BEACON - Built hEritage sustAinable CONservation

Abstract:

The relationship between climate crisis and heritage has for years been seen by the conservation sector only in terms of impacts, and by policymakers as a ballast of constraints and complexities to mitigating actions. BEACON (Built hEritage sustAinable CONservation), capitalising on the advanced experiences of the research units on some of their most important research projects, proposes to consolidate and test a methodology for the analysis and design of built heritage energy and environmental improvement interventions based on Building Performance Simulation and Heritage Building Information Modeling, transferring this theoretical and operational advancement to the construction sector through the development of a playbook and of specific Learning Outcome Framework for the public and private actors involved. BEACON’s vision, in line with the SDGs and more specifically with the Strategic Research Agenda JPICH, and the recently published EU CH Green Paper, is that built heritage is a key asset to fight climate change, and that Italy is the ideal laboratory for such a fight. In fact, performance improvement interventions are capable of supporting the green transition with their quota of energy efficiency and renewable energy production and their beacon role for the construction industry. Also, addressing the complexities related to those interventions means stress testing new technologies to be upscaled to the entire construction sector, bolstering its competitiveness despite its historical inertia towards innovation. The heritage-related scientific advancements and cross-fertilisation potential are another fundamental push in this direction. Moreover, built heritage’s capacity to engage and mobilise society, strengthening social inclusion, is key to obtain the “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” advocated by IPCC. Italy is the ideal laboratory for this effort thanks to its schools of restoration, the variety of climates and types of historic buildings compared to the rest of the world, and being among the leading countries in research projects and international scientific publications in energy and environmental improvement of built heritage. Our historic buildings are on the verge of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for enhancing adaptation, mitigation and conservation, thanks to a renewed awareness of society, the availability of funds and the urgency of action. However, planning these interventions requires much more attention than any other standard action on the building stock. The aims of the research community in this delicate phase should be to tackle this complexity producing solid workflows, testing them on pilot cases, and then working as fast as possible on technology transfer models able to reach the market "in time” to prevent this opportunity of built heritage from turning into negative pressure and damage. This is what BEACON project intends to do.