Timber exoskeletons for building’s retrofit: advantages, design criteria, and structural layouts

The need for extensive and integrated renovation of the existing building stock is crucial due to its inherent seismic risk and significant generated environmental impacts. The approach to building retrofit should prioritize both safety and sustainability, promoting integrated interventions that can be conducted without interfering with the normal use of the structure. Additionally, adopting a Life Cycle Thinking approach will help improve the effective sustainability and minimize costs and impacts over the whole building's life cycle. With this approach, it is possible to define improved design criteria for seismic retrofit interventions that focus on damage control, to ensure the sustainability of buildings and the safety of the inhabitants even following medium to high intensity seismic events, but also on easy assembly/disassembly, reparability, management of tolerances, flexibility and reuse