Gründerzeit with future - subproject 5: Documentation and monitoring

This project is a sub project of the flagship project "Gründerzeit with future: Innovative Modernisation of Wilhelminian style "Gründerzeit" Buildings"

Historic buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century (era of promoterism), so called "Gründerzeit" buildings with typically decorated façades represent an essential portion of the building stock for example in Vienna. The project cluster "Gründerzeit with future prospects" started in 2009 aims the modernization of historical buildings in a systematic and holistic way using innovative technical and organisational solutions.

Initiated activities within this flagship project contain:

• basic research about technical, economical and legal issues
• developing transferable concepts as well as innovative technical and organisational solutions for renovating historical buildings
• create feasibility studies for pilot projects
• implementing the concepts and solutions within four innovative pilot projects (including documentation and monitoring)
• dissemination of the results to owners and property managers, planers, architects, representatives of the building sector

The pilot projects are designed to show how technical, economic and social barriers, coming up while restoring historical buildings in an innovative fashion, can be overcome. The pilot projects are located within the City of Vienna and cover a variety of historical buildings. The main innovations are to ensure the high quality of restoration by using passive house components (mechanical ventilation systems, high quality insulation, possibly also from the inside), newly developed windows as well as the systematic implementation of innovative climate neutral systems for HVAC.

The main aim of this sub-project was the documentation and monitoring of the four demonstration projects Wißgrillgasse, Davidgasse, Kaiserstraße and Eberlgasse regarding to their technical implementation, their investment and operation costs and regarding the energetic performance. All demonstration projects have also been by an evaluation process regarding occupants satisfaction and the refurbishment process. Beyond that, legal constraints for innovative refurbishment of historical buildings have been documented and proposals for adaptations of the rental law and refurbishment subsidy schemes have been developed.