Numerical evaluation of environmental performance of a renaissance building to address a comprehensive retrofit strategy: the case of Palazzo Tassoni Estense in Ferrara (Italy)

Energy retrofit of historic heritage has become a priority of Member States in order to reach new level of sustain- ability. Strategies to enhance the energy performance of historic building (HB), however, mainly aim at improving indoor comfort and reduce their energy consumption. The scale of interaction among the indoor climate, building envelope’s and outside microclimate is still disregarded, although their relationship is very important to i) improve the indoor comfort levels; ii) enhance the outdoor frui- tion quality (i.e. in museum where the outside perceived temperature and relative humidity may affect the tourist’s appreciation); iii) to control the heat urban island effect. Hence, awareness about both indoor and outdoor per- formances is relevant to address effective strategies to improve natural ventilations, absorption of heat wave, shading, to select finishing materials or add natural ele- ments (water and vegetation). HB present often a court- yard or porches, which play a strategic role to control the outdoor microclimate. Many authors have studied their performance in hot and arid climate (i.e. Islamic hous- es) but deepening the knowledge on their contribution in warm humid climates and in other architectural typologies is still required. Using ENVI-met® simulations the paper presents a numerical environmental analysis to address design solutions for Palazzo Tassoni Estense in Ferrara (Italy), an example of renaissance typology widely spread in the European area.