PurposeHolistic renovation of historic and heritage buildings involving different stakeholders has the potential to reduce environmental impact. Climate change concerns are emphasizing environmental issues of cultural built heritage leading to new policies, guidelines and methods dealing with the challenge on how to lessen the environmental impact of built heritage without damaging its cultural significance. The purpose of this paper is to review existing international and New Zealand holistic guidelines for renovation of historic and heritage buildings.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review is used to identify international projects, methods and criteria within the holistic approach. Secondly, the New Zealand context is explored and compared with best international practices.FindingsFor instance, in New Zealand one increasingly important issue is the many vacant heritage and historic buildings in provincial town centres that need action to deal with building code seismic changes. Upgrades and adaptive reuse are opportunities to make them more sustainable and climate change resilient. However, the lack of national holistic guidelines regarding the challenge of reducing environmental impact whilst keeping the heritage values is a critical gap which urgently needs to be resolved. The need is further increased within the context of the recently passed Zero Carbon Act 2019, which aims for national zero carbon emissions by 2050.Originality/valueThese shared responsibilities for conserving historic and heritage buildings to maintain life in provincial towns on one hand, and the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the other, have the potential to contribute to a sustainable development of cities and communities.

The historic cities of Brazil, despite its colonial structure, don't fail to go through transformations that affect contemporary cities, which is the main source of problems, leading to new approaches to urban issues such as mobility and accessibility. The uncontrolled growth of tourism in the historic cities can be considered as a big problem, because at the same time, they have committed to the conservation of its built heritage and demand control of the activities that occur in their areas without harm. Then, a permanent dialogue between conservatives and planners could be accomplished by joining the various sectoral policies. The study of urban mobility in historical sites was in fact the focus of this work because of their peculiarities, such as its specific characteristics of urban structure, morphology and occupation. In fact, the development of tourism in historic centers generates specific demands, such as adaptation to new uses of the houses, intensive movement of people and vehicles, illegal parking, among others. Beyond threatening the city preservation, does not provide mobility and accessibility to tourists, because these cities were not designed for the tourism conditions and needs of contemporary life. Characteristic features of Brazilian baroque cities, such as topography , the narrow streets, narrow or nonexistent sidewalks, steep turns and ramps strong, are not suitable for heavy vehicles, traffic and pedestrian circulation. Thus, studies concerning conservation urban integrated are aimed at an approach to interaction between historic preservation of the environment with the dynamic socio-economic of the local.

The restoration of modern architecture presents a great challenge today, since modernism breaks relations with the traditional past and creates a new architectural language. The Cathedral of Brasilia, with characteristics such as new materials, new technologies, new infrastructure systems, poses challenges to contemporary thinking, particularly on how to evaluate and intervene in this architecture, when there are not well-defined criteria to guide these activities. This paper aims to make a critical analysis of the work done in the Cathedral of Brasilia, as well as to report the intervention criteria that have been and should be applied in both theory and practice. Restoration of the cathedral of Brasilia: challenges and conflicts of restoration of modern architecture Palavras-chave Patrimônio cultural moderno Restauração Catedral de Brasília Sustentabilidade Resumo A conservação da arquitetura moderna apresenta-se como um grande desafio na atualidade, já que o modernismo rompe as relações com o passado tradicional e cria uma linguagem arquitetônica nova. A Catedral de Brasília, objeto de estudo desse trabalho, apresenta características como: incorporação de novos materiais, de novas tecnologias, de novos sistemas de infraestrutura que representam desafios para à conservação contemporânea. Nesse caso, a questão de "como avaliar e intervir" nesses bens decorre da falta de critérios consagrados que norteiem essa atividade. Este artigo apresenta um relato das obras de restauração da Catedral de Brasília, bem como os critérios de intervenção tanto teóricos quanto práticos.

<p><b>As nations develop CO2 reduction targets, the energy renovation of historic and heritage buildings has been seen as an opportunity to reduce energy and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions while preserving these buildings' historic values and character. Climate Change concerns are emphasising the built heritage environmental issues, resulting in both environmental and social benefits. Internationally, many countries have adopted energy retrofit policies, and there has been an increasing number of projects and published material on the energy renovation of historic buildings. However, New Zealand (NZ), unlike Europe and USA, has no country-specific policies or guidelines for historic retrofit considering social, cultural, environmental and economic aspects. </b></p> <p>This research explores whether NZ would benefit from adopting similar guidelines from a policy and practice perspective. It discusses the environmental, economic and social benefits of such guidelines, and the country-specific requirements for adopting energy renovation guidelines for historic buildings. This research initially applies the existing European renovation process onto three hypothetical energy retrofits of heritage buildings in Wellington, NZ. These case studies, coupled with experts’ interviews, investigate the benefits and limits on the application of a specific procedure, multiple criteria assessments, some recommended methods and risk analysis for the renovation process. It also reveals possible trade-offs among different assessment criteria (e.g. energy, cost, thermal comfort, carbon footprint and heritage impact), and desirable modifications in the whole process of adapting it to the NZ national context.</p> <p>This research concludes that adopting tailored retrofit guidelines can contribute to the national goal of reducing GHG emissions by 2050 and, at the same time, protect historic buildings from demolition. The interviews support energy retrofit guidelines for historic buildings as good practice and reveal experts’ recommendations, the perceived benefits and barriers to adopting country-specific renovation guidance. It concludes with the proposal of preliminary guidelines for energy retrofitting houses in NZ.</p>

Interest in the energy retrofit of historic buildings reflects the current drive to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. New Zealand (NZ), unlike Europe and USA, has no country-specific guidelines considering heritage conservation, energy efficiency, reduced carbon emissions and cost. The paper explores benefits to NZ from a policy and practice perspective from such procedures. The adoption of tailored retrofit guidelines would contribute to the national goal of reduced GHG emissions by 2050. The case study investigates the relevance and challenges of assessments such as heritage impact, life-cycle carbon assessment and life-cycle costing for historic building renovations. Through interviews with a range of experts, the results for hypothetical retrofits of a heritage building are evaluated. The interviews reveal how possible trade-offs among different assessment criteria (e.g., energy, cost, carbon footprint and heritage impact) are considered by different specialist groups, as well as exploring the benefits and barriers, and providing recommendations for future renovation guidance. The main findings highlight the importance of a life-cycle perspective and of conservation plans for heritage assessment. The experts all agreed that from a conservation perspective, there was no one energy retrofit solution that fits all building types and cases.