions, together with a strong programmatic push from city policy, can re-establish connections of soft mobility that reconnect the most distant suburbs of the urban fabric, to also reconstruct the relationship of the city with the river, historically separated from the equipped transport axis. No policy at the same time strongly desired by all the stakeholders can lead to reconnecting the greenway as an urban transport axis. Therefore, the unanimous and contemporaneity of the actions is the only way to give an answer to the problem of safe and dedicated connections, as the first step for the development of sustainable urban mobility.

In the debate on defining the concepts of urban quality and sustainable and resilient urban development, urban green infrastructure plays a strategically important role. In community policies, they represent a key issue for the pursuit of decarbonization goals and, more generally, for the improvement of the quality of life in urban settings, with results on the reduction of transport-related pollutant emissions and extended benefits to the environmental quality of ecosystems. This challenge requires a reorganization of urban gray infrastructure with the subtraction of spaces dedicated to traditional mobility (lanes and parking lots) in favor of lanes dedicated to sustainable mobility and other urban functions (recreational spaces, community gardens and vegetable gardens, cycle workshops, velostations) and/or mitigation (green spaces for bio-retention and infiltration, rainwater harvesting or domestic water reuse). The paper reports an in-depth study of research focused on process innovation in planning interventions to transform the built environment. The approach is based on quantitative assessment methods and tools and aims to make the effects of certain design choices verifiable. The article presents an in-depth study on the conversion of gray infrastructure and intermediate spaces into urban green infrastructure in the municipality of Rescaldina, in the Milan metropolitan area.

By definition, green buildings focus on minimizing environmental impacts through reductions in energy usage, water usage, waste production, and CO2 emissions. Less widely recognized is the fact that green buildings also address human health through the design of healthy indoor and outdoor environments. Indeed, the paradigmatic shift from health as the simple absence of disease to a state of physical, mental, and social well-being has broadened the disciplinary domain of health to the field of architecture and urban environment. The awareness of the effects of the built environment on well-being has emphasized the importance of adopting a transdisciplinary and salutogenic approach in rethinking urban fabric and indoor environments. To this end, it is crucial to assume healthy, sustainable, and environmental aware architecture as the only possible one, in line with SDG 3, 7, 11, 13, and 15.The paper intends to examine the state of art on building design that focuses on indoor environmental quality and human health and to identify best practices, through a comparison of existing projects, brought about by a review of case studies. The objective of our review is to provide an overall knowledge framework and identify invariants and relevant strategies to be adopted in any context to ensure the user’s well-being. Thus, the case studies are identified in different geographical and climate contexts, and are selected by virtue of their degree of pertinence to a performance-oriented and salutogenic design approach.Moreover, a limitation of the research is the reliance on indirect, lagging and subjective measures of health. To address this, the case studies are selected according to direct, objective health performance indicators, deduced from significant contributions of up-to-date literature. What stands out is that in all case studies, healthy spaces represent a catalyst capable of embracing cultural, social, environmental, and ecosystemic issues.

Small Green Spaces (SGS) are an urban feature that planners consider with increasing interest to regenerate neighborhoods and to promote a healthier and more frequent relationship between people and nature in cities. In this contexts, urban studies have devoted less attention to social dynamics taking place in SGS than to those happening in large urban parks.This research illustrates the results of a study on human perception and use of SGS in Florence, Italy. The research adopted an exploratory approach with a mixed methods strategy (observation sessions, 50 in-depth interviews, and 430 questionnaires). The analysis is framed within a tripartite model of interaction between people and space as spontaneous appropriation of space through the body, senses, and mind.The analysis of practices in SGS illustrates how continuous use and proximity make SGS persistent scenarios of users’ daily life, differently from large city parks. Sociality and restorative opportunities afforded by natural features define users’ experiences and SGS appreciation, across different user groups.Discussion of results illustrates several implications of the theoretical constructs of “functional indetermination” and “non-normativity” that were used to explain users’ perception of SGS as open-ended settings. Functional indetermination is related to the range of practices users can perform in SGS and to the ways opportunities for actions are afforded, both by the SGS natural and designed features. Non-normativity is the perceived freedom from external constraints, often contrasted by users with the experience in other kinds of urban spaces. Both constructs explain how SGS are perceived as spared from the extensive compression of publicness and commodification of other public spaces in contemporary cities.The understanding of these perceptions feeds back into the design, planning, and management of SGS, with implications for the urban experience at large.

The paper presents some of the results of research carried out by the authors on the small towns, which are characterized by demographic and economic fragility, as well as by critical issues caused by climatic, cultural, geomorphological, and social changes. People’s well-being, health, and quality of life are aspects that have taken on particular importance since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. On the one side, COVID-19 highlighted some problems related to overpopulation in urban areas and to psycho-physical isolation of older people. On the other hand, the pandemic has highlighted the possibilities offered by new technologies for working from home and being able to live further away from large population centers, offering a higher quality of life and the possibility of living in contact with nature.Therefore, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in the number of residents in smaller population entities (towns, villages, etc.) has been observed and several initiatives (at national and European level) have been activated to facilitate this.The paper deals with the sustainable regeneration and redevelopment of existing buildings and public space in small towns. It explores the implications between the need for adaptive regeneration to ensure both the adequate levels of performance and functionality of the space (indoor, outdoor space) with its components/materials and the equally urgent need to conceive such adaptive actions in a circular way.The collection, review, and systematization of the literature led to the identification of a framework of adaptive/circular strategies at the single component, building and public space scales, and to the verification of the model in a design experiment on a small town in Spain.

Transdisciplinarity is essential to deal with high-complexity collaborative practices of energy retrofitting, particularly in traditional contexts. Nevertheless, on the other hand, it is ambitious because it conceptualizes how to work, not what to do in detail for a specific project, and how to manage collaborators’ interlocking relationships. Therefore, this study proposes a transdisciplinary conceptual framework to organize collaboration among stakeholders, increase communication, and mitigate associated uncertainties during the early stage of collaboration and project planning of energy retrofitting practices. The study focuses on the Mediterranean region’s rural commons, which already face extraordinary environmental challenges. The proposed framework elucidates the interrelation between the relevant theoretical concepts in three domains: energy retrofitting practices, project management, and software development. Employing the agile methodology, specifically the scrum model, proved a successful and efficient team management tool in software development and other domains. Likewise, we hypothesize that the associated uncertainties can be decreased in the planning and early decision-making stages. The conceptual framework has been validated using a focus group technique in two similar rural villages in Egypt and Italy as an inductive method representing the entire region. The results showed that this research is the first to provide integration of an agile mindset in retrofitting rurally built environments in the Mediterranean region. Conducting the agile life cycle during project planning achieved numerous benefits: improving the participatory approach, enhancing communication, supporting decision-making, mitigating conflict, and adding a new dimension to identifying the stakeholders, in addition to associating the versatile stakeholders in the same zone of influence and interest. In addition, the role of socio-cultural aspects in field studies has been highlighted. The framework was initiated from a bottom-up perspective and ended with a mixed approach. Furthermore, the framework contributed to implementing a real-case retrofitting scenario, namely, implementing a pilot zero-energy building, the first in Lasaifar Albalad and the satellite villages.

We investigated the impact of the process steps on the performance of the silicon heterojunction solar cells (SHJ). Hydrogen plasma treatment, magnetron sputtering of a transparent conductive oxide, and laser opening of the contact window affect the amorphous silicon layer and, consequently, the performance of solar cells. The use of a multistage process of deposition of thin layers of amorphous silicon makes it possible to reduce the effect of subsequent operations on their properties. Since high-temperature treatment for hydrogenation of dangling bonds is the most commercially acceptable method, it is important to form films with the properties necessary to restore the passivation parameters. To obtain such layers, the process of deposition of layers with intermediate treatment with hydrogen plasma was studied. Processing of the initially formed thin layer makes it possible to amorphize and hydrogenate it, taking into account the etching factor, which makes it possible to significantly reduce the effect of surface imperfections and epitaxial growth points and create conditions for the growth of a high-quality next layer. It has been established that the degradation and restoration of the properties of layers with different ratios of monohydride and dihydride bonds differ to a large extent. While monohydride bonds are broken and restored in other configurations, dihydride bonds are more stable. The parameters of the process of opening contact windows using ultrashort laser pulses in a multilayer thin film system are also determined by the surface morphology. Making changes to the surface texturing process, which allow smoothing the edges of the pyramids, makes it possible to expand the technological window of the process step. Changing the size of the pyramids and, accordingly, their density per unit surface leads to a change in the total area of the opened windows at the same fluence. The process improvements are useful for fabrication of high-performance SHJ solar cells.

Among the many challenges that Palestine faces, the energy challenge is one of the most imminent ones. Palestine is almost completely dependent on energy imports, not only for fuels but also for electricity; therefore, it is crucial to foster the use of locally available renewable energy resources in addition to the energy efficiency measures. According to studies, buildings use around 40% of the total energy consumption in the world, most of this consumed energy comes from fossil fuel and electricity consumption. The National Energy Efficient Action Plan (NEEAP) 2019 for Palestine outlines the strategy to accelerate the deployment of energy efficiency technologies, the main target is the cut of energy consumption to reduce buildings footprint.For the time being, Palestine does not have specific policies that prescribe a minimum required level of energy efficiency usage in traditional buildings. The energy performance in heritage buildings is considered as an important part that could be used to reduce the electrical consumption of buildings and reduce the greenhouse gases.Palestine has more than three thousands of heritage buildings; there is no overview of how energy efficiency and heritage conservation is being approached, and to address this gab, we assessed the use of different active and passive energy efficiency measures on a certain case study in Palestine, where all the data were collected and the building was modeled using a 3D software and analyzed using energy performance simulation software. Technical solutions are divided into two main subcategories: energy efficiency measures aimed at reducing the energy demand and renewable energy sources for the reduction of the energy supply.Our findings highlight that, energy efficiency measures can have a good impact on reducing the electrical consumption of the buildings, and by using renewable energy resources, buildings can reach nearly zero-energy building (ZEB). Besides, further detailed study and analyses were carried out to design and implement the best energy efficiency measures that fit with the heritage building.

As a consequence of the latest pandemic emergency, the allocation of the national Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) funds in the construction sector advocates a new idea of design, conceived as sustainable but also as flexible and proactive toward future challenges, while promoting the renovation of the existing building stock. On the basis of the European legislation on adaptivity and resilience, this contribution proposes to convey an integrated assessment framework to evaluate the feasibility of the renovation in achieving a more flexible built environment. This holistic and multiscalar conceptual approach proposes a matrix of general interventions and compensation strategies to be systematically carried out on the existing, according to the most significant variables, in order to guide and facilitate the early decision process.

The research aims at verifying aesthetic, technical, energy, and environmental opportunities of integrating different photovoltaic (PV) roofs in the “Rustico Macchi,” an Italian heritage building that needs a deep energy renovation for hosting exhibitions and school projects. Compatibility of different PV products and technological solutions for heritage buildings are evaluated through the support of the focus groups with the local Heritage Authorities. Besides, a dynamic building energy model is created from on-site information for testing energy and environmental benefits of the various PV interventions. The results of this analysis are reported in a risk-benefit scheme that compares the following: (i) “aesthetic integration” implying a compatible visual interaction with historic shapes, characteristics, and materials; (ii) “technological integration” involving the multifunctionality of energy production and building functions; (iii) “energy integration” indicating the efficient PV integration on the overall energy consumptions, and (iv) “environmental integration” related to clean production and positive interaction between the building and the environment. The results highlight that a balance between preservation, energy production, and sustainability is still possible respecting the heritage significance of the building and its settings as well as using tailored design solutions, innovative, and multifunctional PV products.

The latest IPCC Report shows that the pace and extent of climate impacts are rapidly accelerating with devastating consequences on the built environment, health, and safety of inhabitants. In particular, in the Mediterranean basin, the average temperature has increased by 1.4 °C since the end of the nineteenth century, compared to the global average of 1.1 °C, and hotter and drier summers are expected, with more frequent episodes of heatwaves, wetter autumns, and more extreme rainfall. For the coming years, the most promising field of experimentation will be the development of building envelopes that show their potential to adapt to specific extreme changes.The contribution refers to research in progress, proposing an operative methodology capable of directing interventions on the built environment toward adaptive strategies, with the contributions deriving from technological innovation. Research objective is to analyze the possibility of innovation in the field of adaptive façades through the definition of a new adaptive model, which can be applied to curtain wall systems to adapt in a reversible and controllable manner to specific external stresses. In this paper, the authors present parts of research results and investigations, focusing on the performance verification conducted on a curtain wall Mock-Up, in terms of air permeability and water-tightness, through testing activities, highlighting the need to adapt the adaptive response to external stresses. The next steps of the research move toward the choice of the most appropriate material to define its adaptability, its constructability, and technological characterization. Finally, the verification of the adaptive model’s performance, in a dynamic regime, will be carried out in specialized laboratories, with the ultimate aim of developing prototype lines that can facilitate the new approach to adaptive envelopes with high environmental quality.

In recent decades, the emblematic relationship between the environment and buildings, in a key that investigates aspects of safety, comfort, and sustainability, become a driver of technological innovation, especially about the performance potential of the vertical closures of the building envelope. These processes have enshrined the etymological and performance transition of enclosure systems from passive to adaptive systems. The envelope becomes untethered from the primary structure and acquires new specificities dictated by the need to configure itself as an osmotic membrane, capable of changing its adaptive material behavior as external stresses change, minimizing impacts and vulnerabilities resulting from extreme events. Thus, the research is framed within the scope of issues related to the innovative declinations of the concepts of adaptivity of the nonstructural components of the building envelope, with particular reference to curtain wall systems, for the management of vibration responses induced by seismic action. The project aims to define a new experimental process for stick system, the goal of which concerns the definition of the technological-material characteristics of a frame-façade connection element, capable of responding adaptively to the stresses arising from seismic events while maintaining its performance functionality. The research is being carried out in partnership with a company specializing in curtain wall production and with the developers of simulation software; finally, it has the collaboration of a testing laboratory for innovative envelopes. The research challenge is focused toward the design of connections, in the elastoplastic field to ensure their functionality, not only for the safety of the occupants but also in the face of environmental requirements that influence the use of the building. The final phase of the research project involves the performance verification of the stressed façade system, and validation of the results obtained through laboratory tests and simulation software.

In the latest years, the main issues facing the world are environmental challenges such as global warming, ozone depletion, and destruction of natural habitats. Therefore, there is an emergent need for worldwide commitment to prevent and reduce environmental pollution. In this context, spatial structures play an important role in reducing environmental pollution, especially in large projects, because they use new technologies, lightweight constructions and materials, prefabricated systems, scientific and applied concepts in design and execution, while observing seismic safety requirements that are related to the structure durability and stability.The aim of this research is to define parameters evaluating the contribution and limitation of strategies by defining a managerial view of the spatial structure process to optimize energy consumption, pointing out the climatic design as a solution to improve the efficiency as structures with the potential for positive buildings.The research process of Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC) in spatial structures is examined in four categories: design, construction, carrying, assembly, and installation. After introducing each category, the goals and results obtained from the effects of climatic design are discussed, and, finally, according to these results, an integrated management diagram to optimize energy consumption and to address positive buildings is presented.This diagram is designed around a systematic axis, and it manages the optimal time, cost, and energy while considering the sustainability to develop a decision model and to strategically adopt spatial structure as a prefabricated and engineered system in the design and construction planning of green facilities. The diagram is divided into four stages: Step 1—metric determination for positive design; Step 2—integrate axiomatic design and detailing; Step 3—integrate design knowledge and environmental impact to develop the concept considering climatic potential; Step 4—result verification by using software tools.

Bio-based materials have been increasingly used in the building sector. These are made of natural fibers, mostly taken as bioproducts or biowaste from agricultural chain processes, and used in given percentages in constructive elements, both in dry construction and in mixtures with binders, such as clay earth or lime. The present study evaluates the environmental performance of bio-based materials used for building retrofitting through a lifecycle thinking approach. The analysis refers to a case study of building retrofitting in Central Italy aimed at improving the energy performance of the external walls. Results show benefits in terms of avoided carbon emission throughout the production chain compared to most common building materials and highlight potential improvements and recommendations to increase environmental performances. Moreover, the CO2 sequestration by crops has been estimated based on quantities of wood and natural fibers embedded in constructive elements assumed as almost-permanent carbon stocks. This carbon offsetting property can eventually open promising perspectives and, in certain conditions, allow for including natural building materials among solutions for climate change mitigation.

The European (EU) Climate Goals Plan for 2030 underlines the strong need to build a modern, sustainable, and resilient Europe, and this high goal means, among others, more energy-efficient buildings. Looking at this EU Directive, Italy has signed the Piano Nazionale Integrato per l’Energia e il Clima (PNIEC), which intends to pursue an indicative target of reducing consumption by 2030 equal to 43% of primary energy and 39.7% of final energy, compared to the scenario of 2007. But the Italian commitment to the integration of energy production systems from renewable sources in existing buildings has already been going on since the early 1990s. Thus, this study focuses on some historic buildings of the architectural heritage in Rome (Italy) that have undergone technological and energy redevelopment from the 1990s to today, with particular attention to active solar solutions. To this purpose, five historic buildings located in the center of Rome and characterized by different construction and refurbishment periods, functions, and architectural approaches are analyzed to highlight their morphological, technological, and typological characteristics. These case studies are discussed and assessed with the support of some Conservators of the Italian Heritage Authorities in the framework of the Interreg Italy-Switzerland Research Project “BIPV meets history”, in order to understand the pros and cons of the different approaches. Finally, risks and benefits for their aesthetic, technical, and energy integration are highlighted following a scheme developed in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Task 59 for verifying the heritage-compatibility of each solution.

This contribution reports the results of research activities focused on the study of contemporary lines of intervention directing energy choices toward solutions compatible with cultural heritage. Starting from the selection and critical interpretation of numerous case studies, distributed over 30 years, from the early 1990s to today, the contribution outlines a framework of the evolution of intervention methods for the integration of solar technologies in historical buildings. The aim of the research work is to extract from good practices invariant and variable (morphological, typological, technological) factors determining an effective integration of solar technologies in historical buildings. Final objective is to contribute to the development of directions and guidelines, which, at the local level, can help authorities in governing the expected growth of diffuse renewable energy plants, in compliance with the European and national energy and climate objectives (Climate Law; PNIEC).

Slums form about 60% of housing worldwide, vulnerable to climate change impacts, pandemics, and socioeconomic issues. Therefore, Blow-up is an incremental building project aimed to provide unfinished and modular low-cost houses for the Slum Dwellers in the hot climate region of Sudan. The paper represents an attempt to introduce through smart architectural solutions a sustainable, self-sufficient, and integrated urban settlement resilient to climate change challenges, and pandemics such as Covid-19. Blow-up also aims at converting solid wastes from an issue to be the project’s building unit and an economic asset to its dwellers. The unit design is generated by biomimicry for the exoskeletal hermit crabs where their shell is their portable, replaceable, and temporary habitat. It consists of an inflatable flood-resilient modular structure that expands and modifies according to family growth and future needs as pandemics. The design integrates local and recycled materials such as plastic, wood, PVC pipes, cardboard, and woven straw, with innovative systems for renewable energy resources such as photovoltaic printed sheets (Duranton, World Bank Res Obs 30:39–73, 2015) and Vortex bladeless wind turbines (Ezeh et al., Lancet 389:547–586, 2017). It also incorporates rainwater and vapor harvesting (UN-Habitat, Manag Environ Qual 15:337–338, 2004), with sustainable urban agriculture and smart waste management techniques. Furthermore, the urban setting of the units is introduced to create a viable, self-sufficient interlocking community with central distribution of resources and services. A waste management strategy, water supply and distribution analysis, and cost estimation study were developed to determine the project’s incrementation, operation, and maintenance plan. Results indicate that integrating architecture with urban agriculture using smart recycled materials from local resources and simple technologies could create a livable community encouraging work, education, and development of local environmental businesses. Blow-up is an eco-systemic tool to facilitate a person’s integration into society stimulating homeownership through the philosophy of incremental building yet attaining SDGs, mainly SDG 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13.

The use of unconventional building materials locally produced through an artisan process, as well as the upcycling of materials and components, is severely limited by the lack of technical information and product specifications enabling their use in building design and construction. In many cases, nonstructural building elements with relevant insulating properties cannot be employed due to missing information on their thermal properties. On the other hand, standard certification procedures are so complex, expensive, and time-consuming to be fully out of reach for do-it-yourself (DIY) builders.To address this problem, a simplified, low-cost test procedure was developed at Politecnico di Milano to be used by students, as well as for a first thermal performance evaluation of building materials in research projects, where accuracy is not strictly regulated. A cube test box with a side of 600 mm was built using a certified insulating material, with known third-party product specifications (extruded polystyrene insulation—XPS), leaving an open side for accommodating the sample to be tested. An incandescent lamp was placed inside the box to heat its interior up to a stable temperature, while an infrared optical pyrometer was used to measure the external surface temperature of the testing sample.Assuming a direct relationship between temperature difference and variation of thermal conductivity, it was possible to estimate the R-value of the sample material with a precision higher than 94%. Certified materials with known thermal conductivity were also measured using the same procedure, in order to validate the proposed simplified testing method.The testing equipment, which is extremely cheap and easy to build, proved effective to perform a preliminary assessment of thermal properties of building material samples, achieving results with acceptable accuracy for initial research stages. This simplified testing method could also be easily employed in developing countries as an aid for DIY construction practice—when thermal property specifications of local building materials may not be available.

The meteorological record shows that the earths’ temperature has increased by 1.5 °C. This paper examines global disasters in different parts of the world, which are clear indications of climate change, such as flooding, desertification, and natural fires. The most effected people being the old and very young in poorer countries. The paper presents a comprehensive review of climate change events, which could be averted or ameliorated by the utilization of renewable energy. The use of CO2 emitting fossil fuels in heating and cooling, building construction, transport, agriculture and industry can be, and should be, replaced by renewable energy by no later than 2030.In addition, there is an update of the current state of photovoltaic (PV), wind energy, hydropower, tidal energy, solar thermal, geothermal, biomass and biogas, and waste-to-energy. However, these improvements must be accompanied by robust energy conservation, efficiency, recycling, fully implemented waste-to-energy, and a strong public and media program of energy education.

The need of saving material and energy resources suggests as possible strategy a simplification in the construction elements based on more efficient solutions from the mechanical and functional viewpoint (Cecchini, Costruire 300:96–99, 2008).The proposed paper deals with the design of a poly-functional center, the Palco Urbano, by means of a Social Housing completion, aimed at hosting researchers, students, and artists within a residential zone in the freguesia of Azurem, enclosed in the University Campus of Guimaraes in Portugal.The stages of regeneration for this urban area start from the analysis, mainly about flows and times with maximum students’ concentration at the University, local inhabitants’ presence, and finally about the appealing element of the Guimaraes Castle.The textile material for architecture can be considered as a design parameter, when the goal were that of temporary, adaptable, and removable roof for architectural as well as social enhancement of wide spaces: by means of a new access door, the latest would be suitable for a manifold of activities, by appropriate contextualization to the climate. Such textile building components match the updated requirements of developing products with a few of matter, at ecological use and with closed productive cycle (Francese, Innovative and sustainable use of natural materials in the Mediterranean basin. In: Francese D, Passaro A (eds) Building in the Mediterranean region. Sustainable technologies and materials for inhabiting: Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia. D’Arco Editore, Spigno Saturnia, 2017); the proposed technological solution for temporary covering the open spaces is made up by means of a tensile structure in an ancient material: the hemp fabric. Also, the technical element of the wall is proposed in hemp-and-lime brick.The chosen materials are a hint for opening a debate about the benefits deriving today from vegetable-fiber materials, which can be re-employable in demountable architectures, within a continuous process based on circular economy. This improvement in use of the two hemp products leads to innovative procedure and construction design for a flexible and reversible architecture, as well as to low ecological footprint solutions.

Italy has an obsolete building stock that needs to be rethought according to passive bioclimatic solutions aimed at enhancing courtyards, atriums, and intermediate spaces, refunctionalizing dwellings to make them more versatile, and the whole building stock, increasing open spaces and vegetation cover. People have spent 60–90% of the time in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and passive ventilation and cooling, falling under the criteria of Green Housing, can play an important role in safeguarding healthy housing for the fulfillment of well-being (Tucci, Green building and dwelling. Altralinea Edizioni, Firenze, 2018). Energy saving, optimizing the potential of building materials, and the environment where the building stands while achieving greater well-being are no longer contradictory demands but one implies the other (Ronchi and Tucci, Pandemie e alcune sfide green del nostro tempo. Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile, Rome, 2020). One of the valid technological-environmental strategies to ensure that housing has the requirements for an healthy living is related to the design of appropriate ventilation systems, which can play an important role in the control, prevention, and spread of infections: systems for the natural movement of air masses by means of bioclimatic natural ventilation solutions integrated with opening elements in the building facades, in their role-filtering meaning for the management of flows of various kinds in and out and the fulfillment of energy efficiency, lighting, and acoustic requirements, will be able not only to play a major role in passive bioclimatic solutions and promote thermo-hygrometric comfort, but also ensure the space flexibility, based on the assumption that housing should provide relevant protection from the prevailing potential hazards, and that it needs the rethinking of spaces according to new requirements of contemporary living (Naglaa and Ehab, Environ Res 193:110471, 2021). Crucial improvements to buildings will insist on the mixity of spaces and functions, with the creation of areas within the dwelling capable of transforming according to needs and stages of the day, rethinking connective spaces in order to create more smart and functional solutions (World Health Organization, Housing and health guidelines. WHO, Geneva, 2018).

The multiple and increasingly overlapping emergency conditions (environmental, urban, post-pandemic) are an enabling factor for the circular economy and culture processes relating environment, social cohesion, innovation, new technologies, and connections with the territory. Being the key element in building inclusive, healthy, functional, and productive cities, open public spaces could be observed as a strong tool in sustainable development by providing environmental, social, economic, and health benefits to the city. More specifically, disused and underutilized spaces in European cities can become opportunities through urban regeneration, in line with SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities, SDG 15 Life on land, together with SDG 13 Climate action that can be influenced by open public spaces. This theoretical aspect is particularly significant and relevant if transferred to the realities of small urban Italian centers, which represent a capital of humanitarian relations to be regenerated in material and immaterial terms. In this context, the paper’s objective is to describe the research experience carried out by the authors and transferred into the teaching experience that resulted in innovative and green design experiments for adaptive reuse of unused areas in the historical center of Cosenza Italy. The work methodology relates the emergency conditions of the context with environmental/social characteristics and technological solutions represented by circular design principles and nature-based solutions analyzed at three different levels: green building materials; green building systems, and green building sites, emphasizing the value of vegetated open spaces and water-sensitive urban design. The result of this approach is a new framework of social, cultural, technological innovation. The intervention models combine cultural and material identities with simple building systems, interpreting reversibility and use of alternative/circular materials as a paradigm in the relationship with the context, the urban connections, and the revitalization of unused areas.

Transitional spaces contribute to defining urban quality under various aspects: they structure the urban fabric and act as elements of mediation between different categories of spaces: public/private, open/closed, and walkable/non-walkable.The paper addresses the influence of transitional spaces on living habits and their potential role in those processes of urban regeneration that aim at activating innovative forms of public–private engagement. This is basically not just a liminal topic, regarding the aforementioned thresholds between public and private domains, but also a cross-scalar matter, linking the building scale—including typological, technological, and distributive modification; functional hybridization; and energy efficiency—and the urban scale, including appurtenances, public spaces, common services, infrastructures, and accessibility.An immediately evident theme is the need to recognize and name these spaces. The large plurality of definitions—collective spaces, condominium appurtenances, outdoor spaces, semi-public or semi-private spaces, green spaces, and local public spaces—contribute to keeping these spaces indefinite and not easing the definition of their statute, nor for planning, nor for designing.A thesis of the paper is that transitional spaces offer a rich mix of opportunities for experimenting with innovative solutions, both in terms of typological modifications, and in terms of technological updates.In this framework, “green” and “blue” technologies (i.e., nature-based solutions and water-management systems) represent a particularly important field of experimentation. The paper considers quantitative measures of the benefit that nature provides to the community and society, and advances assessments of the benefits of the solutions.The paper concludes with on-field experimentation in a case study: the urban regeneration of a historic social housing district: The “Cogne” neighborhood in Aosta (Italy).

Marine energy sources, particularly offshore wind and wave energy, can be profitably exploited to generate renewable electricity in Mediterranean islands and coastal areas. Although still at an early stage of development, innovative blue energy technologies, such as floating windmills and different types of wave energy converters, have been successfully implemented by researchers and private companies in recent years. Based on data from pilot devices and basic requirements for their operativity, such as minimum wind speed and wave high or bathymetric depth, a blue energy planning framework has been developed under the scope of the Interreg Med BLUE DEAL project. This is based on a sequence of stages combining different site-specific spatial analyses regarding marine energy potentials, legal restrictions and environmental constraints, local grids and energy balance, carbon accounting, and visual impact. This planning procedure allows for identifying potential sites for the installation of blue energy plants, estimating energy production by marine sources in target regions and evaluating impacts and benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emission mitigation from the energy sector, the latter depending on values of the carbon intensity of electricity (g CO2eq per kWh). Case studies demonstrate that blue energy can consistently contribute to the decarbonization of the energy sector in Mediterranean regions and to the energy self-sufficiency of insular and coastal communities.

In this study, an evaluation of the electrical performance of a 1.4 kW photovoltaic (PV) system in Oman is presented. A 1.4 kW PV system was installed using multi-crystalline grid-connected PV modules in Sohar. The PV system was evaluated in terms of three technical criteria which are yield factor, capacity factor, and the optimum sizing ratio of the inverter. Also, the feasibility of the proposed system is evaluated by four economic criteria which are life cycle cost, payback period, cost of energy, and cost of electricity. The results obtained show that the yield factor, capacity factor, and optimum sizing ratio of the inverter are 1875.128 kWh/kWp year, 21.4%, and 82.3% respectively. While life cycle cost, payback period, cost of energy, and cost of electricity are as follows 2953.327 USD, 0.045 USD/kWh, 11.17 years, and 3.0408 USD respectively. This study confirms the possibilities and feasibility of using such systems in Oman despite the harsh weather conditions of this country.

The European Green Deal is the lighthouse initiative of the European Commission – aiming to transform the European Union towards a sustainable, clean, resilient economy in line with the 1.5 °C limit of the Paris Climate Agreement. The Green Deal consists of a wide range of legislative, administrative and policy initiatives. Starting with a European Climate Law outlining the EU’s ambition to become climate neutral by 2050 the latest, a legislative package titled “Fit-for-55” (aiming at 55% GHG-Reduction by 2030) is under discussion and will be finalized in the course of 2022. Several strategies and regulations were presented in parallel. I’ll describe and analyze the proposals and assess suggested and already agreed amendments from the European Parliament and the European Council as well as from civil society organizations.In a second step, I shall discuss how the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed and accelerated the discussions, objectives and timelines of the European Green Deal. In this context, I focus particularly on the EU Commission’s Communication “REPowerEU” which was presented in March 2022, outlining a broad package of measures and proposals to frontload and accelerate the transformation towards a sustainable and more and more resilient and energy independent energy system in Europe.In the final part, I shall provide an outlook and recommendations for further improvement and acceleration of the energy transformation towards 100% renewable energy in all end-use sectors.

The study of the characteristics of the wind speed and the evaluation of the wind potential available at a given site depend on the duration and the number of steps of measurement, thus the amplitude and the nature of the variation of the wind speed can be found. For example, for the site of Tangier, North-West of Morocco. To properly assess the wind potential available at a given site, it has been shown that the minimum period of hourly measurements that can be considered is 9 years duration, with four measurements per day (0 h, 6 h, 12 h, and 18 h).The North of Mauritania shares with the South of Morocco similar wind resources mainly for the coastal zone. August and July are the windiest months for Laayoune and Dakhla, respectively, with monthly averages of 7.67 m/s and 10.12 m/s. The variation in wind speed is more regular for the Dakhla site. For Lagouira, June is the windiest month, the daily average wind speed is between 7.9 and 10.7 m/s for 27 days. On the other hand, for December, it was found it is the least windy month, it has only 5 days with wind.For most of the sites considered, the wind is strong during the day and reaches its maximum around 4 p.m., local time, and it is weak at night. This phenomenon is mainly explained by the influence of the gradual rise in temperature over the course of the day on the Atlantic coast causing local winds (sea/land breeze) which are added to the winds from the Azores.The available wind potential is greater for the sites of Dakhla in southern Morocco and Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania where a 100 MW wind farm has been planned to be installed. For Dakhla, at an altitude of 10 m, the annual average of available wind potential is the highest (P = 462 W/m2), almost double that of Laâyoune and four times that of Tan Tan. In 2021, the wind power installed in Morocco amounts to 1350 MW, of which more than 56% (757.3 MW) is located in southern Morocco. The Tarfaya wind farm 301.3 MW) is the largest wind farm in Morocco and in Africa, installed in 2014. The installed wind power in Mauritania is 34.4 MW.From the perspective of the South of Morocco and the North of Mauritania, wind energy is an alternative and competitive source of energy to petroleum products for the generation of electricity.Renewable energy projects, including wind power, are models for the integration of southern Morocco with northern Mauritania. In the end, finally, the boom in wind energy has significant economic and social implications for this region, in the context of advanced regionalization and development.

The reoccurrence of extreme climate phenomena worldwide has made increasingly evident the correlation between human activities and climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of the last “wake-up” alerts for urgently rethinking behaviors that have been forced to change during lockdown providing further evidence of human impacts on the environment (i.e. pollution reduction, renaturalization, re-wilding, etc.).Enabling people’s capacity to observe phenomena and reflecting upon the impacts of individual and collective behaviors on natural resources, requires efforts to make scientific knowledge accessible to all. The adoption of user-friendly tools – i.e. working on the public understanding of science and data – could contribute to overcoming the intention-action gap that limits people’s capacity to positively impact the local contexts in everyday life.The Municipality of Bologna is paving the way for a climate-responsive society: the Impronta Verde project is a territorial strategy designed to contextualize future projects on urban open space (green spaces, public spaces, soft mobility infrastructures, etc.) within a systemic vision that, with the primary objective of implementing sustainability in the metropolitan urban environment, aims to reconstruct a continuity of the territory’s blue and green networks, while improving the livability, accessibility and beauty of the city. The Horizon 2020 project RESET aims at enhancing the adoption of environmental intelligence – i.e. coupling monitoring and modelling – to co-design green investments for enhancing urban adaptation to climate change. Within this framework, the Bologna case study adopts an open process based on collaborative data collection and data visualization, allowing citizens to play an active role in monitoring, understanding and processing information with regard to urban heat phenomenon, and the effectiveness of urban green areas in reducing their impacts on the community well-being. Citizen science local initiatives will be activated by a peer-to-peer process, in which citizens will be involved in collaborative data collection and will improve their data literacy through a communication process based on data visualization.

Comfort is created when the image of a destination becomes the primary reason for tourists to visit a place. The image of tourism has three main aspects: the environment, facilities, and sociocultural conditions. Providing a sense of comfort in tourism industry is challenging. The tourism image also plays a role in measuring comfort. To measure comfort in tourism, this research utilizes qualitative and quantitave methods in Balige, North Sumatra, Indonesia. The results showed that respondents felt positive comfort in the landscape, air and water quality, public facilities, socio-culture in Balige, and safe to visit. In other words, Balige has acquired an image that it is a comfortable place to stay. However, there are several issues such as inadequate hygiene in certain areas and lack of public toilets.

A study on the use of renewable energies in residential housing and public buildings is carried out by considering a mix of novel technologies and traditional ones. The study assumes different energy consumption levels based on user activity and the climatic effects of some of these technologies. Biomass is the energy source with a greater presence in the residential sector in Spain. Accompanying biomass, photovoltaic panels and wind turbines have also experienced great development and extended application. However, other sources can also be incorporated to cover energy needs.Different scenarios were evaluated for developed and developing countries as a framework and considering small communities and single housing configurations. Anaerobic digestion also offers the advantage of producing a gas easily upgraded to be used for cooking or heat production. However, some aspects are still pending a solution, including nuisance caused by offensive odors and legal responsibilities’ when community digesters create inconvenience to neighbors.The answer to covering the energy demand of society by increasing the share of renewables must come from the conjunction of different technologies. Biological processes may be integrated into this approach but higher yields are to be attained to make this a reality. Additionally, levelized costs of energy production make large-scale systems to be intrinsically more efficient than small-scale devices, thus making it crucial to establish a critical equilibrium between public acceptance and technology application scale.

Bio-architecture is a new way of designing and building in line with the European Green Deal and in light of the circular economy principles. This new green approach is guiding the entire construction life cycle toward eco-sustainability and environmental friendliness, from the beginning to the end of the building process. In addition to the use of environmentally-friendly and high-performance building and construction materials, it is necessary to use new technologies that can reduce the environmental footprint. This paper aims to examine the possible reuse of biological wastes of agricultural origin in the Mediterranean basin, whose massive production generates a number of problems with their treatment and disposal. In particular, this study focuses on dried-fruit shell reuse, one of the largest Mediterranean productions. The scientific literature is quite sensitive to this topic, with many solutions in reusing these bio-wastes in architecture and civil engineering, and in the context of green building, in order to improve the construction sector sustainability, give new life to waste materials, and ensure a financial surplus for the manufacturing industry. In this context, a deep analysis was carried out to investigate the possibility of blending materials of natural origin and innovative technological materials for applications in construction. The followed methodology mainly referred to some salient points: to study the relationship between bio-based materials deriving from dried fruit and their possible applications in construction; to define sustainable technological solutions to implement the environmental quality by using bio-based material. The following outcomes are expected to be achieved by valorizing and reusing dried-fruit wastes: the study and analysis of the main scientific literature focusing on bio-based materials, the identification of innovative and sustainable materials and technologies, the improvement of the environmental quality, and the implementation of laboratory analysis to investigate such innovative bio-based materials.

Hospital architecture deals with high complexity, due to the high variability of diverse and complex users (health professionals, patients, caregivers, visitors); the flows generated by living in hospitals; the activities carried out and the equipment and technological infrastructures involved that constantly change and evolve. The history of hospitals shows that hospitals have dealt with organizational and spatial issues due to the challenges posed by continuous technical, scientific and social developments. Moreover, it is widely recognized that the hospital environment in terms of layout configuration and spatial characteristics has an impact on how people move, act, and behave in space, as well as on their perception and well-being.The aim of this paper is to increase awareness in this field, through the analysis of different case studies and best practices, to support the design process in promoting environmental comfort and users’ well-being. Understanding how to manage complexity in hospitals with an effective and flexible design could affect users’ proactive behaviors and improve energy efficiency, costs and perceived environmental quality by all “humans” (patients, staff and visitors). This aspect deals particularly with the management of flows and the layout organization of functional areas that could have a real impact on the environment by the separation of paths and user flows, the wayfinding and ease of orientation, the reduction of distances covered, the relations generated by designing spaces and eliminating architectural barriers (physical, mental and sensory).Many studies about the design impact focus on specific hospital functional areas, but more studies are necessary to consider the hospital as a whole system. This research is going to contribute to the knowledge of new models of typologies and flows in the conception phase of the hospital and address complexity by providing “functional hospitals for humans”.

Depolymerization of lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars is a challenging step and the primary obstacle for the large-scale processing of cellulosic biomass to fuels and feedstock chemicals. Ionic liquids are well known for their ability to dissolve cellulose, and our interest in the search for efficient catalytic methods for the saccharification of polysaccharides has led us to develop -SO3H group functionalized Brønsted acidic ionic liquids (BAILs) as solvents as well as catalysts. This chapter will present the development of BAIL-based artificial cellulase-type catalysts for the hydrolysis of cellulose to fermentable sugars for the cellulosic ethanol process.

Collaborative city-making and planning have been at the forefront of urban praxis and research for decades now. More recently, the pandemic crisis has emphasized how cities could benefit from proximity-driven policies for regenerating neighborhoods and triggering social innovation initiatives. The historically layered cities, collectivist culture and grassroots political vitality of the Mediterranean context are fruitful grounds for the development and experimentation of such practices. The major European political strategies and programs, such as the European Green Deal, the New European Bauhaus and the “100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” mission, identify citizens’ engagement as a crucial factor to foster an effective green transition. Innovative approaches, practices and policies are needed for such a process to be consistent with the vision of energy as a social need and a democratic requirement: inclusive and affordable measures can build on already tested participatory and transversal experiences of collaboration in urban governance.This paper addresses the topic of innovative co-planning and co-design processes by analyzing practices and tools from three case studies/initiatives implemented in Bologna (Italy), both to more consolidated application realms – urban greening, cultural heritage, public spaces, and to emerging energy/green transition domains. Such an inquiry will benefit from the research experiences of the interactive platform “Urban Innovation Lab – Bologna another way”, and two H2020 projects, ROCK – Regeneration and Optimization of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge Cities (GA730280), including co-designed and co-constructed actions, and the ongoing GRETA-GReen Energy Transition Actions (GA101022317), involving energy citizenship pathways. The aim is to recognize and analyze implemented tools and replicable strategies, to question and open up to the potential transferability of the lessons learned on collaborative processes to effectively address climate challenges in the Mediterranean context.

Since the first glass tower in Manhattan, the Lever House, was built about 70 years ago, entire neighborhoods of smooth façades have appeared in every major city in the world. The juxtaposition of tall glazed towers generates multiple reflections, mainly specular, which strongly influence the radiative exchanges. In thermal comfort, these exchanges are often expressed by the mean radiant temperature. This radiative phenomenon can be handled by raytracing in multiple steps. Within a model of more than 10,000,000 faces, a first raytracing identifies all surfaces that exchange with a point, thus limiting the mesh to the area of interest. Then, a second raytracing is used to calculate the radiative exchanges between the surfaces. For each face observed from a point located at the foot of the Lever House, we calculate the shortwave irradiance up to the 60th reflection. In longwave we assign a surface temperature according to the shortwave radiation absorbed by any element. Both results are then projected on panoramic images from which we can analyze the spatial distribution of energy and deduce the mean radiant temperature. This calculation is done to compare the influence on the thermal comfort of pedestrians of a radical change in the composition of New York’s façades, from black to white and from perfectly diffuse, to perfectly specular. The simulations proposed here make it possible to rapidly identify the zones of interest in a very large urban model. This could guide a measurement campaign, which in turn should provide the necessary boundary conditions for finer simulations of existing and possible urban transformation projects.

Climate fragility has shifted economies to sustainable principles. The global concerns of climate and business ethics make operators of all markets interested in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, which add sustainable risks and opportunities in traditional financial analysis.In this context, the real estate market plays a key role in reducing the environmental pressure. Buildings are higher consumer of resources, producer of emissions, and fundamental drivers of society and the economy. However, the real estate market poorly addresses the environmental and social costs/benefits of operations. For real estate, investors are still unclear about which operations can improve ESG and can hold additional financial benefits.Thus, the present research reason on the ESG implementation in the real estate market. The aim is to implement an ESG framework to evaluate and compare the effects of different investment decisions on real estate operations.First, after underling the context of sustainable real estate operations, and analysing the state-of-the-art in the application of ESG, the present research concentrates on the definition of the framework. This is made of 52 indicators, divided into six clusters (Site, Territory, Services, Materials – Technologies, Energy – Emissions, Water, Well-being, Social – Economic, and Governance).Second, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is chosen to implement the weights’ matrix due to its usability to disentangle complex issues into little steps, and its ability to measure and compare qualitative and quantitative performances.Finally, the framework is discussed, and some possible improvements are presented. Especially, the application to a case study would help to test the reliability and effectiveness of the framework.

The smart city represents an innovative urban model capable of ensuring high environmental and socio-economic compatibility. Such a model has the potential to be adapted to contexts that are not strictly urban such as rural, semi-arid or arid areas like oasis towns. These could benefit from the potential of smart model tools and processes. This paper aims to define the criteria that inform the specificity of the smart city approach in the scenario of oasis towns in the southern Mediterranean area, with particular attention to Figuig, an oasis city in the oriental region of Morocco. The research investigates the principles of smart urban development but with a frugal approach that considers the peculiarities of an oasis town such as Figuig: environmental issues, scarce natural resources, economic vulnerability, and poor technological infrastructure are among the critical issues to be addressed. Through the analysis carried out in this research, it was possible to investigate the current situation of the urban, environmental, and social development strategy of the oasis city. The results made it possible to propose a tentative definition of the concept of the frugal smart oasis, which serves to define a general strategic framework (principles and challenges) potentially usable by local administrators for a revision of the city’s current strategy, according to a process of transition to a frugal smart urban model (low-cost as well as low-tech) that can mitigate the main challenges and criticalities affecting the oasis town’s main dimensions.

Dynamic Building Energy Simulation (BES) tools are becoming essential for the environmental and energy upgrade of historic buildings. At the same time, Building Information Modeling is gaining ground among engineers, designers, and public administrators for the management and protection of cultural heritage by means of H-BIM methods. However, the use of BIM tools for energy retrofit of built heritage is rarely implemented due to its emerging complexities in the application. This paper reviews the challenges of adopting a simulation-enabled workflow for energy and environmental improvement of historic buildings, using BIM tools. Specifically, its focus is on (a) the integration of dynamic energy performance analysis in an H-BIM workflow, (b) the challenges regarding the validation process of dynamic thermal simulation models for historical buildings in a ruin condition and (c) the selection criteria of energy retrofit measures. Through the presentation of said considerations, the paper argues for the importance of streamlining the data flow, by means of predefined steps (guidelines) and pre-scripted operations, in the EE H-BIM workflow. The aim is to provide an agile and effective workflow that can be implemented in renovation processes of heritage buildings, which given their complexity (geometric, material, policy-induced), typically call for a case-by-case approach. Lessons learned from implementing this workflow in the deep renovation of an abandoned heritage building in the East Mediterranean region are presented. The pilot case study is a listed building in Nicosia, Cyprus, characterized by colonial architectural stylistic influences. The paper reflects on the specific integrated H-BIM approach that was developed by the authors to propose the optimal design and cost-effective energy efficiency upgrade measures for the building, incorporating several passive and active systems. Concluding, the results of this study point to the need for a methodological compromise between multiple complex procedures, some of which involve uncertainties.

The insights presented in the paper shows the main features of tools oriented to develop scenarios, with the intention of identifying possible synergies between carbon-neutral scenarios and the ones oriented to boost local circular economy processes. This paper focuses on the potential use of Free and Open Source tools in particular Geographic Information Systems and open data in order to develop maps to support Generative Environmental Design (GED). GED is defined in this paper as an approach to the design of the anthropized environment oriented towards the development of Generative Economies (Kelly, Owning our future. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2012), i.e. based on the generative cycles that constitute the natural (circular) metabolism of the territory.The approach presented by Kelly puts on the same level aspects associated with labour, social inclusion and respect for natural cycles by defining peculiar principles of a Generative Economy. To support the pursuit of these principles, design tools should on the one hand help to know and map the salient features of the territory, and on the other understand the dynamics related to the main activities of the settled community. To this end, useful tools to represent this information on the same georeferenced support are offered by the Impact Geographies (IG) and Resource Geographies (RG).The paper presents the application of an experimental method that applies these tools to the Chiaravalle district south of the metropolitan city of Milan, in order to know and quantify the dynamics related to the main activities of a specific community, and finally develop improvement scenarios. The main strategy adopted in the development of these scenarios aims to maximize the internal flow of usable solar energy, in the direction of maximum eco-efficiency.

Built heritage conservation and environmental design are undergoing a cross-fertilization process that is strongly interdisciplinary, holistic and capable of leveraging the best of both hard sciences and humanities. The recent actions of the Climate Heritage Network, with the development of the European Cultural Heritage Green Paper in response to the European Green Deal, frame built heritage as a key resource and driver for the fight against climate change. The greatest challenge in built heritage energy and environmental improvement is to propose design solutions that are both compatible with the international restoration charters and verified from a performance-based design point of view. Some interesting studies in the field are addressing the whole energy and environmental improvement process of built heritage with highly specific workflows capable to deal with the heterogeneity and complexities of historical buildings. Among the most promising tools to support these workflows are Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM) and Building Performance Simulation (BPS). The first is to be intended as a support for the whole-process management and as a mean to enhance transparency and reduce uncertainties, while the second is a way to address the technical challenges of identifying the complex energy and environmental behavior of the current state of the building. Among these researches, BEEP Project “BIM for Energy Efficiency in the Public sector”, funded under the ENI CBC Med Programme, is focusing on an advanced but still pragmatic methodology to foster built heritage-sensitive renovation within a joint multidisciplinary framework using both BIM and BPS. The workflow was applied to 9 case studies in Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine and Jordan and the project developed a whole process guideline suited to deal with different contexts further improving its scalability.

Sustainability and digital sphere do not meet only in the transition processes, but also by common affinity with natural world. In the studies for the regeneration of built cultural environments, which expect and deserve respect and care, the parametric design can satisfy many principles for bioclimatic-sustainable architecture, while generating innovation and ecological-footprint reduction.The goal of the research is to investigate the chance of applying bioclimatic solutions for ancient architectures regeneration, so as to reduce to a minimum the intervention’s impacts on the environment. The analytic path starts from the geometrical-technological survey, in order to build a digital ‘model’ on which running the simulation of hygro-thermal, acoustic and lighting factors. Spatial-technical survey leads to the next stage (simulation) processing, which is suitable for verifying design solutions’ effectiveness, and orienting choices. With the available ‘informed prototype’ of architecture, parametrical solutions don’t generate strictly established shapes, but are variable according to their level of effect on technological units-subsystem operation, often starting from mimesis with the natural world.One result is observing that the solution, ‘optimized’ according to a referenced natural phenomenon (for example an apparent solar path), allows to harmonize beauty and sustainability.The study, aimed at regenerating a rural farm in Caserta Province, tests the employment of a hemp ‘double skin’ which, by means of a net-like hinge, tolerates the deformation. The choice of the building, a XIX century fabric in a rural zone far from residential areas, is due to the chance of building a simplified digital model, as a result of the fact that physical phenomena to be simulated are not affected by activities’ presence, both human and built (housing, infrastructures, industrial areas), in the surrounding. So efficiency and adherence to the actual model, on which the simulation process is based, is resulted verified, thanks indeed to the reduced amount of running variables.

The rapid pace of digital transformation is setting everyday life activities with artificial intelligence. Machine learning is developing fast day by day having the ability of solving complex issues. Today, urban data collection, filtering and structuring is an area of high demand, especially for Machine Learning (ML) based applications. Satellite imagery is a powerful tool that provides a big amount of data based on an accurate representation of the ground reality. It comes up with precise data at high resolution and recently became more and more available. The AI computational models are progressing day by day, increasingly becoming complex and more performant.In urban planning, the computational models have been used in parallel with the geospatial analysis in several ways such as classification to recognize land use as well as clustering techniques which are frequently used to create model indicators of urban forms such as urban land use and urban shape.This research studies the role of geospatial artificial intelligence using the power of satellite imagery to enhance sustainability focusing on the case of Rabat in Morocco. It is based on secondary and primary data, geo-satellite data processed Sentinel a2 and visualized in Python. This study is using computational tools such as deep learning techniques using Python languages combined with geospatial tools for classification analysis to give an overall estimation of urban green space quality.The result can be a framework for government and decision-makers to help think about innovative development to improve the quality and efficiency of urban green space and predict relevant planning solutions in a way to improve livability while enhancing environmental sustainability.

The comparison between “Measured/Calculated Quality” and “Perceived Quality” are the basis of the “Energetically Friendly Retrofit” methodological approach, which Vanvitelli University is designing through the LiV:ing Lab tool to join the BEXLab (Mediterranean Cross border Living Lab) network. In this project, great importance is given to improving the links between energy-environmental performance, perceived comfort and direct user behavior. The diagnosis method, which starts from the energy audit and goes through the analysis of the building-plant system (especially the envelope) and the assessment of the building’s energy footprint, goes as far as redesigning the whole system, or parts of it, through a conscious interaction between building and user.

Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and it is happening even faster than we feared. The goal of this study is to convert an existing building into a sustainable, livable and smart building in Italy. Designing major renovations and retrofits of existing buildings to incorporate sustainability initiatives will reduce operational costs and environmental impact and can increase the adaptability, sustainability and resilience of the building. In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has had a huge impact on the lives of millions of people, prompting architects to rethink the design of public spaces. This area is a Green Spot in the gray of the city, a response to the context and a place that people visit temporarily to get away from everyday life and the chaos of the city. The main goal is to teach people new things about biodiversity, innovative farming methods and sustainability by connecting directly with them and attracting a large audience, of different backgrounds, interests and ages, and to create a place to raise awareness about the sustainability of life daily through the realization of workshops, transformation workshops and other exciting activities.

The regeneration of the built environment is a current need made explicit in the commitment from the global scale, with the interrelated UN Sustainable Development Goals, to the EU policies and programs. Starting from the Green Deal to the Renovation Wave, evolving the Nzeb concepts towards positive energy buildings, the re-thinking of existing buildings represents the most critical but stimulating challenge, especially for the new generations.The pivotal role of young people in such a context is well highlighted in the New European Bauhaus initiative, aiming at the promotion of participative co-design processes to envision collectively, toward future sustainable buildings and cities.These are the challenges and aspirations of the experience shared in this paper, based on the settlement of a co-creation space in a university building in Florence, as a Living Lab for the definition and implementation of innovative and eco-sustainable retrofit processes.In the context of the Med-EcoSuRe project and in the space of the beXLab, an educational, but also interdisciplinary and collective activity has been launched to engage students in the retrofit design of the pilot building. The objective of the activity was the transfer of knowledge, through co-design, on the integration of specific performance requirements with architectural quality, constraints of the historical context, and human needs.Results show the opportunity to combine the experimentation of inclusive approaches in the field of building regeneration with the opportunity for students to understand the complexity of building ecosystems and environmental sustainability topics.

Renovating existing buildings to decrease their energy consumption is a priority to cut greenhouse emissions and decelerate the effects of climate change, but also to deal with the energy crisis. If the dimension of public funds and incentives mirrors the urgency and inadequacy of the current state, the capacity to intercept them relies on the proactivity of operators to plan and design the best renovation solutions for their buildings.In this context, the ongoing green and digital transitions encompassing the building sector identify the opportunity to tackle the sustainability challenges by exploiting even more advanced digital technologies, as support to humans for a more informed decision-making.The paper shares the pre-design activities performed to define the best renovation scenario for the energy renovation of a university building, the site of a pilot project, with the objective to define a methodology able to take into account not only energy efficiency but the interrelated renovation objectives of comfort and wellbeing, architectural quality and low environmental impact. The methodology is based on the exploitation of BIM models for the definition of a reliable knowledge framework of the existing building, for analyzing its criticalities through performance simulation tools and for the interactive and iterative design of renovation scenarios. Given the urgency of building renovation and the need to simplify processes to fasten the renovation rate, the paper explains the opportunities of the digital to support the green transition.

Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) is one of the most commonly used waterborne preservatives to protect wood from environmental damage in various outdoor applications. However, the leaching of arsenic and chromium into the environment has been confirmed in recent years. As a result, CCA-treated woods are classified as hazardous waste and must be disposed of in sanitary landfills. In this study, a sustainable reuse option for the spent CCA-treated wood, with a focus on the environmental and economic benefits of the process, is investigated. The pilot-scale decontamination of CCA-treated wood chips is performed with 0.05 M oxalic acid at 45 °C for 4 hours with a solid: liquid ratio of 50 g/L. To increase copper removal, the pH of the leachate is increased by adding sodium hydroxide towards the end of the reaction. Under the optimum operational condition, over 60% of arsenic, 55% of chromium, and 40% of copper ions are removed from the wood chips. These results compared well with the laboratory-scale experiments under the same operating conditions. The decontaminated wood chips were used to make geopolymer cement (GPC) wood composites. Similar blocks were made with CCA-treated wood chips that were not decontamination. To ensure that the GPC-wood blocks are environmentally safe, three basic tests, namely the synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP), the toxicity characteristics leaching procedure (TCLP), and the accelerated evaluation of preservative leaching (AEPL) test, were performed on both types of blocks. In all tests, the CCA leached from decontaminated GPC-wood blocks was less than 5 mg/L. However, arsenic leached from the contaminated blocks exceeded the environmental limit of 5 mg/L. These results confirmed the environmental safety of GPC-wood blocks made with decontaminated CCA wood, which can be an economical and safe solution for the disposal of CCA waste wood.

In the global run towards a more sustainable built environment, industrial areas and buildings represent an undeniable challenge but also an opportunity to advance more radical projects. The article focuses on the first phases of the design process behind the winning project of an Italian architectural competition for a new Green Building in an industrial area. Based on cultural and ecological premises, the project integrates nature (sun, wind, water and vegetation) as a means to achieve an ambitious and sustainable regeneration, meeting Nzeb targets, thanks to an interdisciplinary urban, architectural and landscape design process supported by the adoption of digital technologies (BIM). The technological mix of traditional but innovative nature-based solutions has been inteded to reduce energy demand and carbon footprint, but also to re-create positive and reciprocal relationships between nature and humans.

Rabat, the capital city of Morocco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has been designated by the International Organization for the Promotion of the Islamic World Cultural Heritage (ICESCO) as the “Capital of Culture of the Islamic World 2022”. Among ICESCO’s main objectives is the theoretical and practical definition of the “Museum of the future for the city of Rabat”, a hybrid space, both digital and physical, where knowledge, interaction, and creativity take place. The main objective of this research is the definition of a missing practical framework (processes and technological tools) for the realization of the “Museum of the Future in Rabat”. This chapter proposes a framework which will be applied to Rabat in general and specifically to the archaeological site of Chellah, one of the most important monuments in Rabat holding an outstanding historical value. Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM) will be used for the development of an information model directly generated from a point cloud, which will in turn serve as a basis for the creation of an immersive and interactive virtual experience through a virtual reality platform. Physical scale models will also be produced with new advanced fabrication techniques, and these models will be connected to their digital twin through QR codes. The virtual and physical models will constitute the exhibition material of the digital museum.

Climate change is causing a serious impact across the world with many droughts, floods, and destruction of cities’ infrastructures. The absence of adequate international and national climate policies in addition to citizens’ behaviour and attitude in their daily lifestyle is contributing immensely to carbon emissions and consequently climate change (CC). To mitigate CC and its risks, research and government actions should focus on humans’ behaviour to enhance their performance towards building resilient cities, low-carbon communities, and better healthy environments. Citizens’ daily activities such as energy consumption, water use, and means of transportation as well as recycling procedures should be examined. The objective of this study is centred on understanding and examining the psychosocial causes of human behaviour impact towards climate change, primarily through assessing the patterns of reproduction and consumption to mitigate severe impacts and risks of CC through knowledge and citizens’ behaviour change. The methodology is based on qualitative and quantitative approaches. The first approach focuses on the psychological understanding of human behaviour to analyze human daily activities, while the quantitative approach is centred on data collection and a questionnaire targeting different citizens, living in different counties, with variable work backgrounds and ages to calculate carbon emissions from their daily activities and identify which activities generate the highest GHG emissions. Results indicate that humans generate 23.7 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year, which is twice the rate when compared with the UK’s Average Footprint – estimated at 9.5 tons only. The study provides guidelines and recommendations to mitigate climate change, achieve resilient cities, and healthy and liveable communities in addition to enhance humans’ daily lifestyle, especially in the age of COVID-19.