An experimental study on the audio-visual impact and integration of split system units on buildings façades.

Despite the complex, sometime mutable, political context, where agreements against climate changes have been signed by worldwide nations, and scientific and technological challenges to reduce GHG emissions and to increase the energy use produced by renewable sources were undertaken by HVAC industries, the demand of air conditioning systems for buildings’ heating and cooling, is still increasing. Among the different room air conditioning systems, in Europe, split systems account for the majority of AC units with more than 30 million. In historical city centers, these types of ACs units have been often opposite due to their noise emissions and visual impacts on existing facades. These impacts are evaluated separately. Noise impact is assessed comparing the results obtained by outdoor noise prediction models with specific noise emission limits level at receivers. ACs visual impact is just relegated to local regulations. Virtual reality may supports performing multisensory studies to better understand actual combined impacts on residents, reproducing, ecologically, perceptual experiences. The aim of this paper is to investigate on the combined, acoustic and visual, impact of the installations of external split units, on facades. Noise annoyance and other attributes of the perceived environment have been investigated combining noise and mimicry level of ACs.