Energy and Architectural Retrofitting in the Urban Context of Athens

Abstract

Cities are the main receptors of energy demand pressures and climate change. Energy consumptions of existing buildings in urban areas on the one side, and the combination of heat island phenomena, fuel poverty and global overheating on the other side, are threatening both built environment and inhabitants. The volumetric configuration of the urban textures and the materials that constitute the external surfaces, are the main factors that influence the microclimate of a city. Comprehend and being able to transform in an adequate way the urban settings could contribute to the improvement of the thermal comfort in outdoor and indoor built environments. By using as a principal comfort indicator the variation of the external temperatures in an unprecedented collaboration between different scales and different environmental simulation systems, this research work analyzes the energy saving potential given by the use of green and passive techniques and shows the synergies that may arise between outdoor and indoor spaces. The research work has tested the effects on the urban microclimate of the transformations induced in the outer urban spaces and, in parallel, how these modifications effect the reduction of temperature in the confined indoor spaces of the built environments. Open spaces and the surface of urban volumes are considered, measured and evaluated as a unique interacting environment.