A Multi-Step Design Framework Based on Life Cycle Thinking for the Holistic Renovation of the Existing Buildings Stock

In recent years, the transition to a sustainable society has highlighted the importance of tackling a holistic renovation of the existing building stock, able to contextually solve its structural, energy, and architectural deficiencies. Nevertheless, in practice, the cost of the intervention, the building downtime, and the potential relocation of the inhabitants have been recognized as major barriers to the renovation. To overcome such barriers and foster sustainability, eco-efficiency, and resilience, new design approaches and solutions sets have been proposed. However, given the lack of a global vision of current regulations, a design framework able to conjugate technical and functional performances with principles of sustainability and feasibility is still required. In this paper, a new multi-step design framework is proposed, which, for the first time: 1) adapt the three pillars of sustainability to the renovation of the existing buildings interpreting them as reduction of environmental impacts, increase of safety and resilience, and overcoming of the major barriers to the renovation; 2) introduce a new Life Cycle perspective that also considers impacts and loss associated to structural decay and vulnerability of existing buildings; 3) shift from an ex-post perspective to an ex-ante framework, to be used since the initial design steps.