INFINITE

To tackle the challenge of increasing the residential building deep renovation rate and quality, the prefabrication of multifunctional envelopes has been shown to be a technically-viable approach from a series of relevant experiences (1st generation of prefabrication)1. However, still several barriers are preventing a massive adoption of such renovation method. Key obstacles for such renovation approach are : high design efforts and low design freedom, high investment costs, lack of technical flexibility of the technologies, lack of critical mass activation at the demand-side, uncertainty in the market potential, sub-optimized value-chain still based on the traditional renovation, lack of hard-fact knowledge dissemination. The current digitalisation trends in other markets (i.e. Industry4.0), the exploitation of the industrial capabilities and the experiences of the 1st generation of multifunctional prefabricated envelopes are the three INFINITE bases aiming at disruptively change the building renovation sector, finally acting towards a full building stock decarbonisation. Hence, INFINITE proposes a so-called “Renovation4.0”2 approach, leveraging on the advantages of the “digitalisation and industrialisation coupling” to boost the building renovation sector. The expected advantages are the possibility to keep a tailor-made approach with many design freedom, the decreasing retrofit costs and time thanks to the overall system and value-chain optimisations, the adoption of a broad sustainability driver in terms of eco-compatible long-lasting products and systems, life cycle approach for comprehensive design and optimization of the O&M and end-of-life residual value depletion, already in the design early stages. 

The overall objective of INFINITE is to increase the market penetration of industrialized all-in-one building envelope kits for the deep renovation, as competitive, robust, stakeholders-accepted and LC-based sustainable approach for the decarbonisation of specific building typologies within the EU existing stock. In this sense, the ultimate goal of INFINITE is to demonstrate key tools, robust and competitive technologies and demand-offer matched business models able to boost the adoption of an industrialised and digital retrofit approach in the real market, highlighting actual technical and economic KPIs for real buildings and technologies. From another perspective, INFINITE will show “where&how” the Renovation4.0 have massive market potentials.