Nowadays, buildings in Europe are usually not prepared to face important earthquakes, except the ones built under recent building codes, just remember for example the disasters caused in Italy during 2016, as in L’Aquila. There is a strong need to improve buildings’ safety in this regard, thus saving lives.

On the other hand, today’s dwelling stock represents 27% of EU total energy consumption, mainly burning fossil fuels. This fact is impacting our climate, undesirably rising temperature and causing current and future damage. Therefore, we also have an important need to save energy and integrate Renewable Energies.

The goal of ProGETonE is to provide the market with an innovative, yet readily implementable system for the building envelope to be applied to an energy, structural, and user-oriented retrofit achieving the highest performances in terms of:

1. energy requirements—by adding (or substituting the existing with) new prefab and plug and play high energy performing envelopes and HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) systems;
2. seismic safety—using appropriate external structures to increase the overall structural resistance of the building while supporting the new envelope integrating timber based components;
3. social and economic sustainability—increasing the real estate value of the buildings and the desirability of retrofit options by providing tailored and customized solutions for users, owners and house managers, minimizing disturbance to inhabitants and offering the option to an increased living space, all together at a competitive life-cycle cost compared to conventional, disaggregated building renovations.

Four different case studies have been evaluated by using several technologies in different situations and climatic zones.  Simulations and feasibility studies have been performed for 3 larger buildings: I) in Reggio Emilia (IT), II) Brasov (RO), and II) Athens (GR). In Groningen (NL), a 2D exoskeleton has been implemented in a number of semi-detached housing units.

The deep renovation works at the case study in Athens –student’s residence of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens – have started in May 2021. The whole renovation actions, including the implementation of the integrated GET system were concluded in September 2022 with the conclusion of the project.