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With attention increasingly shifting toward adaptation and energy upgrade of existing and historic buildings, research on Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) has grown notably in recent years. School buildings are a significant asset to the European building stock and an important field of investigation because of the peculiarities of the end users and the impact of indoor environmental conditions on their health and productivity. Building on recent literature, particularly the method of Povl Ole Fanger, this research presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative study performed to assess the thermal comfort conditions of a primary school located in a historic building in Villar del Arzobispo, Spain. As the study involves six and seven-year-old pupils, appropriate questionnaires for subjective thermal comfort evaluation were defined with the pedagogical support of the teachers, who also took part in the research and helped deliver the surveys to the children. The Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Percentage of Dissatisfied (PD) were then calculated for the evaluation of thermal comfort from measurements and questionnaires, for both pupils and teachers, using the classroom as a sample size. The results show a difference between pupils' and teachers' subjective opinions, with the children displaying a higher and more-difficult-to-reach threshold for indoor thermal comfort.

Adaptive reuse of historic buildings as museums is an effective strategy for retaining heritage architectures while achieving environmental sustainability objectives.Building adaptation, retrofitting and preserving optimal environments for artwork and exhibit preservation are inherently complex, multifaceted tasks. However, indoor microclimates do not only affect collections; occupants and visitors must also be considered. The aim of this research is to explore whether artwork preservation constraints in reused historic building affect patrons. The authors thereby promote a more comprehensive approach, combining the objectives of exhibit conservation, preservation of heritage buildings and adequate indoor conditions, particularly thermal comfort. Data was gathered using the Post-Occupancy Evaluation process applied to a case study where a combination of microclimate monitoring and questionnaire surveys was carried out over a 12-month period. Results demonstrate that: i) the existing microclimate did not always provide visitors with adequate thermal conditions, showing dissatisfaction during the cooling season (July-September), with average TSV values ranging from -1.03 to -1.13; ii) TSV and PMV values were significantly divergent throughout the year, with TSV mainly included within the (-1, 0, +1) band and PMV mainly within the (0, -2) band; and iii) questionnaires show that visitor choice of clothing

Abstract:The sustainability and efficiency of buildings represents a crucial issue since the building sector is currently responsible for more than 40% of energy consumption and emissions. This concern is extended to historical buildings, as they are typically low-performance constructions usually equipped with ineffective systems. For these reasons, the upgrade of historical constructions from an energy and environmental perspective is urgent, especially in those countries where such buildings represent more than half of the building stock. This work concerns the refurbishment of a historical Italian building by integrating passive and active solutions to optimize the indoor thermal comfort and the energy performance. To this aim, the innovative GBC Historic Building ® rating system, a new tool evaluating the sustainability level of conservation-related activities on pre-industrial buildings, is applied. A combined trigeneration heat and power plant with an absorption chiller to produce cooling and powered by vegetable oil is installed in the building. A dynamic simulation of the building is also carried out to predict the post-retrofit energy performance upgrading. The final aim is to propose an integrated approach for the preservation and energy upgrading of existing constructions by improving their energy performance and environmental quality while protecting their heritage value.

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