Introducing a holistic design framework for the sustainable renovation of existing buildings

In the last decades, sustainability has become a priority worldwide and the major objective of European policies defining future societal development. Being responsible for the greatest amount of GHG emissions, the construction sector -particularly the existing building stock- is acknowledged as among the major sources of environmental burden and as requiring urgent and serious renovation actions. Existing buildings need substantial retrofit interventions tackling their multiple deficiencies, concerning energy inefficiency, obsolescence and structural vulnerability. In this scenario new frameworks are required, which should overcome the fragmented nature of the current design standards in favor of a unitary approach, enabling the design of holistic renovation interventions. Such frameworks should as well acknowledge and propose solutions to overcome the major barriers to the renovation, while addressing new business models and integrating updated sustainable principles. In this paper an overview of a 4-step design framework, which is rooted and inspired by Life Cycle Thinking principles, is presented. Unlike other sustainable design frameworks available in the literature, which consist in ex-post assessment tools, the proposed framework stems also as a design tool to be addressed from the initial conceptual design steps to determine the selection of the most suitable retrofit solution.