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The purpose of this paper is to discuss methodological guidelines and operation protocols for the assessment of historic buildings by radar techniques, as decision-making support within integrated investigation programs, where documentary records, direct survey and onsite measurements address accurate and effective diagnosis.

Radar methodologies and procedures are planned to support the pre-diagnosis hypotheses, based on preliminary information from historical sources, as well as from direct survey of geometry, materials, construction techniques and decay patterns. Thus, they are applied, in terms of acquisition and elaboration systems, taking into account the testing targets and surrounding conditions. Finally, they are correlated with complementary destructive and non-destructive techniques for data interpretation and validation.

The general approach is developed for some representative case studies, in order to point out the potentialities of radar techniques for traditional building components. In detail, masonry walls and vaults, as well as iron and reinforced concrete slabs are assessed, in terms of construction materials and techniques, morphology and stratigraphy of multi-layered components, inner voids and inclusions, previous reinforcement works.

The above-mentioned issues are particularly relevant in the assessment of historic buildings, where onsite non-destructive technologies are commonly applied, because they help identify the actual characteristics, residual performances and state of conservation, without interfering with structural stability and functional operability, and, thus, address low-intrusive and compatible interventions. Nevertheless, emerging technologies, such as radar scanning, still require guidelines and protocols, in order to achieve reliable and meaningful results and save time and resources, especially whenever technical data are limited, investigation conditions are challenging and different construction solutions are involved.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and discuss a methodological approach for energy assessment and retrofitting of envelope systems in Mediterranean historical buildings, in order to ensure the desirable balance between improvement requirements and preservation principles.

The methodology is based on the assessment of historical districts at the site, building and component scales, the development of energy models of building-types that are highly representative, in terms of materials, construction techniques, typologies and performances, the identification of intervention priorities and the validation of compatible retrofitting solutions.

The methodology, applied to a representative Adriatic sea town in South Italy, shows the potentialities of innovative materials and technologies (aerogel, PCMs, etc.) as tools to achieve the improvement of the energy performances and the preservation of the original characters. Nevertheless, it shows how the preliminary qualification of the environmental, architectural, constructional and technological characteristics is paramount to support the identification of the current behavior of the building system and the transformation boundaries from the historical values.

The paper proves how assessment and intervention methods and tools, besides effective, compatible, low invasive and durable, should be geocluster oriented and performance based, thus with general reliability for the whole local context and suitable flexibility to be tailored to different specific situations, toward the definition of retrofitting micro-scale measures and macro-scale strategies that are replicable and scalable.