Climate dependence of energy saving strategies in public buildings characterized by change of use: an original case study

In the perspective of reducing land occupation of built environments, the most efficient strategy is to increase the reuse of obsolete or abandoned constructions instead of designing new buildings. This is particularly true regarding public buildings, usually characterized by considerable dimensions. The paper is focused on this issue, particularly on its energy implications. It analyzes the headquarters of the “G. D’Annunzio” University in Pescara, Italy, initially designed for commercial use and later converted to a university building during its construction. The authors first carried out a numerical analysis of the building energy performance in its current state and then they proposed some improvement interventions evaluating their incidence on the annual energy balance of the building, showing how the most commonly used energy saving strategies do not give the best results in any case, being greatly influenced by the climatic zone in which the building is located. Starting from these considerations, the authors carried out the analysis by considering three different Italian climatic conditions so as to determine their influence on the building energy performance and to define the best strategy for energy requalification in each climatic zone.