Six months after the start of the project, partners have come together for the first in-person meeting. This represented a great opportunity to discuss the progress made so far, for everyone to better understand the tasks of all the partners, to discuss best practices and strategies, and of course to visit the Spanish building, as one of the six demonstration cases.

What is happening in ARV

The Czech demo, includes the renovation of an existing health care centre in the city of Karvina. The partners are currently working on documentation of different stages of the building retrofitting, such as for the installation of a green roof, swappable facades, photovoltaic systems, and efficient HVAC systems.

The Danish demo aims at renovating 19 housing blocks with 432 apartments. In terms of progress, the implementation of the new technologies is planned to start in the second half of 2022.

The Italian demo is structured in four dimensions: new constructions, that will be replicated in case the tested solutions prove to be efficient; renovation of existing buildings; and the development of an energy geostructure through a road tunnel. An important process that is closely monitored is stakeholder and community engagement.

The Dutch demo is running last checks before starting to implement technologies like HVAC containers or Building Integrated Photovoltaics elements.

The Norwegian demo includes the renovation of a listed building to nZEB standard, as well as a new school building, cultural and dance hall, and rehearsal space to be constructed to plus energy standards.

Discovering the Spanish demo

The partners were able to visit the demo in real life. The demo is a large municipal initiative involving one of the most vulnerable districts in Palma. There is a solid citizen engagement plan, involving the schools and social centres in the neighbourhood.

Most residential units are private today, although they were public in the beginning. IBAVI is constructing a public building within the neighbourhood with their signature local materials: local sandstone and Posidonia insulation. A factor taken into consideration is the rise in the cost for the construction materials. There is a strong awareness of the need to impact the socio-economic conditions of the demos, besides the physical and technological work.

ARV inspires innovation

The partners had the chance to participate in several workshops, revolving around certain key elements:

• ‘Assessment Framework and Monitoring, Evaluation, and Impact Assessment’ presented the proposed indicators and framework to assess Urban Renovation interventions, as well as the pathways to monitor and evaluate them.
• For the session on ‘Integrated Circular Design Guidelines‘, the goal was to identify best circular design practices and strategies and discuss the challenges and driving factors in the design process.
• The ‘Forecasting, Digitalization Hub, and Data Lake‘ workshop focused on the data provided by the demo sites and the forecasting services they need, including the data hosting and facilitating the data access to the ARV partners.