Building and modernising with "Building of Tomorrow"

The project BauModern turned to non-profit and commercial housing developers and real estate managements. In close co-operation with the federations of the housing and real estate economy has been achieved that builders are informed about market-suited innovative technologies and concepts and use these strengthened for their projects both in the new building and in the refurbishment.

Short Description

Status

completed

Summary

The project BauModern addresses non-profit and commercial housing developers and real estate managements. In close co-operation with the housing and real estate federations, the project aims to inform builders about market-suited innovative technologies and concepts. They will also be supported to use these technologies for both new buildings and refurbish-ment of buildings.

The objective of the project is to transport “building of tomorrow” results to housing developers and real estate agencies in a practice-oriented manner, using the federations’ existing communication and further education structures. The federations own contribution (or: contribution in kind) will be to make their existing communication systems available, e.g. the organisations’ print media, websites, regular training courses or excursions.

Using these well developed communication channels will allow to reach the target groups adequately. This means that the results will reach much more people than just the “innovators” and “early adopters”. Thus, the project creates the prerequisite for a broad dissemination of “building of tomorrow” results and innovations, which are relevant for the housing developers and real estate agencies.

Several instruments on different levels of sophistication will be streamlined according to the needs of the different target groups. Instruments can reach from easily accessible informati-on on demand, through occasional newsletters, up to internal further education courses. Additionally, there will be a help desk which can refer to further opportunities for information and consulting.

Thus, the results will be that housing developers and real estate managers know the most important and relevant results of “building of tomorrow” projects. They will also be able to access more detailed information and further education offers and thus be able to use the experiences from this R&D programme in their daily work and concrete projects concerning new construction and refurbishment.

Work package overview:

  • WP 1: Screening and selecting building of tomorrow projects
  • WP 2: Editing content for dissemination
  • WP 3: Dissemination of results to housing developers and real estate managers
  • WP 4: Project management and accompanying working groups

Communicating the prepared project results is essentially made by the federations’ existing means of communication, which means to reach all non-profit and commercial housing developers and real estate managers in Austria. The use of existing communication channels allows an optimal access to the target groups.

Methodology of the knowledge transfer project BauModern

Together with the partners Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations – GBV, Association of Real Estate experts and Property trustee – WKO and the Austrian Association of Real Estate trustee – ÖVI, in the project BauModern out of over 200 studies 35 projects were arranged to thematic priorities and identified for dissemination. Basis for the more than 200 studies were projects which were also carried out within the "building of tomorrow" program. The target groups of the knowledge transfer project BauModern are housing developers and the real estate management sector. The project results of the chosen 35 studies were worked out target-group oriented according to criteria developed by the partners. The prepared material was spread to all members of the project partners using their established communication channels. By the materials developed, both non-profit and commercial enterprises were addressed. Within the addressed organisations alongside the management both, employees of the civil engineering department and of the real estate management are part of the target groups. As in this project via the cooperation partners all housing developers and the whole real estate management sector of Austria could be reached, therefore the whole sphere of activity of those responsible in developing large-volume residential buildings, as well as in renovating and modernizing the same, could be addressed.

Results

By BauModern an important contribution in disseminating results and marketable in-novations made by “Building of Tomorrow” to a central target-group in the action field of building development and housing could be made. The special benefit of the project lies in the potential to address also those enterprises within the housing development and real estate management sector that do not belong to the inner circle of innovators or those open minded for innovations anyway. By the credible dissemination of results via existing communication channels of the involved associations prospects are bright that a wider community of business can be actually achieved. This is the pre-condition that innovations in the field of sustainable housing development and renovation are used widely in the medium term and that energy-efficient construction methods and the use of renewable energy sources and ecological building materials become a standard in developing new as well as in modernization of existing residential buildings.

Conclusions

By BauModern, results of the program "Building of Tomorrow" of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology can be applied more in practice in the housing development sector. The following positive effects are expected:

  • increased energy efficiency in newly built and fully modernized residential buildings
  • increased use of ecological building materials
  • increased quality of life for residents

This, on the one hand, leads to long-term capital preservation of existing buildings with minimization of vacancy, on the other hand, housing developers become strengthened in their competitiveness by the use of innovative technologies.

Project Partners

Contact Address

Österreichische Energieagentur
DI Herbert Tretter
Mariahilfer Strasse 136
1150 Wien
Tel.: +43 (1) 5861524 - 156
Fax: +43 (1) 5861524 - 340
E-Mail: herbert.tretter@energyagency.at
Web: www.energyagency.at