Norway moves toward the future of sustainable construction

On April 10th, Oslo will become the epicentre of sustainable construction. Experts from the European Union will gather in the Norwegian city to explain the activities that are being developed within the framework of REZBUILD Project, an initiative funded by the Horizon2020 Programme of the European Commission that grows with the main aim of defining an innovative and collaborative refurbishment ecosystem for Near Zero Energy Building in Europe.  

REZBUILD project will establish a multi‐collaborative framework within a refurbishment methodology managed by an Agile Project Management tool based on cloud service, capable to interconnect in real‐time the key steps of a tailored retrofitting plan among all stakeholders involved within the building renovation value chain.  

Decision making tools will be performed in order to validate the best optimized cost‐effective refurbishment technology package in Bertramjordet housing cooperative, in Oslo.

In addition, REZBUILD Project has established 2 more demo sites in Venice (Italy) and Madrid (Spain), each one with a different representative climate and tipology of building.

Involvement of local communites and citizens  

The participative programmes carried out within the framework of the project will be implemented through a methodology for decision making processes which involves all the relevant expertise in the overall process. In this context, the owners of the buildings, who are the object of the pilot tests, will be pivotal to promote actions of social innovation, through the user’s awareness on an efficient energy use.

In this sense, the workshop organized in Oslo on April 10th  is focused on the owners of the houses living in the neighbourhood that will be refurbished within the framework of the project. Local communities acceptance and the understanding of Oslo population about this project is considered essential to succeed in the development of the refurbishment and renovation actions.  

In addition, this workshop aims to raise awareness on the impacts of the project among the final users and detect any potential social risk deriving from its implementation.

The workshop will be a good chance to present REZBUILD and its general objectives and specific measures in Oslo, in order to improve the knowledge about the project. Furthermore, representatives of the consortium will have the opportunity to discuss about the project, as well as the related perceived risks through group dynamics and interactions. The workshop will end with the presentation of the project website and its participation tool.

1st Periodic REZBUILD Meeting in Norway – 6months project development

In conjunction with the workshop, on the days 11‐12th April, consortium partners will meet in Oslo to keep collaborating on the project, in order to share the status of art of each Work Package with the EU Project Officer and the whole team, interacting to facilitate knowledge sharing between partners. The meeting will include the visit to the Project Demosite in Oslo, one of the three demonstrative actions of the project.  

The dwelling selected for the demonstration is a housing cooperative in Bertramjordet, representing typical dwellings in Norway.

The housing cooperative is a suitable site for demonstrating the expected higher efficiency of BIPV in cold climate and good utilization of aerogel insulation. The goal of the renovation is the reduction of more than 60% in consumption and cost of energy, improving comfort for the tenants and making the building energy performance as a key element of the total property value.

About Rezbuild Project

REZBUILD is aligned with European political strategies such as the fight against climate change, energy transition, the creation of qualitative and qualified jobs in key sectors such as the construction industry and social aspects like energy poverty.

REZBUILD will open the construction sector with the integration of innovation technologies to pave the way towards an annual renovation rate of 2,5% instead of current rates lower than 1%.

REZBUILD will base its refurbishment ecosystem on the integration of cost‐effective technologies, business models and life cycle interaction to diverse residential renovation typologies, interconnecting both building renovation stages and stakeholders.  

REZBUILD consortium brings together 13 partners from 5 different countries. The consortium is formed by the equilibrated collaboration of international level entities represented by big industries, SMEs, consultancy firms, RTD centres, public bodies, users associations and academic institutions: Officinae Verdi Group (Italy), Vias y Construcciones (Spain), CARTIF (Spain), ESTIA (France), Comunidad de Madrid (Spain), Saint‐Gobain Placo Iberica (Spain), ONYX Solar (Spain), SINTEF (Norway), OBOS (Norway), University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), Exploded View (Spain), Rimond (Italy), and ZABALA Innovation Consulting (Spain).

This project is awarded by the European Commission with a Horizon2020 programme grant of 6,996,128.25 € and a total budget of 9,038,208.75 €. REZBUILD’s kick off meeting took place in October in Rome and the project will run for 4 years.