Smart Sensing in Italian Historic City Centers: The Liminal Environmental Monitoring System (LEMS)

Historic city centers host dense ensembles of heritage buildings where conservation goals must coexist with sustainable and smart urban development, yet the semi-outdoor “liminal” spaces of these complexes, such as cloisters, loggias and courtyards, are rarely included in microclimate monitoring networks. This study develops and tests the Liminal Environmental Monitoring System (LEMS), a flexible environmental data acquisition architecture designed for long-term monitoring in such spaces. The LEMS is based on a custom, low-cost data acquisition board able to handle multiple analogue and digital sensors, combined with a daisy-chain communication layout using the MODBUS RS485 protocol and a commercial datalogger as master, in order to meet the technical and visual constraints of historic buildings. Board calibration and sensor characterisation are reported, and the system is deployed in the cloister of Palazzo Costabili, a renaissance complex in the historic city center of Ferrara (Italy). This case study illustrates how the LEMS captures spatial and temporal variation in air temperature, relative humidity and solar irradiance and how an annual solar-shading indicator derived from 3D ray-tracing simulations supports the interpretation of irradiance measurements. The results indicate that the LEMS is a viable tool for heritage-compatible microclimate monitoring and can be adapted to other historic courtyards and loggias.

Highlights What are the main findings? A flexible, low-cost Liminal Environmental Monitoring System (LEMS) was designed and calibrated to reliably measure temperature, humidity and solar irradiance in heritage-compatible, liminal spaces. Combining LEMS data with a 3D-ray tracing based shading indicator enables a clear separation between geometric shading and meteorological effects in the analysis of microclimate conditions. What are the implications of the main findings? LEMSs provide a practical, heritage-compatible tool to build a dense microclimate monitoring network, supporting conservation and comfort assessment in smart heritage districts. The proposed measurement-simulation workflow can be replicated and scaled as a building block for urban digital twins and a smart-city platform.Highlights What are the main findings? A flexible, low-cost Liminal Environmental Monitoring System (LEMS) was designed and calibrated to reliably measure temperature, humidity and solar irradiance in heritage-compatible, liminal spaces. Combining LEMS data with a 3D-ray tracing based shading indicator enables a clear separation between geometric shading and meteorological effects in the analysis of microclimate conditions. What are the implications of the main findings? LEMSs provide a practical, heritage-compatible tool to build a dense microclimate monitoring network, supporting conservation and comfort assessment in smart heritage districts. The proposed measurement-simulation workflow can be replicated and scaled as a building block for urban digital twins and a smart-city platform.Abstract Historic city centers host dense ensembles of heritage buildings where conservation goals must coexist with sustainable and smart urban development, yet the semi-outdoor "liminal" spaces of these complexes, such as cloisters, loggias and courtyards, are rarely included in microclimate monitoring networks. This study develops and tests the Liminal Environmental Monitoring System (LEMS), a flexible environmental data acquisition architecture designed for long-term monitoring in such spaces. The LEMS is based on a custom, low-cost data acquisition board able to handle multiple analogue and digital sensors, combined with a daisy-chain communication layout using the MODBUS RS485 protocol and a commercial datalogger as master, in order to meet the technical and visual constraints of historic buildings. Board calibration and sensor characterisation are reported, and the system is deployed in the cloister of Palazzo Costabili, a renaissance complex in the historic city center of Ferrara (Italy). This case study illustrates how the LEMS captures spatial and temporal variation in air temperature, relative humidity and solar irradiance and how an annual solar-shading indicator derived from 3D ray-tracing simulations supports the interpretation of irradiance measurements. The results indicate that the LEMS is a viable tool for heritage-compatible microclimate monitoring and can be adapted to other historic courtyards and loggias.