Focus on the role of users is the heart of the ongoing research experience in the university Living Lab environment that investigates, systematises and tests the potential of the latest digital technologies in the construction sector (BIM-sensors-Digital Twin-IoT) to define enabling building-user interfaces that support the virtuous circle of energy efficiency/environmental well-being/proactive behaviour. Synchronising the real building/virtual model allows an augmented environmental experience and new levels of user involvement. It enriches the predictive systems of data-user experience, helping to calibrate the configuration of improvement scenarios in the design/operational phase on well-being objectives, expanding the awareness of the process actors for a new centrality of the decision as an ethical value.

The paper shares the experience of the building environmental eXperience Laboratory (beXLab) at the DIDA Department of Architecture-University of Florence, an interdisciplinary and open research group working on the experimentation of transferable methodological approaches and practical tools to support the challenging twin transitions, the green and the digital, starting from pivotal public buildings. As prototypical university Living Lab (born in the frame of the Med-EcoSuRe project, from here LL), beXLab is a shared space where researchers (architects, technical physicians, energy and information engineers, user experience designers, etc…) are experimenting integrated and innovative retrofit solutions, by involving key actors (decision makers, technical offices, energy managers), stakeholders (technicians, companies) and end-users (students, univerisity community). The LL place and space in the pilot university building of Santa Verdiana (in the UNESCO World Heritage Centre of Florence) was equipped with a bulk of IoT sensors for the monitoring of real-time environmental parameters and used as a test room for innovative retrofit/refurbishment and advanced technologies application, as well as to capture and valorise the users’ experience. The beXLab physical space is coupled with a BIM model, as a base for the development of a Digital Twin intended to construct a reliable and shareable image of reality (i.e. energy performances and indoor comfort/well-being assessment) and forecast trustable future scenarios (i.e. simulations towards participative design processes). Our present research, based on a crucial interdisciplinary approach and focusing on the energy-economic-social-cultural implications in the Mediterranean areas, proposes a new way of imagining and representing a sustainable, healthy and green future for buildings and urban builtup areas, in compliance with the EU Green Deal, the Renovation Wave and the New EU Bauhaus initiative. Keywords Digital Twin User experience and awareness Energy-environmental quality Monitoring systems Retrofit strategies