Renew Building - Competence Building and Knowledge Transfer for Climate-friendly renovation with ecological and renewable materials

The project Renew Building provided knowledge about eco-friendly renovation to the target groups (planners, architects, students of architecture, etc.) through theory and practice classes, lectures, an e-learning platform, and in an online knowledge database.

Short Description

Status

completed

Abstract

Starting point / motivation

Thermal renovation of buildings has a large potential to save heating energy. But it also has additional environmental effects, such as grey energy contained in insulation materials, building waste, effects on healthy room climate etc. Ecological solutions for renovation do exist, but are rarely known by planners and professionals, mainly due to lack in specific vocational education and training of architects, planners and master-builders. This problem was encountered by the project Renew Building.

The project's goal was to build a foundation for education based on existing best-practice renovations with renewable and ecological materials. 60 building components (case studies) and 20 buildings were presented on a newly developed online database (available via www.renewbuilding.eu).

Renovation concepts based on these best-practice cases as well as on expert knowledge were taught in various theory and hands-on courses. The courses were accompanied by a specially developed e-learning platform. Hands-on courses took place on apprenticeship sites in Lower and Upper Austria, where trainees learned to renovate various building components. The theory and hands-on courses were offered for planners, master-builders, architects and craftsmen. In addition, students of Vienna University of Technology attended lectures and workshops on the topic of ecological renovation as part of their study program.

The apprenticeship sites as well as 15 demonstration sites show renovation with renewable building materials in Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria during and after the project. Knowledge was also given to professional audience at international conferences and in papers. The topic of ecological renovation was additionally conveyed to the general public via press articles, websites, a brochure and various other information materials.

Project Partners

Project management

Dr. Robert Wimmer, GrAT - Gruppe Angepasste Technologie

Project or cooperation partners

Contact Address

GrAT - Gruppe Angepasste Technologie
TU Wien
Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, 1040 Wien
Tel.: +43 (1) 58801 49523
Fax: +43 (1) 58801 49533
E-Mail: contact@grat.at
Web: www.grat.at