A sustainable design strategy for the restoration of historical buildings

Abstract The present paper firstly deals with the steel structures contribution to existing building safety factor increase. In a second stage, the response of the structural masonry–steel system after rehabilitation of the whole building with additional steel roofs is analyzed. The building at hand was chosen as a representative sample of the architectural wealth of the plethora of the so-called neoclassical buildings available in the town of Veria. The analysis includes a description of the building's characteristics and pathologies, with an estimation of the structural performance under an optimization process when using steel structures for its enhancement. The last part of the paper concerns conclusions, recommendations and proposals for renovation, maintenance, strengthening and extension of historic buildings of this type.