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Purpose The need to speed up and simplify the practice of transformation and the topic of reuse is crucial in Italy. The purpose of this paper is to compare successful cases of reuse into housing in Italy and the Netherlands, in order to suggest improvements to the Italian situation. Design/methodology/approach Previous research at the University of Pavia showed the need to change living standards for new residential buildings. This research focusses on existing buildings and gives a comparative analysis of the Italian and Dutch legislation for residential buildings. Interviews with professionals have been conducted in Italy and the Netherlands to better understand the differences and problems related to housing regulations. Good examples of reuse into housing have been studied to define common guidelines for intervention. Findings The findings describe the building regulations in Italy and the Netherlands concerning adaptive reuse, and reveals differences between the two countries. Furthermore, the possibilities and barriers for the reuse of existing buildings are highlighted. Practical implications Lessons are drawn from both contexts, and finally suggestions for improvement of the regulatory system are made for Italy and the Netherlands. Originality/value This paper aims at revealing the opportunities and barriers of reuse in Italy and the Netherlands. So far, studies were performed to reveal the feasibility of adaptive reuse, though none of these focussed specifically on legal issues. No sufficient studies are performed so far on reuse into housing in Italy, and the comparison of the regulatory systems of the two countries is novel.

To achieve the “well below 2 degrees” targets, a new ecosystem needs to be defined where citizens become more active, co-managing with relevant stakeholders, the government, and third parties. This means moving from the traditional concept of citizens-as-consumers towards energy citizenship. Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) will be the test-bed area where this transformation will take place through social, technological, and governance innovation. This paper focuses on benefits and barriers towards energy citizenships and gathers a diverse set of experiences for the definition of PEDs and Local Energy Markets from the Horizon2020 Smart Cities and Communities projects: Making City, Pocityf, and Atelier.

Ninety percent of the existing building stock in Europe was built before 1990. These buildings are in urgent need for a significant improvement of energy-efficiency through renovation. State-of-the-art renovation solutions are available, but costly and lengthy renovation processes and incomprehensible technical complexities hinder the achievement of a wide impact at a European scale. This paper presents a research on Plug-and-Play (PnP) technologies supported by Building Information Modelling (BIM) to provide affordable, interchangeable and quick-installation solutions to overcome the main barriers of building deep renovation.

At present European buildings typically consume two to five times more energy than predicted at the design stage. An important cause of this performance gap is the discrepancies between the design specification and the As-Built condition. Such discrepancies are mainly due to the gaps in knowhow between design, production and construction professionals. Design is more and more contained into a virtual environment and loses touch with the physical production and construction sites. As the construction sector enters the Industry 4.0 era, Building Information Modelling (BIM) based Mixed Reality can intertwine virtual and real worlds to bridge the knowhow gaps.