In the last decades, energy management and saving have become challenging issues. Considering the building sector (residential or industrial), different technologies have been developed in order to realize tangible energy savings, such as: ventilated roof, double facades, glazed surfaces, etc. Nonetheless, it is important for these new technologies to contemporary assure the human thermal comfort. Passive cooling (or heating) technologies are of actual interest. Low or near-zero energy buildings can only be realized as a result of the good design of all their components; specifically, the roofs call for particular attention as they take large parts of a buildingβs total surface area. This paper presents a comparison between an innovative ventilated roof, based on an original design of the support and a traditional one. A 3D numerical model is developed to analyze the air flow and to compute the achievable benefits in terms of reduction of the summer heating gains. The simulations were performed by varying the solar irradiance from 600 to 1000 W m2. The investigation is conducted comparing a ventilated roof assembly to the same traditional structure, assuming buoyancy-driven airflow. Two roof types are studied: an insulated roof and a non-insulated one. The results reveal that the ventilated roof leads to a great reduction of the total amount of solar heat gains for all the simulated scenarios
