Building culture or can it go away? Renovation pilots can help

Abstract

Renovations, especially of historical buildings worthy of preservation, often present the clients with seemingly unsolvable tasks, be it conceptual, organizational or financial. However, historical buildings built before 1919 account for between 20-30% of the existing stock in the rural regions of Vorarlberg, which means that there is considerable potential [1]. In our experience, it makes sense to differentiate between technical and creative renovation consulting when providing assistance in the run-up to a renovation. In the reorganization BEFORE consultation above all the question is urgent, which possibilities are in the building and which financial loads with which reorganization variant come to the owners, because the owners of house often lack the creativity and experience, in order to come even on a suitable variant. In a pilot project, the Energy Institute Vorarlberg in cooperation with 12 external architects, the so-called renovation pilots, has now completed over 30 such consultation cases since January 2019, and more are in the works. The refurbishment PRE-consultations of the first one and a half years have shown that about one third of all consulting cases revolve around houses that are in some way worthy of historical preservation. In order to take into account the special features of these buildings, especially with regard to their energy efficiency, this topic is taught in greater depth to renovation pilots in a training module and a brochure within the framework of the Interreg Alpine Space Project ATLAS1 [2].