Urban Retrofit: EPOUrban Project Enably Private Owners of residential building to integrate them into Urban restructuring processes

The article presents the experience of the city of Bolzano in the transnational cooperation project called EPOurban Central Europe. The Project "Enabling Private Owners of Residential Buildings to Integrate them into Urban Restructuring Processes" intends to overcome the ongoing changes by making available instruments for the activation of private owners in order to integrate them into housing and urban development strategies. Specifically, the city of Bolzano has finalized its activities to the multi-disciplinary consultancy, technical, economic and financial, aimed at retrofitting the energy efficiency of apartment buildings in line with the guidelines of the Master Plan and the Plan CO2 neutral. The urban retrofit of the existing cities is evidence that society is able to innovate without destroying the roots on which it stands. It means respect and coherence that contrasts with the increasing unbalance of our environment. We need to rethink the refurbished buildings as sinks of energy and primary sources, such as opportunities rather than problems to solve, such as tools that preserve material and energy without consuming them. Hence, it is not only a technical matter, but a new approach for the sustainability of the refurbishment. In its design, conservation and modernity are two contradictory terms. The positive connotation that in recent years the term conservation has, as a synonym for the preservation of monuments and historical memory before then, it is often in contrast with the concept of modernity, namely the scientific innovation that departs from what has already been done to change. Simplicity, accuracy and technique are three guidelines for the design of the energy refurbishment of buildings. Simplicity to facilitate design flexibility for future interventions and maximize cost-effectiveness, accuracy and the ability to highlight the scope of intervention, technology as a tool to explore new methods and solve the relationship between building and project that is the weakest link in the process. The urban retrofit of the existing cities stock becomes an action able to measure the ability of a society to build its own culture with the heart turned to what it was and with the brain turned to what will be.