Nottingham is famous for the legend of Robin Hood and lace-making. But it’s also helping to revolutionise how we get around.

Torrelago is one of the largest residential districts in Europe. Located in the Spanish city Laguna de Duero , near Valladolid , it consists of  31 blocks of flats with more than 4,000 residents. ...

Good news for those planning to build a new home: novel insulation materials based on plant waste , such as straw, clay and grasses could offer 20% better insulation than traditional materials.

Experts believe that by 2030 more than 6 billion people will live in urban areas , which means 7 0% of global population . It is about time that cities make their buildings smarter : more efficient, green and livable.

Making a city or district energy smart is, first and foremost, an exercise in good planning . However, such green planning tools are still in their infancy. The trouble is that every city is different, every district unique.

Innovative technologies can be used to retrofit old buildings as a means to save energy. This is precisely what the Bricker project is aiming to achieve.

Nordic countries have achieved a great independence from fossils because of their widespread district heating systems. District heating is a smart way to avoid using fossil fuels to heat buildings .

Cities have started to join forces to become more energy efficient . This trends stems from the findings of the first climate assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 1990, which was quite alarming.

One of the  biggest challenges of retrofitting projects  is to make them attractive to residents. Now, one of them, the EU-funded project R2CITIES,  is analysing the initial first feedback received from residents  of the  Cuatro de Marzo  district.

These weather conditions are a challenge to construct a smart building that can save energy throughout the year.

To tackle climate change, new buildings are required to consume as little energy as possible . That’s because, in Europe, buildings are responsible for about 40% of our energy consumption.

Cuatro de Marzo is a district in the southern part of the Spanish city of Valladolid. It is a dense residential area with 190 privately-owned dwellings, developed in 1955.

In a strategic plan for the municipality, the town council of Valladolid , in Spain, has given top priority to the renovation of its heritage buildings to achieve nearly zero energy districts.

Retroffiting older buildings has become an industry in its own right in Europe. To compete, various players need to innovate.

There is nothing like the real world to reveal a project’s true worth. This is why a project called BRICKER will test its mettle out by retrofitting public buildings situated in three different countries in three different climatic zones .

Civil servants of the Government of Extremadura, located in Mérida, Spain, will have to work under challenging conditions when retrofitting public buildings with technological solutions based on renewable energy.

In the district of Hol, located west of Oslo, a church built in 1920 was renovated to become energy efficient for as little cost as possible, while respecting its status as a historical monument.

Reducing the energy requirements of buildings is an absolute priority in Europe. The energy demonstration project SARA has developed several public-access eco-buildings in France, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, UK and Uzbekistan.

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.