Making the case for renovation instead of demolition

Florian Hertweck, a professor of architecture at the University of Luxembourg and an architect at the firm Less Yellow, is part of a European effort to encourage the renovation instead of demolition buildings.

The issue has become a core concern within the field, Hertweck said in an interview with the Luxembourg Times, at a time when space for housing seems scarce.

“Until 1975, which was the European Year of Heritage Protection, demolition was the norm, nobody cared about anything, even highly valued heritage buildings,” Hertweck said. With that milestone, a paradigm shift occurred. “An awareness was created that we should care about historic buildings, and then with the ecological crisis, it became more and more evident that we cannot continue to demolish existing buildings.”

Demolishing a building is about more than just tearing down bricks. “It’s an obvious ecological issue as well as a social issue because often demolition and reconstruction go together with gentrification. Of course, the impact is also economical as the idea of transformative reuse, is boosting smaller structures, both architectural offices and craftsmen,” the professor said.

At his architecture firm, the focus is now on “transformative reuse”. That is reflected in the name. “Yellow is the international colour code in plans and building permits for what has to be demolished. So, if you say ‘less yellow’, the statement is, of course, to avoid demolition.”

At the University of Luxembourg, he chairs the Master’s programme in architecture which addresses urban planning and design, with a strong focus on the social-ecological transition.

“With our students, we’ve mainly worked on the Luxembourg region,” he said. “You see in many villages and small towns, there’s a lot of demolition ongoing and sometimes there is even no historic centre anymore and this continues to happen.”

Florian Hertweck is one of the advocates for the HouseEurope! project © Photo credit: University of Luxembourg

Luxembourg in 2022 adopted updated cultural heritage laws, which created an inventory of architectural heritage and criteria for being considered part of that list and adjusting different classification levels.

Often when old buildings are torn down, this is to build more housing in the same space, a “mainstream solution to the housing shortage,” said Hartweck. “There is the idea that you can only produce the necessary affordable housing units if you demolish and reconstruct more densely.” But there is enough land and property available in theory to avoid this from happening, he said. “By adding one or two storeys on 10% of the existing building stock in Luxembourg, you can host a 100,000 people.”

The HouseEurope! initiative

Hertweck is one of the advocates of the HouseEurope! project, a citizens’ initiative that aims to collect one million signatures across the EU calling for laws encouraging renovation instead of demolition. If that goal is achieved, the European Commission must examine the proposals, which make three core demands.

Reduce VAT on renovation: “Luxembourg is interesting because there already is an existing reduction to three per cent but this applies to private individuals and is also limited. So, we want a reduction for all renovation projects,” Hertweck said.

Grey energy: “There are different types of energy involved in a building,” said Hertweck. Grey energy is the energy used in construction, which is separate from the energy required to use the building or to demolish and recycle it later on. Tearing down usable buildings is a waste of grey energy that could be conserved if more effort was put into refurbishment and reuse.

Financing: “If an investor goes to the bank to build a new project, the risks for a new building on a greenfield are deemed lower than risks related to transformative reuse projects,” Hertweck said. “People only see the risks and not the opportunities, so we plead for a fairer evaluation of these transformative reuse projects that highlight their benefits.”

“Ultimately, our proposition is not to forbid anything, because there will always be partial demolition, but it’s to boost renovation through the correct incentives and to shift the market, so to speak,” Hertweck said, adding that this would align with the Green New Deal which announced a renovation stimulus that has not yet materialised. Ar

Around 300 people attended a launch event for HouseEurope! in Luxembourg, a hopeful start to the initiative with has until January 2026 to collect the necessary signature.

“It was a positive atmosphere,” said Hertweck, with players like the Luxembourg Center for Architecture (Luca), architecture and engineering association OAI, the environmental group Mouvement écologique, architectural heritage institute INPA and other joining in. “Despite the ideological and disciplinary differences, they have all come together to support this initiative.”