Effect of facade reflectance on outdoor microclimate: An Italian case study

Global warming affects the built environment with relation to its own characteristics, form, density. Heat waves effects would have limited effects if most of the cities would not be affected by Urban Heat Island that strongly increase their impacts (particularly on urban population). Does the choice of façade colours and materials contribute to this issue? The paper reports a research on a case study in Italy that tries to answer to this question comparing the trend in outdoor temperature increase closed to the building façade with relation to its colour and reflectance variations modelled by using Envi-met software. The outcomes point out that there is a correlation between the building façade reflectance and the temperature trend but this has a very limited influence on outdoor microclimate in open spaces as it varies in a range of less than 1°C.