Life cycle perspective in RC building integrated renovation

Enormous resources are invested in Europe for the transition into a sustainable, low carbon, and resilient society. In the construction sector, these concepts are slowly being applied to the renovation of the existing building stock by enforcing their deep and holistic renovation targeting sustainability, safety and resilience. Effectiveness of such an approach to the renovation with respect to traditional retrofit actions emerges when broadening the time frame of the analyses, shifting from the construction time to a life cycle perspective. In this case, the potential of the holistic approach becomes clear in reducing costs, impacts on the inhabitants and impacts on the environment over the building life cycle. Within such a new perspective, new technology options are needed to innovatively combine structural retrofit, architectural restyling and energy efficiency measures. Furthermore, a new design approach conjugating the principles of sustainability, safety and resilience over the building life cycle is required. In such a transition, synergistic and cooperative work of researchers, design professionals, and all the stakeholders in the construction sector is required. In this paper, the basic features of an expanded Life Cycle Thinking (eLCT) approach will be presented, which not only entails the use of recyclable/reusable materials, but also encourages interventions carried out from the outside the buildings to reduce building downtime and avoid inhabitant relocation. In addition, such an expanded LCT fosters the adoption of reparable, easy maintainable, adaptable and fully demountable solutions, such as those featuring dry, demountable and pre-fabricated components. Finally, it addresses the need to account for the End of Life scenario from the initial design stages to guarantee selective dismantling and reuse or recycle to reduce construction waste. Finally, a discussion on the main barriers and challenges in the transition towards this new approach to the renovation of existing building stock is briefly presented.