Urban and architectural retrofit in a climate changing scenario: the significance of users behaviours and comfort analysis to face overheating risks

At least 35,000 people lost their lives in August 2003 due to the exceptional heat wave that hit Europe. To better understand the phenomenon of overheating in highly populated urban areas, Dr. Margot Pellegrino plans to study social responses to overheating by including them in an integrated model, together with technical and environmental characteristics of buildings. How do people feel when it is hot inside a building? What kind of action do they take to deal with overheating? Dr. Pellegrino will monitor actions, choices, decisions and comfort perceptions in the Ile de France region based on factors such as building typologies of individual adaptation mechanisms. She will provide guidelines on possible architectural as well as urban retrofitting actions to help the people living in these buildings improve their indoor comfort.