Vernacular architecture offers valuable technological and typological solutions rooted in knowledge systems that connect environmental, social, economic, and cultural contexts. This paper introduces the Heritage for People Platform, a collaborative digital tool developed under the VerSus+ project (Creative Europe Program), aimed at organising and disseminating vernacular architectural knowledge with a focus on sustainable practices that are both culturally and environmentally conscious. The platform builds upon lessons learned from similar projects, offering key improvements such as the adoption of a Case-Based Reasoning methodology, which organises examples by geographic location, materials, and intervention types. A structured classification system based on sustainability principles and strategies enables cross-disciplinary research and comparison. The design process was highly participatory, incorporating user feedback at every stage to ensure the platform is accessible to a wide range of users, including designers, scholars, craftspeople, and the general public. A cross-device, user-centered approach further broadens its accessibility. The platform provides a public, web-based geospatial repository where users can create, update, and explore a dynamic collection of artefacts, design models, people, and institutions from across the globe. This tool marks a significant advance in promoting and preserving both physical and intangible heritage, with strong educational and practical applications for sustainable architecture. The paper details the theoretical framework and real-world potential of the platform as a critical resource for promoting sustainability in the built environment.

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