Going from modern energy efficient houses to historic buildings must have been a big leap for you.

Climate change is on everyone’s lips these days and the European Union, having decided to reduce its CO2-emmissions by at least half by 2050, is no exception.

Our future depends on energy, and as households and cars currently contribute to more than 50% of all energy consumption in the EU, new energy-efficient architecture can be an important approach to bring this percentage down.

In the city, the famous Cabanyal district which had been home to a local fishing community for a long time, has recently been transformed into a testing ground for numerous energy efficiency techniques.

Maguy Soldevila is a former art teacher. Some years ago, she quit the frenzy and the pollution of the French city of Lyon to move into a typical house of the 1960s, in the small village of Sail-sous-Couzan.

Cities, with their concentration of services, economic opportunity, mobility and social interaction, have proved endlessly attractive to humans.

Buildings stand at the epicentre of the climate change and sustainability debate, as discussions at the recent COP26 conference demonstrated.

In the world of invention, innovation and design, very little goes to waste. And in today’s ideas-hungry world, the achievements of decades past are all ripe for reimagination.

One of the main contributors of CO 2 emissions are the homes we live in. In the EU, buildings are responsible for 36% of CO 2 emissions and 40% of energy consumption.

Across Europe, town and city councils are becoming increasingly interested in energy decentralisation , i.e. in producing power closer to where it is consumed.

Efforts to make buildings environmentally sustainable often focus on the technical side, such as energy efficiency. But there is more to sustainability than just energy efficiency.

From thatched roofing in cold regions to reflective walls in hotter climates, for centuries buildings have been constructed with materials that maximize comfort within a given environment.