How can we renovate historic buildings to make them energy-efficient?
How can we meet current standards and technical requirements and address climate change while preserving their character and complying with monument protection requirements?
These are the main questions the conference organisers raised and tried to address during the 5th International Conference on Energy Efficiency in Historic Buildings, organised by the University of Continuing Education in Krems, Austria, and ICOMOS Singapore from 7 to 9 October 2024.
The three team members representing the FuturHist team at the conference in Krems did an excellent job. Michele Bianchi Janetti from the University of Innsbruck and Gustaf Leijonhufvud from Uppsala University gave presentations. At the same time, Alexandra Troi from Eurac Research, who sits on the conference’s Scientific/Technical Committee, chaired one of the sessions.
CarbonClay as a sustainable solution for historic buildings’ refurbishment
FuturHist team brought two topics to the conference. Michele Bianchi Janetti presented a novel biochar-clay composite (CarbonClay) developed explicitly for internal insulation systems and particularly suitable for retrofitting historic buildings. In current research being undertaken at the University of Innsbruck, the hygrothermal properties of this material are measured. Preliminary results of the ongoing experimental characterisation confirm that the material is suitable for capillary active, diffusion-open internal insulation. Further research continues to investigate material behaviour through numerical simulation and lab tests. Additional work is required to investigate the material behaviour when internal insulation is applied in historic buildings. This final stage will be performed in demonstration cases of FuturHist in Sweden, Spain, Poland and the UK. The conference paper also involved other authors from the FuturHist team, Kai Längle, Thomas Mathis from Natürlich Bauen, and Marianna Muchorowska from the University of Innsbruck.
Policy in practice: a comparison of policies governing energy retrofit in historic buildings in four European countries
Gustaf Leijonhufvud focused on presenting the findings of our first research task, which was about the policy framework related to the energy efficiency of historic buildings in four countries where FuturHist demo cases are located: Sweden, Spain, Poland, and the UK. A literature study was combined with 25 structured interviews of practitioners, public authorities, professionals, and private owners in these countries. Understanding the opportunities and limitations of the existing policy framework is essential for the success of the FuturHist project. This study is the first stepping stone for further developing the FuturHist methodology, so it is vital to have it discussed at the conference and gained feedback. The presentation summarised the findings of the project’s Deliverable, “Policy Framework: An Overview over European Policies for Energy Efficiency in Historic Buildings”, which is available here.
