Cooling Strategies to Improve the Built Environment: Experimental Characterization, Model Calibration, and Multi-Climate Analysis of Innovative Ventilated and Air Permeable Roofs

Urban Heat Island effects and the general rise in outdoor temperatures are increasing the cooling demand in buildings. As a consequence, electrical cooling systems are becoming more common, increasing energy consumption and thus resulting in negative environmental impacts. Optimizing passive solutions that require no energy input can provide substantial benefits for building energy efficiency and urban sustainability. This study presents a research activity, financed by the EU-funded project LIFE SUPERHERO, that enhances existing roofing technologies based on passive cooling; defines an experimental method to assess their benefits in terms of energy savings; and finally evaluates their effectiveness in future climate scenarios based on greenhouse gas Representative Concentration Pathways across a set of mid-temperate/hot climate locations, also in comparison with traditional unventilated roofs. A new Climate Adaptation Efficiency Index (CAEI) was introduced to evaluate the energy efficiency potential of buildings equipped with highly ventilated and permeable clay tile roofs compared to a baseline scenario without the intervention. The results confirm the potential of ventilated and air-permeable roofs to reduce incoming heat flux and support cooling energy-efficiency planning. Indeed, CAEI values were above 20%, reaching 45–50% in hot Mediterranean and arid climates and 28–33% in cooler/temperate contexts. Under future climate scenarios, benefits further increase in the hottest Mediterranean locations, reaching up to 66%, while rising to about 44% in temperate climates, with an average increase of 10–15 percentage points, highlighting the strong potential of highly ventilated and air-permeable clay tile roofs as an effective, affordable, sustainable, and easy-to-install climate adaptation strategy.