Focus on Finishes


Design and trends for contemporary finishing


What is retrofitting? Six signature projects, from Torre Galfa to MVRDV

To explore the key role of retrofitting in the definition of cities, Domus has selected six contemporary projects that have spatially and energetically redeveloped obsolete buildings, giving them new functional energies and enhancing (or rewriting) their visual identity.

After a long period of unbridled use of fossil energy sources and immoderate consumerism, indifferent to environmental impact, the contemporary era is experiencing a new “revolutionary” enthusiasm (after that for the steam engine and electricity): it is the turn of environmental sustainability that, especially in the building sector (among the most climate- and energy-intensive ones), opens up the field to design techniques and technologies to reduce the ecological footprint of the built fabric by maximising its energy efficiency and microclimatic comfort, while reducing consumption and management costs. A sensibility shared by current policies to contrast land consumption, which, for reasons of physical (and ethical) limits connected to the ever-decreasing availability of free land, are pushing for the regeneration of the existing building stock and to prolong its useful life cycle, where in the past demolition would have been more common.

The term “retrofitting”, as opposed to the more reductive “renovation”, has been adopted by the market to indicate the upgrading of existing buildings to current technical standards not only from a spatial point of view but also from a technological one, through the replacement or improvement of partitions, closures, elements and systems to enhance functionality, energy performance and sometimes even the architectural aspect of the building.

The enclosure, as the interface between interior and exterior and the surface potentially at risk of the greatest dispersions, is a central theme in retrofit interventions: thermo-acoustic insulation, sealing of windows and doors, solar shading, and reduction of heat loss are essential design issues in the compositional process.

Domus has tracked down some famous examples of architecture awaiting renovation and resurrected by brilliant retrofit operations: from “philological” interventions on iconic buildings (Park Associati, Gioiaotto; Bg&k, Torre GalFa; McAslan+Partners and Arup, Burrell Collection; G-Studio, Villa Rossi), to those “freed” from formal constraints that completely rewrite the visual and fruitive identity of anonymous or degraded buildings (Lacaton&Vassal, Grand Parc; Mvrdv, Haus1).

Cover: Studio bg&k associati, Torre GalFa, Milan, Italy 2021. Photo Courtesy of Studio bg&k associati

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