A case study of prioritizing thermal zones to retrofit effectively existing building

Abstract

Architectural constraints represent a challenging aspect in energy retrofitting of existing buildings. Usual interventions are often not possible to preserve historical values of the building stock. The aim of this study is to analyse what energy efficiency measures could be applied to a listed building, specifically, in some of its parts. The case study is the Pharmaceutical Chemistry building of the Sapienza University campus in Rome. This approach shows how interventions no feasible for the overall building would be beneficial if applied at lower scale such as a single thermal zone or a single area. A building simulation model was built as a reference scenario. Then, for each identified thermal zone the upgrade due to the hypothesized energy efficiency measure was evaluated.