Articles

The construction industry employs 13 million people across the EU27 and is a major driver of economic development. Unfortunately, it seems to be failing at attracting younger generations. Blerta Vula Rizvanolli, BUILD UP’s Ambassador, expands on the 5 main reasons for this and gives some key points that the construction sector must address to meet the demand for skilled workers and solve this problem. 

Author: Blerta Vula Rizvanolli - Architect, MSc, MBA - IPMA Certified. Assistant professor in UBT and Construction and Energy Project’s Consultant.

How can the renovation rate be improved? Brussels Leopold neighbourhood is used as case study to present the definition and analysis of the existing building typologies and their components as a valuable option while also improving the impact and efficiency of early design stage retrofitting decisions.

While the operational energy consumption in low energy buildings is significantly reduced, the embodied GHG emissions of the building materials used in construction can account for half of the life-cycle carbon footprint of the building.

Author: Gianluca Grazieschi (Eurac Research). 

Note: opinions in the articles are of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the EU.

 

To support the adoption of the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), a better understanding of its implications needs to be promoted. This technical article presents technical solution packages, as developed within the H2020 SmartBuilt4EU project.

An energy labelling methodology for old appliances has been developed to rate appliances that were installed before the introduction of the EU energy label. The developed methodologies followed the requirements of EU regulations 811/2013 for space heating appliances and 812/2013 for water heaters, allowing for a more transparent message for consumers.

Monitoring the energy performance of buildings is crucial to determine the effect and magnitude of the efforts to decrease the environmental impact of the built environment.

This article summarises the fundamental concepts of the human-building interaction, highlights the added value of integrating advanced occupant behaviour models, and points out the most important aspects required to guide practitioners towards proper integration.

Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) can contribute to accelerate the global energy transition, producing electricity from renewable energy sources directly in the buildings. Eurac Research developed a tool to support architects and other designers in this task.

How can digitalisation and industrialisation accelerate deep renovation in the building industry? Prefabricated technologies have theoretically high potentials, but stakeholders are still skeptical in adopting them. More and more projects are now proving that these technologies can lead to many advantages in terms of time and costs.

The concepts of smart buildings and smart grids have gained momentum in publications and news concerning energy efficiency, emission reduction goals and other climate change-related topics. This overview article sheds light on the relation between smart buildings and smart grids  and provides information as to how smartness  could be measured. The article showcases some innovative projects working to unlock the potential of smart buildings and smart grids towards decarbonisation.