Making Sustainable Architecture Work

With the New European Bauhaus (NEB), the European Union complements the economic, social and environmental measures of the Renovation Wave strategy with an essential cultural dimension. By making the Renovation Wave a cultural project, and by including architectural quality as a key principle to steer it, the Commission has initiated a fundamental shift, which can be a game-changer in the transition to a more sustainable economy and society. 

It opens the door to a more holistic approach to our built environment, seeking to enhance, at the same time, economic, social, environmental and cultural values. The holistic thinking and cultural approach that underpins the NEB must lie at the heart of the Renovation Wave strategy and inspire all its measures to raise the full potential of the strategy and achieve a ‘quality renovation wave’, making a difference in people’s minds and quality of life, and achieving Europe’s climate neutrality objective. 

In this context, and while the EU is embarked on the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) – certainly the most critical EU piece of legislation that will set the pace of decarbonisation of the EU building stock for the next decade, the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) is organising a public workshop in order to discuss:

• the crucial contribution of architecture to scale up the Renovation Wave and achieve quality in the built environment,
• the necessary changes to the EU regulatory framework to support the architectural approach, quality and the achievement of the NEB ambitions.

In the spirit of the NEB, which calls for a cross-disciplinary approach, the event will bring together representatives from various EU Commission Directorates-General, for a conversation with various stakeholders, researchers and professionals from the built environment on the legislative levers for greater quality in the built environment, with a special focus on this occasion on the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.