Abstract
In recent years, climate change and global warming have been posing severe concerns on the coolingdominated seasons. In many areas of the world, some sort of cooling is needed to meeting human fundamental needs for comfort for larger portions of the year and at higher intensity due to the more elevated outdoor temperatures. This is likely to lead to higher energy consumption from buildings (when available and affordable) to lower levels of comfort and potentially health threats (e.g. in more fragile contexts), or to both conditions simultaneously.
The Alpine region is among Europe‘s areas most affected by global warming. Locations that used to face mainly comfort and energy issues in winter are now frequently experiencing more problems during the warmer months. Moreover, cities located at relatively low altitude such as Bolzano (Italy) suffer extreme conditions both in winter and summer, and this makes the design of comfortably and energy-efficient buildings even more complex.
In this context, social housing tenants are likely to experience the highest risks, and it is therefore important to focus on them to ensure social equity and inclusion also in extreme conditions. A combination of age, lack of disposable income and non-ownership of the house makes these tenants considerably more vulnerable than average. For this reason, the aim of this research is to investigate (i) how social housing tenants in Bolzano perceive their houses during exceptionally hot periods such as heat waves, (ii) what actions they take to improve their thermal comfort during those periods, and (iii) to what conditions there are exposed. This will set the evidence base to (iv) propose effective energyefficient comfort solutions. This paper presents the first insights into a field study conducted in spring and summer 2024.