Historic buildings represents a considerable share of the European building stock (around 25%). They contribute to the identity and uniqueness of many cities and will only survive if they are maintained as a living space. To preserve a living built heritage, it is necessary to find energy renovation approaches and solutions compatible with conservation rules. This means that the historical and aesthetic value of these properties must be preserved while increasing the comfort of these living spaces, and minimizing their energy consumption and their environmental impact. The project aims to establish new knowledge for the development of sustainable and efficient solutions for historic buildings in order to bring cultural heritage to life and make it open, accessible, inclusive, resilient and low-emission. It is part of the pursuit of various projects involving members of the CALECHE network concerning, for example, bio-sourced renovation or "custom" PV integration. The studied solutions will cover all stages of operation (prevention, monitoring, maintenance) and renovation (setting up the operation, design, works).

The main goal of the project ReSHEALience is to develop an Ultra High Durability Concrete (UHDC) and a Durability Assessment-based Design (DAD) methodology for structures, to improve durability and predict their long-term performance under Extremely Aggressive Exposures (EAE: XS-chloride induced corrosion, XA-chemical attack). The improvement will be supported upgrading Ultra High Performance Fiber Reinforced Concrete with new functionalities. Focus will be on marine structures and infrastructures for geothermal/biomass energy plants, whose severe conditions challenge the performance, lead to quick deterioration and shorten the lifespan, resulting in billions Euro spent each year in repairs. This goal will be achieved through the following activities (variations compared to current reinforced concrete): - Tailoring UHDC to target a 100% enhancement in material durability. - Upgrading experimental methods to validating durability properties of UHDCs in service conditions (cracked state) and validate an enhancement of at least a 30%. - Developing a theoretical model to evaluate ageing and degradation of UHDC structures in EAE with a 75% of accuracy, extending the modelling to predict the lifespan. - Proposing new design concepts DAD, for the use of UHDC and assessing the structures durability and Life Cycle Analysis with a 95% confidence level, to achieve an increase service life of 30%, and a long-term reduction of maintenance costs by at least 50%. - Proving, through long-term monitoring in six full-scale proofs-of concept that UHDC in real conditions has the expected enhancement of 30% in durability for both: repaired and new elements. - Developing a Business Plan per industrial partner analyzing the market niches and sectors where the developments will be exploited. The competence garnered by all the partners will put them in the forefront of the civil engineering field in order to provide sustainable solutions for the most challenging needs of our society.

The overall goal of the RE4-Project is to promote new technological solutions for the design and development of structural and non-structural pre-fabricated elements with high degree of recycled materials and reused structures from partial or total demolition of buildings. The developed technology will aim at energy efficient new construction and refurbishment, thus minimizing environmental impacts. The RE4-Project targets the demonstration of suitable design concepts and building elements produced from CDW in an industrial environment, considering perspective issues for the market uptake of the developed solutions. The technical activities will be supported by LCA and LCC analyses, certification and standardization procedures, demonstration activities, professional training, dissemination, commercialisation and exploitation strategy definition, business modelling and business plans. The overarching purpose is to develop a RE4-prefabricated energy-efficient building concept that can be easily assembled and disassembled for future reuse, containing up to 65% in weight of recycled materials from CDW (ranging from 50% for the medium replacement of the mineral fraction, up to 65% for insulating panels and concrete products with medium mineral replacement coupled with the geopolymer binder). The reusable structures will range from 15-20% for existing buildings to 80-90% for the RE4-prefabricated building concept.