A tool for urban sustainable retrofitting processes. A customizable and interactive index to support decision-making and cultural sustainability in urban areas.

With half of the world population currently living in urban areas, the built environment plays a fundamental role in sustainable development, as well as the behaviour of its inhabitants. While retrofitting existing buildings... [ view full abstract ]

With half of the world population currently living in urban areas, the built environment plays a fundamental role in sustainable development, as well as the behaviour of its inhabitants. While retrofitting existing buildings is an efficient way to reduce environmental impacts, many European cities feature extended and relevant historic centres where energy efficiency improvements can be difficult to achieve without compromising the urban traits. The paper proposes a flexible, customizable and interactive index that takes into consideration both physical and cultural sustainability to support decision-making in urban design and retrofitting processes. It provides a detailed description of the methodology adopted to develop this index, its functionalities and further improvements, disclosing a new way to deal with the historic urban fabric in a sustainable perspective.

Keywords: Decision-making; Sustainability index; Retrofitting; Interactive tool; Cultural sustainability