The skin for Torre Galfa. A proposal for the sustainable renovation of a high rise building curtain wall

Facing to the situation that there are so many heritage buildings being non-used and underused, we try to review the problem of adaptive reuse and preservation. Though adaptive reuse has been widely accepted, the role of preservation in the process is still not clear. In the first part of the thesis, two perspectives -preservation and adaptive reuse- have been re-examined. On the base of the combination of these two perspectives, our strategy tries to use the method of “skeleton” to realize the alternation of many possible uses, indoor public uses, in the end, vitalize the heritage building. The strategy clarifies the conservation work in the adaptive reuse of heritage building and provides the approach for the process of the adaptive reuse. In the second part of the thesis, we focus on the high-rise buildings renovation and the curtain wall refurbishment. Curtain wall refurbishment is the basic and common problem of the high-rise buildings renovation. The problems of the curtain wall are complex and the treatment for refurbishment is not unified. After the analysis of the cases and their methodologies, we try to establish a scientific process and approach for the façade refurbishment and apply them to the case of Torre Galfa. Different options are analyzed and compared according to different ways of evaluation. Balancing the different aspects is the indispensable step for the final decision making of this complicated problem. With the increasing number of the high-rise renovation projects, the research about the façade refurbishment could give a comprehensive base for the various cases; at the same time, the case of Torre Galfa could be an example for the practical work.