Up-To-Date Challenges for the Conservation, Rehabilitation and Energy Retrofitting of Higher Education Cultural Heritage Buildings

Abstract

In higher-education world heritage sites, the conservation and energy retrofitting of heritage buildings (HBs) is an important vector for their development, competitiveness and welfare. To guarantee their ongoing use, these buildings must be adapted to face current and emerging societal challenges: (i) the conservation of cultural heritage and the maintenance of their original characteristics and identity; (ii) the transformation of heritage sites into tourist centers that energize the local economy, generating revenue and jobs; (iii) the adaptation of the buildings to new uses and functions that demand energy retrofitting strategies to satisfy today’s standards of thermal comfort, indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy efficiency; (iv) tackling impacts of climate change, particularly global warming and extreme weather events; and finally, (v) the implementation of strategies to mitigate the impact of a growing number of tourists. The combined implications of these challenges require a comprehensive approach with interrelated measures strongly reliant on the use of technology and innovation. This work aims to discuss how higher-education cultural HBs can be rethought to serve these expectations. Moreover, a multidisciplinary intervention framework is provided to discuss how HBs can respond to the challenges and risks of rehabilitation, energy retrofitting, climate change and increasing tourism.

Practices and challenges of cultural heritage conservation in historical and religious heritage sites: evidence from North Shoa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

“…The present finding was also in line with the findings of Irandu and Shah [82] that portrayed the cultural heritage conservation of Kenya faced challenges such as funding, poor enactment of policies, land grabbing and lack of adequate trained personnel. Besides, another finding revealed that tackling the calamities of climate change mainly global warming and extreme weather events combined with the implementation of varied strategies to moderate the impact of a growing tourist demand towards heritage sites become the growing problem in the conservation efforts of cultural heritage conservation which supports the present finding [83]. This finding also revealed the land use issue is an emerging problem for conservation.…”

Beyond Cultural and Historic Values, Sustainability as a New Kind of Value for Historic Buildings

“…Furthermore, heritage value conservation is a specific point of EIQ when considering the preventive conservation approach. This has been taken into account for cultural heritage buildings like museums or higher education [39][40][41].…”

Retrofitting Historic Walls: Feasibility of Thermal Insulation and Suitability of Thermal Mortars

“…Walls may present high initial moisture levels and various types of damage, which should be critically evaluated and eventually resolved to avoid post-intervention problems [32]. When dealing with historic constructions, detailed information on the thermophysical properties of the envelope may also be needed [33], and specific in situ measurements should be then performed, such as the evaluation of the U-value of the original walls by means of heat flow meters [34,35]. Additionally, thermography can be adopted as a non-destructive measurement method to identify local heat losses due to defects in the construction (e.g., thermal bridges, air leaks, or gaps in the construction) [32].…”