OLD BUILDINGS, NEW CITIES: Energy renovation strategies for the historic residential stock of Brussels

This papers aims to provide a vision of integrating the possibilities of Renewable energy in today´s society with respect to the cultural and architectural aspects of the buildings.It stresses the role of renovation and implementation of renewable energy strategies in historic residential buildings in Brussels as the main element to achieve energy efficiency targets. In addition, it will elaborate on the need to develop a methodology to assure success during the renovation of historical residential buildings from design phase.A new vision of Brussels Capital Region is offered where buildings are conceived as a stock rather than individual entities. This approach seeks to contextualize the heritage value and to achieve important improvements of the energy performance in order to highlight the importance and relevance of retrofitting the old residential building sector.Resulting from the respect for the historical elements of the buildings, this paper will be divided into the exterior and interior changes of the building.