ICT enabled, sustainable and affordable residential building construction, design to end of life (IA 50%)

The poor energy performance features that buildings may exhibit can be due not only to the characteristics of the building materials used, but also to the use of traditional or unsuitable construction processes. Therefore, the building process needs to benefit from an increased level of industrialisation, including for instance lean construction and higher degree of prefabrication. This is especially true in the case of building retrofitting where the traditional construction methods are not able to plan in advance all the problems to be solved in the variety of renovation sites. Using ICT as an enabler in the building process and operation is a way to meet the challenges. ICT solutions need to incorporate the design, manufacturing, construction, material choice (including reusability, environmental performance and cost aspects), operation and end of life phases affecting the overall building lifecycle. The closer integration of ICT based-building construction tools into the manufacturing, construction and operation phases has a strong impact on the overall building lifecycle, and it will also help reducing the performance gap.

Scope

Existing generic software tools have limited flexibility and lack interoperability concerning models and design cultures. Vertically integrated life cycle design is still missing, mainly due to a fragmented design culture across the various disciplines. ICT tools should be provided for energy and environmental performance related design, analysis and decision-making in early planning phases for new buildings or renovation of buildings. Clear evidence of technical and economic viability should be provided by validating and demonstrating the proposed ICT-driven construction processes in either new or retrofitting projects. For existing buildings, significant effort will be required to first retrieve all relevant information, and to compile and structure it in a meaningful form to be used by new solutions.

Proposals should:

• Develop an advanced digitalised and industrialised construction and building process utilising smart combinations of materials/components;
• Assess the overall life cycle of construction, in order to deliver more efficient buildings in terms of sustainability and construction, maintenance and operation costs;
• Provide for fully integrated systems to be compact, exchangeable, and easy to commission and to operate and demonstrate business solutions for operating such building life-time ICT solutions.

Proposals should include Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) elements regarding public perception and acceptance of advanced building life solutions at the level of the construction sector in Europe.

Proposals submitted under this topic should include actions designed to facilitate cooperation with other projects; to enhance user involvement; and to ensure the accessibility and reusability of data produced in the course of the project.

Activities should start at TRL 5 and achieve TRL 7 at the end of the project.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 6 and 8 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

As an exception from General Annex D, the funding rate for eligible costs in grants awarded under this topic will be differentiated: 100% of the eligible costs for beneficiaries and linked third parties that are non-profit legal entities; and 50% of the eligible costs for beneficiaries and linked third parties that are for profit legal entities.

Expected Impact

Proposals should achieve all of the following:

• Reduction of CO2 with 15-20% for the total life-cycle compared to current situation shown through Life Cycle Assessment;
• Construction cost reductions of at least 15% compared to current situation;
• Buildings shortened construction time (reduced by at least 10-15% compared to current State of the art);
• Reduction of the gap between predicted and actual energy consumption;
• Improved indoor environment;
• Significantly improved integration of the value chain (design, procurement, manufacturing, construction, operation and maintenance);
• Contribution to new standards and regulations;
• Demonstration of large scale replicability potential.

Relevant indicators and metrics, with baseline values, should be clearly stated in the proposal.

Cross-cutting Priorities

• Contractual Public-Private Partnerships (cPPPs)
• EeB
• Clean Energy
• Open Innovation
• Socio-economic science and humanities