Abstract

The very actual theme of building stock retrofit includes wide ranges of possible actions, especially in social housing. Multi-criteria assessments should be lead to evaluate the proper operational approach (considering social, structural, maintenance, thermal and economic parameters). The lower-impact actions typically involve improvements on the building skin, such as insulation and window re-placement, while the higher-impact solutions lead to demolition and re-building. Overall, building retrofit through solar technologies represents a relevant strategy to achieve significant energy saving. In this context two comparative solutions have been proposed for an early ‘80s social building in Modena. The former consists in the ap-plication of passive systems to optimise solar gains and active tech-nologies to generate energy. The latter is based on demolition and re-building of a newly designed block according to best practice princi-ples. The performance of solar strategies efficiency has been evaluated through parametric markers, while multizone thermodynamic and CFD analysis have been used to estimate the effects of passive cooling technologies.