Structurae

Existing buildings - Potentials of lightweight design of steel structures.
The sustainable utilization of urban areas and existing buildings is currently becoming extremely important. Studies prove that aspects such as the refurbishment and restoration of existing buildings will be the challenge of future. Urban concentration, modernization and redevelopment will lead to a growing market and will initiate manifold fields of application for steel and lightweight steel structures. The enormous advantages of steel can only be utilized if a wide fundamental knowledge basis, planning tools, and criteria for a sustainability assessment are provided for architects and engineers. These planning instruments must meet interdisciplinary and holistic requirements as well as city planning and architectural demands.
Aspects of building physics, structural solutions, building process concerns, real estate assessment and sustainability assessment within the life cycle shall be addressed in this interdisciplinary research project. The project presented in this paper is part of a research cluster and a first insight in the objectives and methodology used will be provided here. Supervised by an industrial and scientific committee, the NASTA research cluster was established to support essential innovations and to improve steel applications [1].