Energetic sustainability of the building substitution: the rewards and the facilitations of the Italian Piano Casa

The residential building estate of a large part of the Italian cities is formed by poor quality buildings. In fact, until the last decades of the past century, the current standards were lower than the actual ones (with regards to the structural safety, the indoor comfort, the thermal plants, etc). Moving to the more suburban part of the city, it is possible to see how the high quality of the urban landscape of the city centre vanishes therefore the substitution of the buildings becomes more convenient than the refurbishment, as it is possible to obtain high standards in an easier way. To promote this type of actions, the Italian Government has introduced a group of regulations, called the “Piano Casa”. With the Piano Casa is possible to obtain an enlargement of the building volume during the reconstruction of residential buildings. The Sicilian Regional Government, with the adoption of these regulations in its jurisdiction, has introduced some further advantages which can be obtained using various topics of energy sustainability in the design. The authors, in the present work, have developed this subject through the cases of a multifunctional building.