The REZBUILD consortium meets on the first anniversary of the project
The consortium partners of REZBUILD met recently at the facilities of Saint-Gobain Placo Ibérica, one of the partners of the European project, on the first anniversary of the launch of the initiative. The day supposed a stage to share the progresses made during the first twelve months of the project and the discussions on the challenges that must be faced. The European REZBUILD project is based on strategies such as the fight against climate change, the energy transition, and the creation of quality and qualified employment in the construction and refurbishment sectors. Social aspects and challenges such as energy poverty or gentrification will be considered in this initiative funded by the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission. The main objective is to define an innovative and collaborative renovation ecosystem to achieve Near Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) in Europe. With the aim of achieving these goals, REZBUILD will develop rehabilitation processes, through a tool that optimizes the execution time of the works using BIM technologies, reducing costs, and maximizing energy savings with different types of innovative solutions and developments. The developments and technologies of the REZBUILD project will be tested in 3 multi-scale demo sites covering 3 out of 4 of the most usual residential building typologies in Europe and representing the most prevalent European climates (North-Continental, Central-Atlantic and South-Mediterranean). Residential buildings located in Madrid (Spain), Oslo (Norway) and Martellago (Italy) have been chosen by the project's partners with this aim. The event in Madrid brought together the 13 partners of the consortium led by Officinae Verdi Group (Italy) and in which Vias y Construcciones, CARTIF, Comunidad de Madrid, Saint-Gobain Placo Ibérica, ONYX Solar, Exploded View and ZABALA Innovation Consulting also participate (all from Spain), in addition to ESTIA (France), SINTEF (Norway), OBOS (Norway), University of Nottingham (United Kingdom) and Rimond (Italy). The first day of the meeting the technical session was dedicated to the evolution of the different work packages (from WP1 to WP8) that the project includes. Discussions conducted made a special emphasis on the progresses during this first year and the challenges that have to be addressed. The second day, once the technical part of the project was updated, the partners visited the different prototypes and the facilities of Saint-Gobain Placo Ibérica. Social acceptance and expected impacts To achieve the European objectives, REZBUILD considers a number of challenges to renew and obtain NZEBs considering the technical, economic, social, environmental and legal dimensions. To do this, it will develop advanced technologies for the renovation of buildings in a platform of common knowledge for decision making. This platform will bring together all interested parties involved in the process of housing renovation, from designers, construction companies, researchers and industrialists, consumers, as well as public/private owners. The project includes measures of participation, information and commitment for all the value chain of the construction sector and citizens. The initiative will promote innovation in the construction sector with the integration of technologies to achieve the objective of an annual renewal rate of 2.5%, above the current one, lower than the 1%. In this sense, REZBUILD will base its renewal ecosystem on the integration of profitable technologies, business models and life cycle interaction in various types of residential renovation and interconnecting both the renovation stages of buildings and the agents involved in the whole process.
Keywords
refurbishment, NZEB, buildings, social innovation
Countries
Spain, France, Italy, Norway, United Kingdom