# Integrated Deep Renovation of Existing Buildings with Prefabricated Shell Exoskeleton
## 1 Introduction and Research Motivation
of these principles are defined in the Level(s) framework [10], in the guidelines for Green Public Procurement (GPP) [11], in the Green Building Rating System credits (e.g., LEED, DGNB, etc. ), or in specific guidelines. Examples of design principles following a life cycle approach are: design for the eco-efficiency of materials, design for reducing construction site impacts, design for durability and maintenance, design for adaptability and renovation, design for deconstruction, reuse and recycling. When considering a life cycle perspective for the design, all the possible scenarios experienced by the building throughout its life cycle should thus be taken into account; such scenarios vary as a function of the building typology and use, as well as of the building site. Depending on the building typology and use, scenarios connected to its maintenance or to its adaptation should be considered; while considering the building site, all the possible hazard scenarios should be addressed as a function of the actual hazard risk, both at a local and a regional scale (Figure 1). As a matter of fact, while sustainability is the leading-edge goal everywhere in the world, the actions aimed at achieving such a goal are necessarily site-dependent. In the case of buildings located in European countries, for example, the need to reduce/avoid environmental, economic, and social impacts connected to the possible occurrence of earthquakes or floods cannot be disregarded; in other countries, where droughts represent the major issues, water use and fire resistance may become critical. In these cases, new principles to reduce the possible losses due to hazardous events should be included in the preliminary stages of the design. In this paper, the AdESA system, a new technique for the holistic and sustainable renovation of the existing building stock, is presented. The name AdESA is indeed the Italian acronym for \"Adeguamento Energetico Sismico ed Architettonico\", which means \"Energy Seismic and Architectural Retrofit\", and it is conceived in compliance with the life cycle thinking principles. AdESA is a dry retrofit technique consisting of a shell exoskeleton applied to the existing building, composed of 1, 2, or 3 layers depending on the building needs and on the retrofit's main aims (structural retrofit, energy efficiency amelioration, architectural restyling), which can be easily adapted to different climatic and seismic zones. The shell exoskeleton is conceived as modular to adapt to different geometries and be flexible enough to adapt to possible future building needs. In order to overcome the barriers to the renovation and increase the actual renovation rate, the solution is conceived to be applied completely from the outside, reducing the time for the application and avoiding possible building downtime and the relocation of inhabitants, which are considered the major barriers to renovation [12; 13]. The system is thus conceived to be applied for the holistic renovation of post-World War II buildings, often located in the urban outskirts and requiring architectural renovation, and it is not intended to be applied to either historical buildings or construction subject to preservation restrictions. In this paper, the concept of the AdESA system is first described; then, the solution is applied to a real case study, a 50-year-old gymnasium located in Brescia, a city in a seismic-prone area in northern Italy (ag = 0.168) [14] and Climatic Zone E (HDD = 2410) [15].