Facciate ventilate, facciate continue a doppia pelle, isolamento dinamico: la storia e le potenzialità applicative.

In the last thirty years new façade systems have been developed trying to improve thermal insulation and confort through inside façade ventilation. In high profile building, so –called “double skin” façades are today playing a central role among those new façade systems. Actually the variety of such already built technological typologies is very large, as demonstrated by many names they have got (Boake, 2003): Double-Leaf Façade, Double-Skin Façade, Double-Façade, Double Envelope, Dual-Layered Glass Façade, Wall-Filter Façade, Environmental Second Skin Systems, and Ventilated Façade. This paper represents t the authors’ effort to improve designers’ awareness on these façade typologies, analyzing the historical development, describing the state of the art and the main characteristics. To be able to compare different system typologies and/or different operational strategies among them, performance parameters are defined, as the equivalent thermal transmittance, the absorbed solar radiation inwardly flowing fraction or the Shading Coefficient, the daily average inner surface temperature and outlet air temperature from the façade system, and their daily swing. Finally a summary table is reported to underline pro and contra in the employment of double skin façades and to stress the importance of the design stage.