The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the engineering/technical approach to building and plant design. In Italy, most of the school heritage belongs to historical buildings, which are not only under constraints for the protection and prevention of loss of cultural heritage but are often created with a different intended use. This fact implies that any plant engineering project is really complex. Starting from the current sanitary measures for reopening during the Covid-19 era and the crucial current research on this matter, the feasibility of plant retrofit/refurbishment solutions by means of effective ventilation and air quality are investigated. Various plant solutions based on demand-controlled mechanical ventilation, operating 24 h a day, seven days a week, without air recirculation mode, for a historical high school building were studied using transient simulations. A result comparison showed that it is possible to obtain healthy school environments by means of an optimal compromise between energy savings and the best ventilation conditions for indoor air quality (IAQ). Sustainability is understood as effective and efficient solutions for energy consumption reduction and environmental sustainability as a guarantee for people’s safety and wellbeing.

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The public school building sector offers great opportunities for energy efficiency and CO2 emissions reduction. In this research a method for the energy evaluation of school buildings is proposed. It implements simple input information connected to dynamic simulations. The main objective is to evaluate the energy, environmental and economic impact of different regeneration proposals, combining a green system integration. The building chosen as a case study, which presents serial and widespread constructive and thermo-physical characteristics, allows to extend the validity of obtained results to similar cases and conditions. Findings highlighted the importance of developing site-specific strategies and green energy solutions, to optimally adapt any intervention to the architectural, typological and plant characteristics of the school. The proposed example is a prototype case so that the Municipalities and Public Administrations, owned by most of the schools in Italy, can use it as basic knowledge for future projects oriented towards the energy transition, but also for specific tailored training.

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