HQ2ER - Sustainable renovation of buildings for sustainable neighbourhoods

Proposition

Today cities are being rebuilt, buildings are being rehabilitated, and neighbourhoods revitalised. To assure sustainability, this regeneration must go beyond technical solutions, taking changes in behaviour, environmental and economic development into account.

Description

The objective of the project is to develop a new approach together with the necessary tools to promote sustainable development and the quality of life at the crucial and challenging level of urban neighbourhoods. HQE²R aims at providing decision aid tools for municipalities and their local partners, focussing on the goals of the inhabitants and users of neighbourhoods.
The elements taken into account in the development of this approach and of tools are:

• improving the quality of the built environment (especially comfort and reduction of costs-in-use and of maintenance for buildings)
• improving the quality of life through urban development which respects the environment
• controlling costs and applying management methods
• controlling urban sprawl by managing space, mobility and the use of public transportation

With its integrated approach, the project aims to provide a framework which can be generally applied in European cities.

Methodology

To achieve its goals, the HQE²R project is combining research and demonstration aspects, developing the new approach in close co-operation with 15 local authorities, on 14 neighbourhoods' case studies.

In each neighbourhood, the working group is accompanying municipalities through the main phases of their neighbourhood regeneration projects, i.e. neighbourhood analysis (inventory, diagnosis, and setting of strategic priorities), action plan working out (generation and choice of scenarios) and implementation and monitoring (projects upon the open spaces and on buildings and their monitoring.

The working group is helping municipalities introducing sustainable development in each regeneration projects phases:

• by ensuring a neighbourhood shared diagnosis for SD, a setting of SD priorities and SD objectives
• by including SD in the generation of scenarios and in their assessment
• by ensuring the working out and the implementation and monitoring of SD projects

The working group aims to tackle the following problems in a sustainable manner:

• How to foster residents and users participation
• How to preserve and enhance built and natural heritage and conserve resources (energy, water, land space, materials)
• How to improve the quality of the local environment (housing and building quality, risk management, air quality, etc.)
• How to ensure diversity
• How to improve integration of the neighbourhood in the city
• How to reinforce social life

Knowledge dissemination

As HQE²R deals with sustainable development for buildings and neighbourhoods, it aims at sharing information on the results through the entire duration of the project with a large and diverse audience, ranging from city managers to citizens, as well as architects, urban planners and other promoters.

Communication is of different sorts:

• Dissemination: communication done in the context of the HQE²R project presenting its context, its advances and its results (leaflets, newsletters, deliverables, etc.)
• Partners Communication: dissemination on the HQE²R project by the partners but out of its context (oral presentation in a conference, article in a newspaper, thesis, etc.)
• News: sharing information out of the HQE²R project but that might be interesting and useful for it (publication of a book, announcement of a conference of another European project, etc.)

EU involvement

HQ2ER - 'Sustainable renovation of buildings for sustainable neighbourhoods' was a project financed by the European Commission under the Fifth R&D Framework Programme and led by Catherine Charlot-Validieu from CSTB (France).

Conclusions

The project supplies a HQE2R theoretical basis, an HQE2R global approach, and HQE2R tools for the implementation of neighbourhood regeneration or urban planning projects.

The different results of the project are related to the phases of a neighbourhood regeneration or urban planning project. The HQE2R tools enable improvement, completion of the normal practice and thus movement towards a sustainable neighbourhood regeneration or urban planning. This is why the HQE2R approach towards sustainability is structured according to the 4 main phases of a project.

The HQE2R theoretical basis and framework are:

• 6 sustainable development principles at the city scale (amongst the 28 principles of the Rio Declaration)
• the ISDIS system, i.e. a system of 5 main sustainable development objectives and 21 targets backed up by a system of 51 key issues with their 61 indicators for the neighbourhood and its buildings
• the participation of residents and inhabitants scale

The HQE2R approach towards sustainable neighbourhoods is structured according to the following 4 phases: decision, analysis – identification of priorities, scenarios development and assessment and setting up of the action plan and project monitoring.

The following HQE2R tools enable the project to have a sustainable approach: the ISDIS system, the analytical grid, the shared diagnosis method for SD, the recommendations to improve inhabitants and users participation, the recommendations for specifications for the Action Plan, the assessment tools and models, the specifications for non-built elements and the recommendations to integrate SD in the building process and monitoring indicators.

Contact info

Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment
84 Avenue Jean Jaurès
77447 Marne La Vallée Cedex 2, Champs sur Marne
France
http://www.cstb.fr
Daniela Belziti, tel. +33 1 64 68 82 44

Publication date

/09/2001

Project finished

/03/2004

Researcher

Catherine Charlot-Valdieu

Cities

ANGERS (FR)
ANZIN (FR)
BARCELONA (ES)
BRISTOL (UK)
CANNES (FR)
CINISELLO BALSAMO (IT)
DRESDEN (DE)
ECHIROLLES (FR)
FREDERIKSBERG (DK)
MANRESA (ES)
MANTOVA (IT)
MELEGNANO (IT)
VLISSINGEN (NL)