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Studies on Outdoor Comfort in urban open spaces adopt several tools and software to simulate microclimate models, energy performances and the fluid-dynamics of winds. Air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity are the typical input data used by the software to evaluate comfort indexes such as the Predicted Mean Vote [PMV], the Physiological Effective Temperature [PET] or the Universal Thermal Climate Index [UTCI]. Among the available software, Envi-met provides accurate outputs as well as the PMV index space distribution starting from a three-dimensional microclimate model. However it is affected by some limitations for what concerns a user centered approach including the changes in human metabolic activity (met) or clothes (clo). This paper offers a synthesis of a study performed on ENVI-BUG, an Envi-met algorithmic app, to obtain a fast calculation and distribution of local PMV point-by-point displayed with mannequin representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and the deriving impacts on the built environment certainly represent one of the most challenging issue for several key players involved in shaping the cities of tomorrow. This is not simply a matter of adapting buildings to new requirements, but rather to rethink the way the urban fabric reacts to new and sometimes unpredictable phenomena. The process is related to increasingly evident extreme conditions in the summer time, that strongly improve the energy demand for cooling with negative impacts on the energy balance as well as on thermal comfort conditions of the end users and of urban population with severe implication on health and wellbeing. Outdoor comfort depends on a number of inter-related factors: the characteristics of the built environment, the relationship between materials and energy use, global climate change and local micro-climate: Temperature, Solar Radiation, Wind distribution, Wind Speed, Absolute and Relative Humidity. The objective of this specific study is to test the microclimate modeling of a city portion in a demo-case – a plot of building blocks with inner courtyards – as a tool for supporting the regeneration phase addressing technological choices and design solutions to improve outdoor comfort conditions. The outcomes of the performed envi-MET simulations, comparing the situation before and after intervention, are consequently discussed. In the specific case, the developed project involving the courtyard has led the Thermal Comfort perception, evaluated in terms of PMV, to shift from “very hot” (+3.50, +4.00 red zone) and “very very hot” (above + 4.50 violet zone) to “Warm” (+1.50, +2.00) at urban plot scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Energy performance certificate (EPC) to c contribute in defining a energy poverty index. • Mapping building energy poverty risks to support policy actions for tackling energy poverty. • Merging GIS tool and EPC database to obtain city energy poverty maps at city (Bologna) level. Energy poverty is defined as the condition in which low-income people is no more able to face the costs of energy bills and consequently accept to live in cold and uncomfortable houses. In recent years the scientific literature about this specific issue has registered a significant growth, despite the problem is mainly approached from an econometric point of view to which instead medical, social and energy aspects have to be coupled. Recent EU policies like the Clean Energy Package and the Energy Building Performance Directive Recast III encourage to increase the efforts to tackle and eradicate the energy poverty. The paper approaches the problem focusing on one of its complementary causes: the building energy performance. The adopted methodology includes the calculation of the energy costs for each household, the definition of the energy poverty threshold, the calculation of the related building energy performance limit, otherwise leading to the energy poverty condition. These data, associated with the energy performance certificates, are used to create a GIS based mapping of the buildings potentially affected by energy poverty. Maps can be used to support decision making process in addressing appropriate strategies at urban level to tackle the energy poverty risk. The paper includes a case study in the city of Bologna where the proposed methodology is tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]