Digital Twin Development for Cultural Heritage Buildings: A Multimodal Approach to Simulating Energy Performance

Cultural heritage buildings represent invaluable historical and architecturalassets, but their preservation often conflicts with theneed for modern energy efficiency. This paper presents a novelframework for digital twin development that adopts a multimodalapproach to provide an open-source environment of a CH buildingwith the goal to simulate and optimize energy performance inheritage structures. By integrating diverse data modalities, such asstructural analysis, environmental monitoring, and multimedia documentation,the proposed digital twin provides a comprehensive,dynamic representation of the building’s energy behavior. This approachenables more accurate simulations of energy performance,facilitating informed decision-making for sustainable retrofittingwhile respecting the unique constraints of cultural heritage conservation.The application of this framework in a real case studydemonstrates the potential of multimodal digital twins to bridgethe gap between preservation and energy efficiency, to increaseimmersiveness and to highlight their role in advancing sustainablemanagement practices for heritage sites. The findings underscorethe transformative potential of digital twin technology in fosteringsustainable, data-driven solutions for cultural heritage conservation.