The use of vegetation for social housing renovations: A case study in the City of Palermo

Abstract

The paper shows the first results of a research carried out at the University of Palermo, which aims to indentify sustainable strategies for the renovation of social housing in the Mediterranean Basin, with focus on the use of vegetation as strategy for the enhancement of urban microclimate and thermal comfort. To achieve these goals the social housing complex of Medaglie d’Oro in the city of Palermo was chosen as case study in order to carry out some analyses for the assessment of outdoor comfort parameters of the area. By means of numerical simulations performed with the software ENVI-met, the actual state of the area was evaluated and four scenarios of renovation strategies through the integration with different vegetal species were proposed. The simulations show the effectiveness of the vegetation for the mitigation of the outside temperature and demonstrate that more accurate analyses on building indoor comfort can be performed taking into account the factors that influence its surrounding environment.