The pilot case in Athens is a typical student house from the 80’s owned by the ProGETonE partner National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, located in the University Campus of Zografou area, in the eastern part of Athens. The residence counts with 138 rooms for students. The buildings’ main structure is reinforced concrete (pillars and beams), concrete slabs and hollow brick external walls. This is a typical construction typology and is globally presented in all Attica suburbs and the city centre. Each building block has a centralized heating system. Existing windows are from aluminum or wooden frame with single glass. The building’s envelope lacks thermal insulation while its facilities are not energy efficient. The building can therefore not be considered compatible with modern needs of energy efficiency.
The external exoskeleton developed within ProGETonE provides the building with seismic strengthening and energy efficiency, and facilitates the final design of the additional space at some apartments. The whole GET system demonstrates a perfectly integrated HVAC solution for deep renovation projects.
The Romanian case study consists in a social housing block, owned by the ProGETonE partner Municipality of Brasov, and currently gives temporary shelter to homeless. The block has 25 apartments with a total surface of 1,850 m2. It was built in 1972 with a structure of reinforced concrete, on the inside with prefabricated panels and on the outside with bricks.
The ProGETonE design proposals consider an exoskeleton solution for this building that will combine two of the pillars of the project’s scope: the architectural and the energetic aspect.
The Dutch province of Groningen has experienced several earthquakes in the last decades due to natural gas extraction since the late 50’s. Although the earthquakes have only reached a mere magnitude of 3.6 on the Richter scale, many houses have been damaged as the shallow induced earthquakes generate much larger peak ground accelerations than tectonic earthquakes would. Extensive studies have been done, aiming to strengthen the structure of the expected high number of houses in risk, ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 units depending on the estimations, seeing it as a good opportunity to also improve the energy footprint of these buildings.. All strengthening solutions were designed to also be combined with new insulated facades and new energy services to the latest techniques, with zero emission as the main goal.
However, in 2019, the Dutch Government announced the of the gas extraction in Groningen for mid‐2022 to limit seismic risks in the region. Thus, the business model for systematic seismic strengthening coupled with energy efficiency improvement measures got void as earthquakes are not expected to happen again.
The Italian case study consists of 7 building blocks, owned by the Social Housing Association and ProGETonE partner ACER, located in Reggio Emilia. The building type has been identically reproduced and built in the period of four years 1985 – 1989 in several different villages around the city (Bagnolo, Castelnuovo Sotto, Cavriago, Correggio and Poviglio) and the demonstration renovation will therefore have high potential for replication.
Each block has two staircases serving 6 apartments each for a total of 12 apartment units per block in 3 storeys. There are two different dwellings’ types: dwelling type A is a two room apartment with an overall surface of 43 m2 and loggia, dwelling type B a three room apartment with an overall surface of 55 m2. The ground floor is destined to cellars and communal spaces. The buildings’ structure is concrete skeleton and the envelope consists in non-insulated precast concrete panels. The wooden window are single glazed. The energy performance of the blocks is therefore extremely low and there is an urgent need for renovation to reduce the energy costs even if the buildings are not significantly old.
ProGETonE has dealt with the triple approach (social, energy, seismic safety) to offer a full renovation proposal for this building case to be able to replicate the solutions and learnings to these building and social typologies.
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