It is estimated that rebuilding / constructing from scratch compromises material and energy resources about 40% more than rehabilitating the urban fabric
The city is the most valuable asset of humanity, both from a cultural and an economic perspective. People prefer it to live in. The city is meant to be dense, with all its services accessible, ideally within a 15-minute walking radius of each of us.
It has the most expensive infrastructures: the airport, the hospital, the opera theater, etc. In general, people prefer to live in the city.
Thus, the existing urban area must be cherished and rehabilitated at every moment to be able to provide the best places to live, work, and enjoy life.
The city has enormous production/construction costs, both material and energetic, so it must be recovered, maintained, and rehabilitated at all times. This strategy has huge positive impacts on the natural and energy resources of our beloved planet.
It is estimated that rebuilding / constructing from scratch compromises material and energy resources by about 40% more than rehabilitating the urban fabric.
On average, 35% of the energy consumed on the planet is used in buildings, so there is much to save if we focus on intervening in the current built heritage of cities.
Today, we intervene in buildings and reduce their energy consumption to zero in the annual calculation of energy production and consumption.
In new constructions, we increasingly tend to create energy-balanced buildings. This implies an additional cost of 4% to 7% at the time of construction. However, during the building’s life span, this cost is often recovered economically. From the perspective of saving the planet’s resources, the value is immeasurable, as we stop consuming resources that cannot be replenished in nature.
Regarding rehabilitated buildings, the benefits are even greater. Let us see: usually, the heaviest elements remain in the building in general, and depending on the era of the first construction, the stone or masonry of the façades and the concrete of the slabs and pillars tend to endure. Right here, the entire process of stone extraction, cutting, and transportation to the building no longer occurs.
By rehabilitating, we take advantage of the building’s insertion in the city fabric, eventually adding improvements, for example, creating garages, a courtyard, or a rooftop bar.
Thus, creating new housing or office units that allow those who live in them to enjoy the city with all services within a 15-minute radius.
And who wouldn’t prefer to live in the center of a rehabilitated city? Knowing that, above all, they are respecting and cherishing our wonderful planet.