Descrizione e obiettivi

The integrated and sustainable renovation of vulnerable building stock is more and more a priority in view of achieving the global targets related to greenhouse gas emission reduction and seismic risk mitigation. Designing sustainable retrofit interventions requires innovative solutions aligned with new performance objectives, based on a Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) approach to minimize environmental, social, and economic impacts over the whole building’s life cycle.

The “Sustainable Approaches For Earthquake Resistant_REhabilitation solutions for the BUILT environment” Project (SAFER-REBUILT Project), in line with the scientific objectives of PE RETURN and, more specifically, of the Spoke VS3 – Earthquakes and Volcanoes, aims to:

1. i) define new performance objectives based on LCT principles, including: use of low-carbon materials to reduce environmental impacts, design for low disruption, design for durability, adaptability throughout service life, damage and loss minimization to enhance earthquake resilience, waste minimization during deconstruction, and recyclability/reusability at end of life;
2. ii) develop new integrated techniques/systems for the sustainable refurbishment of both reinforced concrete (RC) and unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings that comply with LCT-based renovation objectives.

A multidisciplinary group of 5 Research Units (University of Basilicata, UniBAS RU1; University of Bergamo, UniBG RU2; University of Brescia, UniBS RU3; University of Cassino, UniCAS RU4; University of Trento, UniTN RU5) joined their fund management capability and expertise, gained in national and international collaborations consistent with the RETURN research program, to suitably address the above-described objectives.

To achieve the project objectives a structure made up of 5 WPs has been adopted, each WP in turn divided into different Tasks to delve deeper into specific topics. Each WP has one or two RUs as leaders who will coordinate the work of the other RUs to achieve the expected outcomes, specifically: WP1 (UniBAS RU1), WP2 (UniBG RU2), WP3 (UniTN RU5 and UniBAS RU1), WP4 (UniCAS RU4 and UniBAS RU1), WP5 (UniBS RU3 and UniBAS RU1). The project is organized according to the structure displayed in Figure 1.