Improve the future, renovate the past: A research on improving the balance between cultural value, sustainability, and costs in industrial heritage renovation projects

Industrial heritage buildings are a significant part of the total building stock. Most of these buildings have a higher energy consumption. This means that it will have a positive impact on the climate when these buildings are renovated. Next to that, the vacancy of heritage buildings, especially industrial heritage, is increasing. In the early 1900 industrial buildings were placed on the edge of a city. Now that cities are expanding they are becoming obsolete and near the city centre. After renovating these buildings they can be reused and will benefit the surroundings. These buildings have certain cultural values and are part of the cultural heritage. This is why it is valuable to maintain their cultural values during a renovation. This can be complex if there is a lack of knowledge about the different renovation measures. To lower the threshold of these renovation projects a research is done with the main question: ‘How can a decision-support model be created that analyses renovation measures to improve the balance between costs, sustainability, and cultural values in industrial heritage renovation projects?’. The focus is laid on several aspects: cultural values, sustainability, heritage laws, costs, and technique. The research will be done based on literature reviews, empirical research containing case studies and an operational research conducted during an internship at ABT. The goal is to create a model that supports decision making by weighing the impact of different renovation measures on the aspects costs, sustainability, and cultural value in a renovation project. This will result in an overview of which measures, such as applying insulation, will be best to use during a renovation project