Integrated deep renovation of existing buildings with prefabricated shell exoskeleton

Abstract

The European goal to reach carbon neutrality in 2050 has further put the focus on the construction sector, which is responsible for great impacts on the environment, and new sustainable solutions to renovate the existing building stock are currently under development. In this paper, the AdESA (Adeguamento Energetico Sismico ed Architettonico, in Italian) system, a holistic retrofit technique for the integrated renovation of the existing buildings, is presented. The system was developed by a consortium of enterprises and universities and was applied to a pilot building. The system consists of a dry, modular and flexible shell exoskeleton technique that implements different layers depending on the building retrofit needs (cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels for the structural retrofit, thermal insulation panels for the energy efficiency amelioration, and claddings for the architectural restyling). In order to foster actual sustainability, the solution contextually targets eco-efficiency, safety and resilience. To this end, the system not only couples the structural and energy interventions to reduce the operating costs, but it is also conceived in compliance with life cycle thinking (LCT) principles to reduce impacts throughout the remaining building service life (from retrofit time to the end of its life). The system is designed to be easily mountable and demountable to allow for the reuse/recycling of its components at the end of life by adopting macroprefabricated dry components and standardized connections, to reduce damage caused by earthquakes by reducing the allowed inter-story drift, and by amassing the possible damage into sacrificial replaceable elements. The paper describes the AdESA system from a multidisciplinary perspective and its effective application for the deep renovation of an existing gymnasium hall.