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A 7 story social housing apartment building in Athens, Greece has been renovated following a holistic energy efficient retrofit process. The retrofit plan, resulting from tenant surveys, environmental parameters monitoring and extensive energy simulations, included commercially available technologies like insulation and energy efficient windows, innovative technologies like energy efficient lighting and smart coatings, passive techniques like night ventilation as well as RES, aiming to transform this inefficient building into a near zero energy one, achieving a reduction of the energy consumption and CO2 emissions by 80% and significant improvement of thermal comfort conditions. An experimental campaign has been executed in order to measure and validate the energy savings and indoor comfort conditions before and after the retrofit. The results of this monitoring procedure are reported and analyzed. Measurements include air leakage and thermal imaging for determining leakage rate and heat loss through the building fabric, smart meters to record energy consumption and indoor and outdoor environmental measurements. The opinion of the occupants is taken into account through pre- and post-retrofit surveys. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier

Zero-energy and zero-carbon buildings would be a huge opportunity for contrasting the climatic changes and, more in general, the deterioration of the microclimate inside and around cities. About it, a question appears compulsory: are zero-energy and zero-carbon concepts applicable at urban scale? This paper tries to answer to this question, by discussing the possible effects of the application of appropriate city planning techniques when a new settlement is designed. An integrated approach to urban planning is applied to a case study, for promoting the design of buildings with very low (or zero) energy needs, characterized by high indoor comfort conditions, by taking into consideration whole city areas, with different kinds of services. Passive heating, cooling and daylighting techniques have been combined, as well as the integration of renewable sources, in order to minimize the energy demand and environmental impact, for having a sustainable ‘urban balance’ and, in general, a sustainable urban growth. As real case study, the design of the holiday village ‘Olympiad’ is presented; it should be built in an unstructured seaside area in Greece. Several indexes are introduced to evaluate the global sustainability of the settlement, through the application of the definition of ‘on-grid ZEB’, with reference to each building as well as for the entire village. This kind of research could help city planners for a growth inspired to general goals of urban sustainability.