Pilar Mercader-Moyano – författare

The book provides a complete vision about Spanish sustainable renovation of buildings situation at this moment, analysing legal and technological context and opportunities that economic stimulus —by means of direct aids— and the use of BIM methodologies offers a standardization of high scale interventions.

Nowadays, BIM models let us integrate multiple quantitative parameters that can agile the information to interchange between stakeholders. Using this potential to standardize protocols of interventions and share knowledge is necessary to face a high scale intervention that our cities need.

Our building stock is responsible for approximately 36% of the CO2 emissions in the European Union. For this reason, these policies focus a large part of their efforts on economically incentivizing a new development model for the building sector that is committed to the large-scale renovation of the existing real estate stock and that, through the reduction of energy demand and of emissions, manage to reduce the environmental impact of these.

Next Generation EU is the new recovery instrument that aims to mobilize investments towards strategic sectors for the reorientation of the production model that, among other measures, contributes to decarbonization through the promotion of energy efficiency and the deployment of renewable energies.

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in the number of forced displacements due to natural disasters, armed conflicts, and pandemics, which has favoured an increase in the number of temporary accommodations. Although the provision of shelter after an emergency situation is one of the priorities of humanitarian aid, the reality is that the conditions in which people live in a situation of forced displacement are absolutely precarious and overcrowded. Nowadays, this type of housing tends to have a short lifespan, deepening the environmental impact and the generation of waste. Likewise, added to this great problem is the linear economic system implemented worldwide, which also causes a high rate of waste.

This book provides an overview of the environmental problems that arise from construction activity, focusing on refurbishment as an alternative to the current crisis in the construction sector, as well as on measures designed to minimize the effects on the environment. Furthermore, it offers professionals insights into alternative eco-efficient solutions using new materials to minimize environmental impacts and offers solutions that they can incorporate into their own designs and buildings. It also demonstrates best practices in the cooperation between various universities in Andalusia in Spain and Latin America and many public and private companies and organizations.

This book serves as a valuable reference resource for professionals and researchers and provides an overview on the status of investigations to find solutions to improve sustainable development in terms of materials, systems, facilities, neighborhoods, buildings, and awareness of the society involved.