Potentials and Perspectives of Off-Site Technologies for the Existing Building Heritage in Italy

Department of PDTA, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

Abstract: New systems of industrial production with the innovative materials and technological evolved systems contribute to the increase of the construction quality of the finished product: from a single technical element to the whole building. The new perspectives of the industrialization process manufacturing, for the purpose of upgrading the energy efficiency, offer, in fact, a wide range of possibilities on the existing intervention with the purpose of the remedy for the low levels of performance and re-placing a product on the market which an increased value in the face of greater energy efficiency. The main factors that affect the feasibility and type of intervention are three: price, time of realization and payback times. In light of this, the building sector changes more and more quickly its nature: from on-site becomes off-site moving from the yard to the factory where, by binding to the manufacturing processes, implements the effectiveness of the construction industry and secures greater results in terms of energy retrofit. A change that affects industrial processes, products and construction sites increasingly oriented towards the aggregation of prefabricated or semi-prefabricated elements instead of on-field construction.