How to Transform European Housing into Healthy and Sustainable Living Spaces? The RenovActive Principles Tackle Climate and Renovation Challenges

This renovation concept seeks to offer healthy, affordable, easy to reproduce, scalable solutions for the existing building stock of European housing. The concept was developed and tested in a prototype phase, where 7 principles have been applied to a semidetached house built in 1920s, situated in a garden city in Brussels. The prototype was now occupied by a family and monitored for two years. The monitoring was performed both through data, sensors and extensive interviews and questionnaires with the family. In general, living in the house is positively perceived by the family, who state they are very satisfied with the indoor environment, such as temperature, air quality and daylight. Sensor data results show a general indoor CO2-concentration below 900 ppm. Indoor temperature measurements vary between 21°C and 26°C. The occupants are very satisfied with the house, however the technical and sociological monitoring show there is further potential to optimise and improve indoor comfort levels and perception. There are discrepancies between setpoints and programming, based on predicted behaviours, and user actions and preferences in real life, as well as situational perceptions and culture. This goes to prove that technical systems operating the indoor environment must be both flexible and robust to accommodate for multiple and varying preferences of building inhabitants.