Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, great efforts have been made to encourage the deep energy renovation of buildings in order to meet the decarbonization goals set by various governments worldwide.

However, energy inefficiency is certainly not the only problem faced by the existing building stock. Indeed, numerous countries spread all over the continents are earthquake-prone areas, where buildings have to sustain seismic forces and to comply with the updates of local seismic zonation and seismic codes, often requiring seismic upgrading interventions. 

Therefore, in case of a destructive earthquake, any renovation solution that aims to address only energy efficiency will be unsustainable from social, economic and environmental points of view. In such cases, energy renovation actions should be strategically combined with seismic retrofitting, while also addressing technological and architectural issues to ensure the higher attractiveness and applicability of combined renovation actions.

In light of this holistic and sustainable approach to buildings’ renovation, this Special Issue aims to advance the knowledge about major renovations addressing both the energy and seismic upgrade of buildings, with a particular focus on:

• The description of the barriers that limit the extensive undertaking of combined retrofitting interventions, and the proposal of solutions to overcome them;
• The analysis of the current retrofit solutions, and of their architectural and technological constraints;
• The development of novel retrofit schemes that integrate seismic, energy and architectural retrofitting;
• The expected performances (either monitored or modelled) in terms of energy savings and improved seismic resistance;
• The presentation of exemplary case studies

Dr. Francesca Barbagallo
Dr. Vincenzo Costanzo
Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Margani
Dr. Carola Tardo
Guest Editors

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• energy renovation
• seismic upgrading
• sustainable renovation
• decarbonization
• building stock
• reinforced concrete structures
• seismic energy dissipation
• friction dampers