Introduction

The New European Bauhaus (NEB), an initiative of the European Commission, is a (new) chance for integration. Like the original Bauhaus, NEB comes in a time of great change and challenges. Among today's many challenges, the biggest is climate change.  All these challenges lead us on the path to transforming the places we live in, our way of life, and our way of thinking. Called ‘Soul of the European Green Deal’, NEB must combine creative and technical, aesthetic, and scientific aspects and give the senses of taste, smell, touch, and feel to transformations.

Buildings and the built environment greatly influence our lives. Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of energy consumption and more than half of natural gas consumption in the EU (primarily through energy used for heating, cooling, and preparation of domestic hot water) and for 36% of greenhouse gas emissions linked to this energy consumption. They are also responsible for half of extracted materials, a third of water consumption, and a third of waste generation [1].   This information highlights the importance and role of buildings in the energy transition, circular economy, sustainable development, and the achievement of climate neutrality.

How and in what way is it possible to transform the existing building stock and build new buildings in accordance with the principles of ‘beautiful, sustainable, and together’, and what challenges await us in that process will be presented with some examples from Croatia and other parts of Europe. Challenges related to the approach to planning, designing, use of materials and nature-based solutions, return to the basic principles of architecture and spatial planning, use of existing or newly formed tools and aids, and to methodologies of involving stakeholders in the co-creation process.

Connecting projects and activities to NEB

Through the first phase of the initiative, there was a good response to the co-creation of the initiative; many stakeholders, including associations, NGOs, education and research institutions, active professionals, and especially those proactive citizens from local communities, gave their proposals and communicated about the projects and activities they are working on, wanting to connect them with NEB.

It was gradually understood that the NEB is found in the decisions we make every day, from the character of buildings, spaces, and environment in which we live, work, and stay to everything that is actually directly or indirectly connected to that space - on how we move, how we use resources and infrastructure, how we deal with waste, what we eat, how we dress, what and how much we buy, and how it all affects our health and quality of life, but also the lives of other living beings and the natural environment in the whole. Where is sustainability, beauty, quality, and the social aspect of inclusion  , availability, affordability...? One of the key points that quickly emerged is the fact that we need to face all these activities and challenges together in an integrated way and using an interdisciplinary way of breaking the silos and connecting better.

There is a lot of room for progress in this segment, necessary changes, and transformations in the way we work and think in order to be able to achieve the desired transformation of the places we live into more beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive ones. There are different methods and good practices related to the ways of working that includes all interested stakeholders (those who are affected by some activities or projects) through participatory models of inclusion, and some of them are also implemented through EU-funded programs and projects. Such a way of thinking and working also contributes to and enables better social connection and the inclusion of all, even those marginalised and neglected stakeholders, i.e., making them proactive participants who contribute as they feel that they are part of the activity/project.

One of the great examples with many years of experience is URBACT. Acknowledging that positive change can best be made by collaborating across organisations and in close collaboration with local stakeholders from a wide range of groups to different municipal departments and neighbouring towns, URBACT has developed a series of processes and tools under the URBACT Method. This encourages cities to re-think centralised governance structures and shift towards more inclusive and holistic models. URBACT’s participatory approach recognises that sustainable urban development is driven by action-oriented strategies, which are co-created and implemented with local people.

How can buildings face the main challenges of the European Green Deal?

When speaking about the built environment, the fact that people spend approximately 90% of their lives in buildings shows how important buildings really are. Buildings significantly impact people's lives, and that is precisely why, in the context of the climate crisis and the European Green Deal, they are a good platform to use to influence people's awareness, behaviour, and attitude towards all these challenges. The process of co-creation of NEB also helps to awaken the fact that well-being is not only connected to the materiality of our everyday lives but also to the intangible, such as emotions, sense of community, place, and beauty that all affect us immensely.

Living Building Challenge is a trademark of the International Living Future Institute and provides us with a framework for design which is based on seven main topics. Alongside the imperatives of PLACE, WATER, ENERGY and MATERIALS, we are encouraged to consider our built environments’ influence on our sense of HEALTH and HAPPINESS, EQUITY AND BEAUTY [2].  Built spaces must be designed to optimise our physical and psychological health and sense of happiness by connecting us to nature and providing us with a good amount of fresh air and natural daylight. They must be inclusive and enable accessibility to all members of the general public regardless of background, age, socioeconomic class, or physical disabilities. Beauty is probably the most difficult characteristic of the built environment to explain and judge because every person has their own aesthetic values. Beautiful buildings should incorporate biophilic design elements and be uniquely connected to a specific place and tradition, local climate, and culture. Through that, they can become places for education and inspiration for all its users and catalyse broader change.

In accordance with the NEB principles of beautiful, sustainable, and together, buildings must not be looked at solely from a point of view of energy efficiency, which is still often the case. Supported by NEB, there is a new possibility and need to apply ‘new’ materials and technical solutions and to consider the whole life cycle of materials and buildings - the amount of energy needed for their production, their influence on nature and the environment, and their potential for circular usage (zero waste, cradle to cradle).  This allows us to create good solutions instead of just less bad ones. The great potential for achieving climate neutrality in the building sector lies in building with natural materials - biobased buildings. When building with bio-sourced materials such as straw, wood, flax, fibre, hemp, or elephant grass, the need for building materials can be met in a sustainable way, all the while contributing to biodiversity, water quality, a high-quality landscape, and the reduction of CO₂ and nitrogen.

The need for creating a healthy market for biobased building materials, which requires a systemic change in both the construction and agricultural sectors, has been foreseen by some governments. For example, The Netherlands central government has published the National Approach to Biobased Building, outlining all the activities needed to create an independent, nature-inclusive biobased building economy.

House built of wood, straw, and clay, designed according to passive solar architecture principles, Zagreb, Croatia (Source: Arhitektura E.L.I.)

The role of Level(s): a European framework for sustainable buildings

Regarding sustainability, the most direct connection of NEB is made with EU Level(s), a European framework for sustainable buildings. Level(s) uses core sustainability indicators to measure carbon, materials, water, health, comfort, and climate change impacts throughout a building’s full life cycle. By adopting the Level(s) framework of macro objectives and indicators to assess and monitor the sustainability performance of buildings, building professionals, public procurers and policymakers can contribute to aspects of the NEB vision for sustainable living spaces: that include healthy and comfortable spaces, reaching EU climate goals and circularity.

The circular economy is one of the important topics for the EU Commission, the NEB’s sustainability values are grounded in the Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). We are increasingly aware of the building sector's great impact on the environment in terms of the use of natural resources – there is a need to reuse and recycle.

One of the good examples of using the circular economy approach in the construction sector is The ECO-SANDWICH®. It is sustainable prefabricated facade wall panel system made from recycled aggregate. Specifically, ECO-SANDWICH® is a ventilated prefabricated facade wall panel utilising recycled Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) and mineral wool produced using innovative and sustainable Ecose® technology for the reduction of primary energy consumption as well as embodied energy in the building stock. The ECO-SANDWICH® facade wall panel consists of two layers of concrete, interconnected through stainless steel lattice girders and high-performance thermoplastic resin ties. 50% of the total aggregate quantity needed for the production of the concrete layers has been replaced with recycled aggregate obtained from Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW). The inner (load-bearing) layer of ECO-SANDWICH®, is made of recycled concrete aggregates, while the outer facade layer is made of recycled brick aggregates.

ECO-SANDWICH® was developed by a team of researchers lead by the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Civil Engineering. Research on the development started in 2012, resulted with developed ECO-SANDWICH® wall panel applied on the real-life full-scale demonstration by completing a multifamily building in September of 2016 which is still under continuous monitoring of energy consumption hygrothermal properties of the building envelope and internal air quality parameters.

The first full-scale application of a prefabricated RAC panel was a family house built in the city of Koprivnica, Croatia and the second application was NZEB kindergarten ‘Ribica’ near the city of Osijek, Croatia.

First implementation of prefabricated modular façade panel from RAC: family house First ECO-SANDWICH® house in Koprivnica, Croatia (Source: Bojan Milovanović)

Second implementation of prefabricated modular façade panel from RAC: Kindergarten Ribica in Osijek, Croatia (Source: Bojan Milovanović)

The extensive research activities at the material level confirmed the possibility of using crushed brick and recycled concrete from CDW as a partial replacement of natural aggregates in production of prefabricated ventilated façade panels. ECO-SANDWICH® has been used for seven years already and has proven to be a robust and resilient façade system, which offers a closed-loop solution for CDW with lower environmental impact and contributes to reducing energy needs in the building sector.

Creating new urbanistic values from abandoned industrial plants: re-GENERATOR

 An important issue we face in the living environment is the negative effect of reducing natural areas and urban sprawl. This trend should be changed in such a way that we have as few new buildings as possible, as well as less conversion of natural areas into built-up areas as possible, and to increase the volume of revitalisation, reconstruction, and renovation of abandoned, unused or existing buildings, construction complexes, and urban areas. Every town or city in Europe has a certain number of such buildings and urban areas that cry out for renovation and revitalisation, which will not only bring new value to those properties and inject them with new life and meaning but will also have a positive effect on the social and economic processes of the community in which they are located. Along with all this, there is also ‘a return to nature’ as a theme in terms of the naturalisation of urban areas with nature-based solutions and elements of green infrastructure, not only to make them more beautiful and appealing but also increase climate resilience.

Many large and small cities in Europe have utilised abandoned zones of industrial plants and warehouses to create new urbanistic values. Societal growth and community development necessitate investments in physical infrastructure (municipal facilities, buildings), as well as the concurrent implementation of programmes with the goal of strengthening the quality of life for the local population of a given community. The City of Zabok in Northern Croatia, as the economic and educational hub of the Krapina-Zagorje County, is committed to providing high-quality programmes for all members of society (local and regional), offering alternative/urban content in line with the needs of a modern, independent, and self-aware individual. re-GENERATOR [3] is a project that has renewed the brownfield industrial legacy of the City of Zabok. It has focused on the derelict factory hall of the ‘ZIVT’ plant, which has been transformed into the modern urban culture centre re-GENERATOR.

reGENERATOR, Zabok, Croatia (Source: REGEA)

With this project, the City of Zabok has established a central point for the development of the cultural and creative sector, civil society organisations, and volunteerism in Krapina-Zagorje County and the Urban Agglomeration of Zagreb. The project has renovated/reconstructed an industrial plant situated at the very centre of Zabok, offering the community a space for personal and creative development. With the diversity of programmes, people, and contents here, culture acts as a socially integrative force, but it is also a hotbed of inventiveness and entrepreneurship and in accordance with the NEB creates not just a new aesthetic, but a new ethos for living together. 

reGENERATOR, Zabok, Croatia (Source: REGEA)

In the south of Croatia, the City of Dubrovnik’s main objective for the NEB local initiatives project ‘Revitalisation of the ‘TUP’ Carbon Graphite and Electrical Contact Products Factory’ was to transform the existing factory complex into a place that promotes and celebrates local creative ideas, coexistence of the local creative community, residents, and tourists, and implements the concept of self-sustainability using a transdisciplinary approach. The 'New' TUP should be inspired by the historical narrative and create an exceptional spatial sensory experience in the context of ‘heavy industry’. Through the transformation of production facilities, the goal is for TUP to become the new urban fabric of the city.  The urban strategy seeks to develop the narrative of the graphite industrial legacy while connecting the surrounding areas and the harbour, which opens up TUP and creates an inspiring new route with multiple entrances and access from the surrounding areas to ensure that residents, tourists, and the TUP community meet and connect. In terms of sustainability, the goal is to repurpose, reuse, and renovate almost all existing structures but add valuable functions and typologies that promote and develop the site-specific potentials for shared functions. Finally, renewable energy sources will be used, and the site will be greened for the microclimate, healthy living, and biodiversity.

TUP HUB Area, Dubrovnik, Croatia (Source: City of Dubrovnik)

The new TUP is a social and creative incubator offering internal and external stakeholders and customers a place to share knowledge, co-develop, co-work, co-produce, and stage events or media productions in connection with the local and international TUP creative community. TUP combines public experience spaces (also pop-ups) with affordable event and production spaces. TUP is also the home of unique cultural assets and experiences by the Red History Museum and the brand-new Public Library that will be used for (digital) cultural innovation. Activities are primarily creative and artistic, focused on sustainability and energy efficiency, as well as the attractiveness of living.

TUP HUB, Dubrovnik, Croatia (Source: DURA)

Cultural heritage and its connection with NEB

Cultural heritage plays an important role in all of these transformations. It is inextricably linked with our image and feelings related to the places where we live. There are plenty of activities and projects related to cultural heritage and those related to NEB. One example is the funded project INHERIT, which fosters energy and resource efficiency, climate resilience, sustainability, smartification, accessibility, and inclusiveness of cultural heritage buildings. INHERIT aims to promote the sustainability of historic buildings while preserving their cultural heritage value by means of innovative technologies, testing solutions in eight cultural heritage sites across the EU. In this context, INHERIT seeks to valorise Europe’s cultural heritage, facing challenges related to energy, resources and circularity, as well as to climate resilience and accessibility of historic buildings.

The goal of the project is to develop the next generation (technology) solutions for sustainable and resource-efficient buildings in need of differentiated renovation strategies. INHERIT also enables socially innovative and economically viable interventions at different urban levels, not only focusing on buildings but also on neighbourhoods and cities. All relevant aspects of the heritage-built environment’s life cycle will be covered, starting from design and renovation to management and monitoring, as well as preservation and maintenance. The co-creation process for designing the INHERIT approach will include all relevant stakeholders affecting and being affected by the restoration and renovation of cultural heritage buildings. The entire process will be carried out in accordance with NEB values (beautiful, sustainable, and together) and working principles (participatory processes, multi-level engagement, transdisciplinary approach).

Conclusions

The implementation phase of NEB shows the integration of a wide range of EU policies, plans, and missions involved, from the European Green Deal and all its strategies through territorial policies, the cultural and creative sector to the strategy for industry and entrepreneurship with which the NEB initiative is connected to, testifies to its clear ‘horizontality’ and the influence. In these turbulent times, there is also the potential for the NEB to become an additional element of European cohesion and a kind of European brand that contributes to the social, economic, and sustainable development of the European Union, which has set the goal of achieving climate neutrality in Europe by 2050.

References

[1] https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy/levels_en 
[2]  https://living-future.org/case-studies/cal-guerxo/ 
[3] https://www.zabok.hr/re-generator/