Analysis of cooling energy demand in naturally ventilated social houses in Vigonza

This thesis explores how natural ventilation can improve indoor comfort and air quality in social housing, focusing on a real case in Vigonza, a town in northern Italy. In buildings where residents have limited access to advanced technologies, low-cost and energy-efficient solutions are especially important. Natural ventilation—using windows and passive airflow—offers a promising approach. The case study involves a typical multi-family residential building from Vigonza’s social housing stock. The analysed apartments rely on different ventilation systems. The ground floor dwellings have basic mechanical ventilation, without heat recovery or automation; in the upper units, natural ventilation is achieved through windows by exploiting the two-floor vertical configuration. The goal is to assess whether natural ventilation can effectively support or even reduce the need for mechanical systems. To evaluate this, a simplified thermal model was created using the RC (resistance-capacitance) method implemented in the EUReCA simulation tool. EUReCA includes a dedicated module to simulate natural ventilation flows. The work is structured in two main steps: first, the model is calibrated with available monitored data to reflect the building’s real behavior; then, simulations are run to calculate the cooling energy demand and to test how natural ventilation could mitigate it under the typical weather scenario of the site. This study offers practical insights into how passive strategies can be integrated into social housing design. It highlights the potential of natural ventilation as an affordable and sustainable tool for improving indoor environments in everyday buildings.