Thermophysical analyses and experimental characterisation of Villa Manganelli's building envelope

To achieve the European energy and climate goals by 2050, meaningful refurbishment actions are necessary for the existing stock sector of the building, including historic buildings. A relatively new trend in contemporary design emphasizes reusing existing buildings instead of constructing new ones, revisiting and reinterpreting practices that have been experimented with in the past. The pertinent question today is how to reconcile the requirements for building protection with the implementation of energy efficiency measures. In this contest stands Villa Manganelli, a creation of the renowned architect Ernesto Basile, showcasing Italian Art Nouveau in Catania from the early twentieth century. Currently, Villa Manganelli needs to be re-functionalized to enable its reuse. Thanks to its architectural design at the forefront, and its location in the city centre of Catania, Villa Manganelli could be re-functionalized as a "boutique hotel". This renovation must take into consideration the opportunity to improve the building's energy performance. Due to the lack of data regarding the thermo-physical features of the building envelopes, the first phase of this study consists in an experimental set of measurements carried out to characterize the thermal properties of the building masonry and the indoor thermal conditions. A second phase will entail the dynamic numerical simulation of the investigated building and its calibration and validation through the comparison with the experimental data. An excellent agreement between simulated and observed data with an R-squared value (R2) higher than 0.92 was found.