Cities comprise many residential districts, facing environment and energy problems. Therefore, the retrofit of these existing residential districts is the main part of city renewal. Some retrofit strategies may affect the thermal microclimate environment and lead to changes in the energy demand of buildings. Few studies had evaluated these retrofit effects, which has brought the motivation for this study, to determine the microclimate changes surrounding buildings due to residential district retrofits and the corresponding impact on the cooling load of buildings. The most general retrofit strategies were selected, including greening rate, ground pavement materials, wall materials and roof materials. They were applied to a prediction model for the selected residential district in the simulation tool. The mean reduction of air temperature around the building has been used to evaluate the impact of retrofit strategies on the microclimate in the district. The results showed that greening had the greatest impact on the mean air temperature around buildings, followed by the pavement material, the roof and the wall material. Ground greening, wall material and roof material decreased the total cooling load, while pavement material increased it.
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