Due to climate change, heatwaves have increased their frequency, intensity and extent. In particular, in cities the phenomena is exacerbated due to the urban heat island effect. More than half of the global population lives in urban areas. As a result, adapting the built environment to these changing climatic conditions is becoming a priority. To address this need, the present research aims to evaluate how different retrofit strategies influence outdoor and indoor thermal comfort during heatwaves, bridging two aspects which are usually studied separated. The Acquabella district in Milan is used as a case study.
The study includes a review on thermal comfort metrics, followed by an assessment of which metrics are most suitable for comparing outdoor and indoor thermal comfort. An RC thermal model of a facade was developed to identify the parameters who were mainly influencing the heat transfer, which were then used to define the retrofit scenarios to be tested. The scenario considered include two different aspect ratios, cool facades, external and internal insulation, and their combinations. The outdoor microclimate was simulated with Envi-met, while indoor thermal conditions with EnergyPlus. The outputs from Envi-met were used as boundary conditions for EnergyPlus.
The simulations outcomes revealed a strong correlation between the buildings and street geometry and the varying impact of facade retrofitting on outdoor thermal comfort. Cool facade showed a marked negative effect on outdoor thermal comfort particularly in courtyards, where interreflection phenomena occurred more intensely. Nevertheless, cool facades also achieved the greatest improvement in SET, with a reduction of about 0.25°C. Across all scenarios, the wider street canyon consistently gave a better performance. While most existing studies focus exclusively on either the indoor or outdoor effects of facade retrofitting, the findings of the present study demonstrate the importance of assessing both, as interventions on the facade affect the two environments simultaneously and, in some cases, in contrasting ways. ... Read more

Balancing Trust is a graduation project developed within the Complex Projects graduation studio at TU Delft, under the theme Bodies & Buildings. The design proposes a new courthouse in the center of Milan. The project explores how institutional architecture can balance authority with openness, rethinking the courthouse as a civic space embedded in the urban fabric. Through spatial, typological, and material investigations, the design aims to create a justice center that feels accessible and dignified, rooted in Milan’s architectural identity while responding to contemporary demands of public trust and institutional clarity.
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This research investigates the ongoing land subsidence crisis in Jakarta, revealing it as not merely an environmental issue but a product of deep-rooted social, historical, and infrastructural inequalities. Drawing from theoretical frameworks of speculative urbanism, urban resilience, and environmental justice, the study traces the origins of Jakarta’s vulnerability to colonial water systems, unregulated urbanization, and inequitable access to piped water. Through a comprehensive literature review and case study analysis, the paper evaluates current and global strategies, highlighting both top-down interventions and community-led innovations. A key outcome of this research is the development of an architectural design proposal for a resilient coastal community in Muara Baru, integrating local knowledge, decentralized water systems, and nature-based solutions. The study argues that meaningful adaptation must be inclusive, context-sensitive, and grounded in lived experience. Jakarta’s future resilience depends not only on technical solutions but also on just governance and community empowerment. ... Read more

In recent years, the need to reduce the global warming of the planet has become more imperative than ever. Global warming and, at local scale, Urban Heat Island phenomena are among the primary effects of the increased building carbon emissions. Nevertheless, understanding and controlling the parameters which intensify, or mitigate, the increasing in temperatures in the surroundings of a building are pivotal, as sustainable design can significantly reduce the buildings’ energy demand. Micro-climate simulations can provide more accurate input for building energy simulations since they can accurately simulate the interactions between those parameters to calculate detailed weather data. Despite the increasing knowledge about the significance of the microclimate, energy simulation users still rely on derived, or interpolated weather data from sparsely located weather stations, located generally outside the urban environment. The reason behind this commonly adopted approach is that the generation of microclimate data is costly in terms of time, and currently standards for storing this generated data have not been developed. ENVI-met is a microclimatic simulation software that requires a model of an urban area and weather parameters on its boundaries to generate a large extent of data like air, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed etc. Constructing this model manually contains a number of significant limitations, such as high design cost in time and need for data collection from different sources – thus the chance of design errors is high. In this thesis a novel approach is introduced where the ENVI-met software is used for microclimatic simulations at district scale. However, the input model in this case is created by data extracted from a CityGML-based 3D city model. In addition, the generated microclimatic data is stored back to CityGML, where it can be re-used. The proposed methodology is implemented via a Graphics User Interface, divided in two main phases, serving the required bi-directional data flow. It was designed and implemented based on the following specifications: i) the user involvement in the whole process needs to be minimum, ii) the interface should create simulation-ready input models of various resolutions and iii) it must work with different CityGML datasets.
A data requirement analysis indicated that a CityGML-based city model can feed its data to ENVI-met by the interface, so that the input model required by ENVI-met can be constructed fully automatically. In return, the storage of the generated results data is also possible. Therefore, an automated data flow between a CityGML-based city model and ENVI-met can be achieved, offering the following advantages: i) the ENVI-met input model can be constructed fast and automatically and ii) ENVI-met outputs can be translated to real world coordinates – thus can be visualized and processed in GIS software and ultimately stored back into the CityGML-based 3d city model. ... Read more