School building heritage: Energy efficiency, thermal and lighting comfort evaluation via virtual tour

Since the Italian school buildings cause huge energy waste, it is increasingly compelling to identify, quantify and eliminate energy deficits through integrated audits and coordinated actions of energy saving and retrofit. We developed a methodology that is based on a holistic approach that correlates students' post occupancy evaluation with instrumental survey and software simulations and, at the same time, we examined an innovative use of virtual tour to make the energy audit results friendly available to school managers and community. This methodology, validated on a school building of the 20s-30s, identified energy saving and retrofitting actions according to cost levels. © 2015 The Authors.