Energy and Buildings 48 (2012) 137–145 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Energy and Buildings j ourna l ho me p age: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild Heritage buildings and energy performance: Mapping with GIS tools Kristian Fabbri a,∗ , Marco Zuppiroli b , Keoma Ambrogio c a Faculty of Architecture, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna (Italy), via Cavalcavia, 55 47521 Cesena (FC), Italy b Architectural Restoration Laboratory (Labo.R.A.), Department of Architecture, University of Ferrara, via Quartieri, 8 44121 Ferrara, Italy c Cultural Heritage Office of Ministry of Culture in Ferrara, via Praisolo, 1 44121 Ferrara, Italy a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 26 August 2011 Received in revised form 13 January 2012 Accepted 13 January 2012 Keywords: Heritage buildings Energy retrofit Building stock GIS Urban planning measurement Energy performance certificate (EPC) Restoration a b s t r a c t The energy policy about energy performance of buildings, including minimum energy requirements and energy performance certificate (EPC), is applied to new and existing buildings, especially in the case of energy retrofit. Among existing buildings, heritage buildings are a special case. Another problem is finding an evaluation and measurement tool for town energy consumption which is related to the age and the characteristics of existing buildings. This problem concerns both urban planning discipline and heritage buildings discipline. The introduction of EPC database in Emilia-Romagna legislation (a region located in the North-East of Italy) is an opportunity to perform studies and simulation, in addition to GIS networking elaboration. This paper deals with the case of Ferrara, an old town, in order to debate: - number and energy incidence of heritage buildings; - influence of typology factor for energy saving in heritage buildings; - use of GIS tools to refer EPC, energy class in order to suggest a zone energy indicator (ZEI) for measuring the city and the old town. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The energy performance of buildings, their needs and energy consumption, have long been an issue in the debate of construction and real estate sectors. The transposition of the Directive 2002/91/EC (EPBD) [1], as well as of the Directive 2010/31/EU [2] has modified the relationship between building and energy, also in existing buildings. On the other hand, the energy performance certificate (EPC) spreading has changed the real estate perception of the real estate market: “every- body wants a building with Class A Energy”. Is this a good way? Of course it is for new buildings and maybe for retrofit existing build- ings of the second half of the 20th century, but not all of us are born to be basket players! The heritage and traditional building should be a special case to discuss. Energy saving and environmental sustainability will be the next challenge in architecture, especially as far as technologies and energy plant system solutions are concerned. ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: kristian.fabbri@unibo.it (K. Fabbri), zppmrc@unife.it (M. Zuppiroli), mbrkme@unife.it (K. Ambrogio). Several studies discuss energy performance of single building [3–7]; building stock [8–10], heritage building [11] and also urban comfort [12,13]. The relationship between energy and architecture, in traditional buildings, cannot be rely solely on new technological solutions or the use renewable sources, but we need a new conceptual tool for the following disciplines: - urban planning, in order to evaluate building energy incidence and soil consumption; - restoration (conservation), in order to evaluate energy behaviour and plant insertion, and consistency with historical and architec- tural conservation, so to estimate the building before carrying out upgrading works. We have two values: • first, the heritage and traditional building as civilization attes- tation is more important than energy saving. For this reason, in the EPBD article 4 paragraph 3 is written: “Member States may decide not to set or apply the requirements referred to in paragraph 1 for the following categories of buildings: buildings and monuments officially protected as part of a designated environment or because 0378-7788/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2012.01.018