Accelerating deep renovation through prefabricated solutions in the European Building Sector: an approach for matching effective modular retrofit technologies for different ecosystems” Giulia Paoletti, Eurac Research

The European Union (EU) has set ambitious climate neutrality goals, with the European Green Deal serving as a context for transitioning towards a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy. To achieve these goals, the EU aims to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. The building and construction sector has a significant impact in terms of resources need (using about 50% of extracted materials), waste generation (producing over 35% of EU’s total waste), and greenhouse gas emissions (generating about 5.12% of total GHG emissions). Nevertheless, there is tremendous potential for mitigating these effects through a greater material efficiency, circularity approaches, eco-design solutions, and innovation technologies. In particular, modular prefabricated and industrialized retrofit solutions could accelerate the renovation of the existing buildings.

To this end, the EU LIFE BuildUPspeed project aims to accelerate the volume and depth of deep renovation of the building stock, supporting the EU renovation wave, by promoting and capitalizing on pre-tested industrialized solutions already developed in different contexts including Austria, France, Dutch, Italy, and Spain. Proposed solutions have different levels of complexities (from single building component such as a window, to multi-component such as prefabricated façade), materials, approaches (e.g., circularity principles, waste reduction), design processes (e.g., design for assembly/disassembly), construction process management (e.g., on-site/off-site manufacturing) and digitalization of the process.

A key pillar for BuildUPspeed is the configuration process to find the most effective prefabricated solution in different ecosystems. This process is based, on one side, on a deep investigation phase on pre-tested prefabricated solutions, and on the other, on mapping the ecosystems’ features where those solutions have been tested, engaging previous experiences and knowledge by BuildUPspeed partners. The ecosystem mapping on building market capacities and characteristics of building stocks in five EU contexts considers different aspects, from geographical and climate rigidity to cultural and social aspects, including technical and economic features, as well as the local building policies (e.g., energy performance, structural and waste reduction requirements). A collaborative dialogue among building experts and local stakeholders proved essential for matching the prefabricated solutions with the unique features of each ecosystem.

The results obtained allowed each ecosystem to identify some preferred retrofitting modular solutions and facilitate stakeholders’ investments to better promote and develop “ad hoc” prefabricated retrofit solutions in a specific context.

Contributing projects:

• LIFE BuildUPspeed

Session Chair:

Giulia Paoletti, Eurac research – Ana Sanchis, IVE – Vera Valero Escribano, IVE – Maria Sara Di Maggio, ABT – Stefano Avesani, Eurac research – Riccardo Pinotti, Eurac research