Large scale refurbishment strategies in Italy: a proposal of "geocluster" characterization

The issue of building refurbishment asks for an integrated design approach balancing multiple requirements and multiple goals. It’s based on the assumption that the management of requirements on existing buildings, both prescriptive and performance-based, should encompass social, environmental and cultural responsibility. This would require the definition of an holistic design approach, aiming at the identification of strategies that are optimized at a large scale but adapted to local conditions and specificities. In this context, the EU concept of “geo-cluster” has been adopted being a virtual homogeneous trans-regional areas where strong similarities are found in terms of climate, environmental context, culture, construction typologies, etc. . A recent Italian research project focuses on the identification of common parameters and requirements for building refurbishment across regions, so to trigger large scale actions and overcome the “case by case” analysis. This paper shows the outputs of the preliminary research work for the implementation of a tool characterizing different “geo-cluster” areas in Italy. Five research groups across Italy, involved in a national-funded research project, experiment with the “geo-cluster” approach in the Italian context to promote a large deployment of innovative methodologies for energy retrofitting and performance upgrading of the existing building stock.