eREN focuses on building envelopes in Western Switzerland, and proposes a global approach of well-balanced solutions between energy efficiency, constructive feasibility, building physics, costs, and preservation of the architectural heritage.

Energy refurbishment of multi-dwelling buildings is a key issue of Switzerland’s 2050 energy strategy. The professional and intellectual complexity in this domain, driven by a lack of sectoral expertise and awareness from most property owners, hinders the emergence of coherent projects. Building envelope energy renovation and diversity of urban types call for special historical, architectural, technical, and economic knowledge, in order to obtain tailor-made solutions.

The eREN project proposes a global and interdisciplinary approach for building envelope renovation projects. It aims to strike a balance between energy efficiency, protection of urban, architectural and patrimonial values, user comfort, and costs, thus avoiding not only serious technical errors induced by a lack of knowledge in building physics, but also the destruction of architectural characteristics that affect the image and quality of our urban environment.

eREN has allowed to identify the construction characteristics and issues of the main constructive types of residential buildings in Western Switzerland built between 1900 and 1990, and to come up with suitable energy renovation scenarios. The real cases studied so far show the constraints and limits of energy-efficient renovations that take into account the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of each intervention.

By developing help tools for the energy renovation of the main types of residential buildings in Western Switzerland, the project will become an accessible frame of reference for the main stakeholders, thus enabling them to efficiently act together, taking into account the cultural and usage values of the building to be renovated.