Façadism and CLT technology: an innovative system for masonry construction refurbishment

The refurbishment of existing buildings is an increasingly topic of interest considering the economic context and the new needs of environmental sustainability. A huge part of the Italian building heritage consists of masonry constructions. The requalification of these buildings is mainly focused on the increase of the structural safety levels, although recent advances in research pave the way to further improvements in a technological and energy saving upgrade. This paper proposes a method for the requalification of masonry constructions, in particular for those with historical and architectural constrains in order to allow the safeguard of the building historical memory and the urban context. The method leads a building up to performance and functional levels comparable with those of a new construction by means of a standard process that ensures the building quality with definite costs and timescales. The proposed system concerns in the application of façadism technique with the re-construction of the internal body using CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) technology. This paper focuses on the study of performance and technology of the proposed construction system analysing the main technical details, with particular regards to the connection between the new structure and the existing façade. The analytical assessments carried out show that the proposed solutions widely satisfy the fixed goals from a thermal, hygrometrical and acoustic point of view. Moreover, the application of the façadism, combined with the industrialized CLT technology, can help to reduce the on-site mistakes and uncertainty.