COST Action CA16114: REthinking Sustainability TOwards a Regenerative Economy (RESTORE)

Grant holder institution: Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy
Duration: March 9, 2017 – April 30, 2021
EIZ member: Željka Kordej-De Villa, Management Committee member for Croatia / Management Committee Member (http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/ca/CA16114?management)


RESTORE (REthinking Sustainability TOwards a Regenerative Economy) is an EU Cost Action that will advocate for a paradigm shift towards restorative sustainability for new and existing buildings across Europe. It will promote forward thinking and multidisciplinary knowledge, leading to solutions that celebrate the richness of design creativity while enhancing users’ experience, comfort, health, wellbeing and satisfaction inside and outside buildings, and in harmony with urban and natural ecosystems, reconnecting users to nature.


Goals of the COST Action: Sustainable buildings and facilities are critical to a future that is socially just, ecologically restorative, culturally rich and economically viable within the climate change context. Despite over a decade of strategies and programs, progress on built environment sustainability fails to address these key issues. Within the built environment sustainability agenda a shift is occurring, from a narrow focus on building energy performance, mitigation strategies, and minimization of environmental impacts to a broader framework that enriches places, people, ecology, culture, and climate at the core of the design task, with particular emphasis on the benefits towards health. The RESTORE COST action aims to advocate, mentor and influence restorative built environment sustainability through work groups, training schools (including learning design competitions) and Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs). The RESTORE Action aims to: increase knowledge, collaboration and timely knowledge transfer among research centers, universities, education entities, companies, NGOs and the built environment related industry sectors; pre-develop new compulsory design approaches, processes and technologies that can build and improve upon existing best practices; create and reinforce a European network of skilled professionals (architects, engineers, constructors, urban planners, academics, sustainability practitioners etc.) who able to face the complexity of a broader agenda of environmental strategies; foster continued collaboration beyond the completion of the RESTORE action. The network members are change agents. Action also aim to include the restorative sustainability criteria within the education curricula, thus preparing the next generations of building practitioners; stimulate major academic research focus on restorative approaches to design; this is founded on multidisciplinary research collaborations. 

Participants of the COST action: Researches from European countries (Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Island, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom), USA and New Zealand. 

Chair of the Cost Action: Carlo Battisti, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy. 
Vice-chair of the Cost Action: Martin Brown, Fairsnape, Preston, UK.
Science officer of the Cost Action: Estelle Emeriau, COST, Brussels, Belgium.
Administrative officer of the Cost Action: Aranzazu Sanchez, COST, Brussels, Belgium.   


For more details refer to: http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/ca/CA16114.