Strategies of building stock renovation for ageing society

•Value of building stock as social and cultural capital.•Thermal refurbishment using interior insulation is most fitting to the requirements of sustainability.•Lean structural refurbishment combined with thermal refurbishment provides optimal life-cycle performance.•Assisted living can be enabled from the surplus resulting from reduction of the need for institutional care.

The existing building stock has an immense impact on preserving a social, economic and ecologic sustainability – especially in Central Europe with low rates of new construction. This paper focuses on life-cycle based renovation strategies considering not only structural and thermal refurbishment, but also the social aspects of an ageing society needs, as well as a preservation of cultural heritage.For a case study of a specific housing block of the Red Vienna historic period, several refurbishment variants were developed and evaluated in a quantitative as well as qualitative way for the economic (life cycle costs and yields), ecologic (CO2 emissions) and socio-cultural impacts (monument protection, accessibility, assisted living).According to the research, there are great potentials in structural refurbishment of the building stock for support of assisted living models. These prove to be substantially more cost efficient than the institutional care, providing a better comfort for the inhabitants, as well as the necessary social mix by a trans-generation housing in the social housing facilities.