Within REDESIGN project (Harmonized renovation methodology for the worst-performing public buildings in CEE region), on 3 November 2026 REA North held the online webinar Bioclimatic Design and Construction Quality Assurance, intended for designers, engineers and representatives of local and regional self-government units. The webinar focused on designing zero-emission buildings (ZEB) using bioclimatic design and on construction quality assurance.
The introductory presentation outlined the key challenges in the renovation of public buildings: a low renovation rate of around 1% of the building stock per year, energy-inefficient buildings, a lack of institutional and technical capacity, and dependence on fossil fuels. The rules on Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) were also explained, under which 16% of the worst-performing public buildings must be renovated by 2030.
Within OUR-CEE project (Overcoming Underperforming Renovations in Central and Eastern Europe), existing and newly proposed financial instruments for the energy renovation of public buildings were presented. They are set out in a handbook that provides a comprehensive overview of funding sources and financing models for the energy renovation of public buildings.
A professor Bojan Milovanovic from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Civil Engineering then compared design principles under the nZEB and ZEB standards with the principles of bioclimatic design. He also presented the use of renewable energy sources, smart materials and materials with a reduced environmental impact in public buildings.
The second part of the webinar presented blower-door testing as a method for testing the airtightness of a public building’s envelope. Participants learned about the testing systems and the construction phase in which the test needs to be carried out. Methods for detecting air leakage points and identifying airtightness solutions were also presented. REDESIGN and OUR-CEE projects are funded by the European Climate Initiative (EUKI).
