How can you benefit from FuturHist?

Renovating our historic building stock is a key element in the green transition, but it is also much more than just insulation and energy savings. As architects, we need to balance energy consumption, embodied carbon, indoor qualities, cultural values, aesthetics, and economy in a holistic approach to a complex field. FuturHist offers a unique and thorough overview to help advisors and practitioners navigate and choose within multiple overlapping fields and conflicting parameters.

The Church of Sweden is both blessed and burdened by all its historical buildings. It is blessed because of the buildings’ emotional and cultural significance to society, and it is burdened by the constantly increasing maintenance costs. Thus, we continually strive to find materials and methods that are both energy-efficient and environmentally adapted while meeting the regulations for heritage-listed buildings. The FuturHist collaboration will help us find new solutions by mutually sharing interdisciplinary experience and scientific research across organisational and national borders.

Europe has so many historical buildings that are particularly difficult to adapt to energy efficiency requirements. An example of a city embedded in historical architecture is Kraków. The scalar nature of the solutions developed by our team may be the key for other cities with a similar structure. By conducting research and modeling processes, we directly influence the environment – engaging representatives of the management of municipal buildings, the maintenance department, architects, builders, officials and the world of science.

Historic buildings are a part of Europe’s identity, but living in them can be associated with discomfort and seen as a less favourable alternative to a modern flat. This doesn’t need to be true. FuturHist is as much about working towards an energy transition and a sustainable future as it is about enhancing the comfort of historic building users. We aim to leverage the experience and expertise of conservation practitioners, digital building information, energy modeling tools, and eco-friendly materials to develop and test solutions that can be successfully applied to as large a pool of historic buildings as possible to the benefit of all.

Appropriate adaptation of historic buildings to climate change will be one of the most significant challenges property managers will face. This is a critical issue in many European cities with many historical buildings. We must take up this challenge if we want these buildings to be inhabited and used. On the one hand, there is a need to reduce the energy demand of these buildings. On the other hand, preserving their historic and historic character is necessary, as it constitutes our European heritage. As a manager of many historic properties, I hope that the FuturHist project will lead to the development of appropriate solutions that will reconcile the above values ​​and develop a methodology that can be replicated and used on a large scale. 

Historic buildings characterise the appearance of our towns, villages and cultural landscapes. The care and preservation of this treasure have always required an intensive examination of the historic structure and the development of customised solutions. Against this backdrop, energy-related refurbishment measures pose a particular challenge. This calls for solutions that combine traditional knowledge and innovative technologies in the interests of heritage conservation. We look forward to contributing with the expertise of the ICOMOS network in heritage conservation to the development of such customised solutions and strategies in the FuturHist project. 

As a researcher and lecturer in the field of building physics, I`m looking forward to test and evaluate new solutions and strategies for refurbishment of the building envelope and indoor air conditioning. Using bio-based composites with high hygrothermal performance allows the development of durable retrofit solutions for heritage buildings under conservation constraints. On the other hand, major advantages in terms of energy efficiency, sustainability and indoor comfort are expected.

As a craft business aware of regional and ecological solutions, we rely on tried-and-tested and functioning building materials and systems. In this project, innovative building blocks are being developed for listed buildings. These tested solutions give planners and us craftsmen security and make these individual buildings with high requirements climate-ready in an ecological way.

The built environment plays a key role in the energy transition in Europe. There is clearly a potential for energy efficiency in the whole building stock, also where there are heritage values. Ensuring an appropriate balance between preserving heritage values and energy efficiency requires good planning processes and solutions compatible with traditional constructions. FuturHist will provide strategies and solutions that are proven to work well in practice and are relevant for practitioners in the field.

We need the clean energy transition implemented as soon as possible, and as a researcher and architect, I see my role in ensuring that the built heritage is not left behind. With a typology-based approach and step-by-step toolkit, we aim to find standardised, compatible solutions that can be easily adopted in practice. I look forward to collaborating with building owners and practitioners within the consortium to ensure the solutions are relevant and useful.

Using natural materials to improve historic buildings’ energy efficiency is a key aspect of promoting environmental sustainability, improving indoor air quality, and reducing emissions. FuturHist aims to develop and test new materials to upgrade the building envelope and living comfort. It prioritises finding optimised solutions to preserve and enhance the historic heritage without affecting its cultural value. Multidisciplinary approaches combined with the use of new technologies, specific analyses, and real-context applications will allow us to understand the limitations and advantages and standardise different valuable interventions.