Advances in Historic Buildings Conservation and Energy Efficiency

Dear Colleagues,

During the last decades, an increasing attention has been paid by scholars and professionals to techniques and technologies for improving the conservation of historic buildings, which represent a significant percentage of the building stock in Europe. As part of our historical and cultural heritage, it is important to preserve their envelopes and their inner structures, which often have artistic value and represent the memory of the past. In many cases, those buildings host also artworks, such as frescoes, antique furniture, statues, and also collections and other items of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance, that need for specific preservation measures.

At the same time, ways to reduce historic buildings energy consumption proved to be very challenging because of the need to balance on the one hand the conservation principles, and on the other hand that of providing thermal and visual comfort to the users through dedicated mechanical systems.

Current research has focused on the identification of models to predict the effects of indoor climate to artwork damage, together with methods and tools to reduce them, maximizing the life span of the artifacts and the buildings structure.

This special issue aims at enlarging this knowledge, and welcomes original research related to techniques, technologies and methodological approaches to the conservation of the envelope and of the indoor artifacts features, along with ways to guarantee indoor comfort conditions and reduce the energy consumption. The discussion of case studies, as well as of simulation works, is encouraged.

Dr. Vincenzo Costanzo
Dr. Eva Schito
Guest Editors