Public University Residences as a Driver for Energy Renovation. Reflections on Summer Thermal Performance

The focus on university housing introduced by Italian Law 338/2000 has led to mutations in the way the right to study is understood, addressing users who have changed over time in terms of geographical origin, social and economic background, age, gender, ethnicity, cultural and religious identity, living and eating habits and disability. The typology has certainly been affected since student space has been enriched with cultural, social and IT services; the relationship with the territory has been redefined, making it the object of urban regeneration; in terms of design/redevelopment, a confrontation with the principles of environmental, economic and social sustainability has been undertaken. Perhaps, this is the most lacking aspect, even if performance evaluations have recently become criteria for financing contracts (with PNRR). Regarding energy perspectives, a research project promoted by ENEA and underwritten by the Department of Engineering UniMe is currently being defined about the issue of Cooling: increasing the con tribution of summer cooling. An integrated approach with APE, SRI and BRP, in which the authors will participate with the activity line “Cooling solutions for university residential buildings: correlations between typological analyses and cli matic zones to define improvement forecasts and lines of intervention”. Therefore, f irstly the university residential stock has been analysed, classifying it according to housing model, construction period, climatic zone, and then identifying the 1945–1975 authorial architectures that have undergone maintenance works. The aim has been defining a methodological path to identify strengths and weaknesses of the building-plant system in the process of energy modernisation in terms of cooling. A historical analysis and energy modelling of the Don Bosco College in Pavia have been then proposed to understand which passive strategies can make the building envelope more efficient, while preserving its cultural values.