Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie

The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” is a National Project in the Netherlands. The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” consists of approximately 60 large monumental buildings (fortifications), hundreds of smaller build objects, and 42.000 ha of land. The Dutch provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland, Zuid-Holland, Noord-Holland and Noord-Brabant cooperate in the project bureau “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie”. And together with private investors they are investing tens of millions of euro in the deep renovation of the historic buildings of the “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie”. Next to these monumental buildings, these provinces also invest in the renovation en re-furbishment of hundreds of other monuments (as an owner or as funder), like churches, industrial heritage and (former) public buildings.

The “project bureau Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” is seeking ways to maximize the return on investment; not only in terms of sustainability, heritage conservation and management results, also in terms of research and innovation. Because energy is seen as the key to sustainable management and conservation of the historic buildings and structures, the “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” is constantly seeking for innovative and optimised design and implementation of sustainable energy strategies.

Experience

The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” has almost 10 years of experience in development and implementation of innovative and affordable building renovation solutions for historic buildings (mainly listed monuments) on both building and district level. The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” collects and develops (scientifically funded) operational and practical knowledge and cooperate in several EU projects (like the interregC project AT FORT) and organised several conferences on this theme (in 2009 and 2013).

On behalf of “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” the province of Utrecht is coordinator of the Climate KIC project ReFoMo, which is about the development of products and services for climate proof refurbishment and renovation of monumental buildings (like techniques for diagnosis of buildings, building materials, monitoring and control technologies and systems). In this project the Province of Utrecht/Hollandse Waterlinie cooperates with Arcadis, Utrecht Sustainability Institute, NEGOS (HU), the centre for applied research – Buildings and Construction (CIRI), University of Bologna (UNIBO), AIDICO Instituto Tecnológico de la Construcción, Spain (Technological Institute of Construction) and Utrecht University. See also: http://www.climate-kic.org/projects/reduced-footprints-of-monumental-structures-landscapes-and-buildings/

Potential role

The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” is looking for new tools, techniques and instruments for energy strategies for historic buildings that can be tested in one or more of it’s historical objects. Case studies can be delivered for:

• testing innovative and affordable building renovation solutions on both building and district level;
• testing and piloting innovative approaches for stakeholder involvement and process design;
• testing new design and implementation process of renovation projects on both building and district level. The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” experiences that there are some techniques, instruments and tools available, but they’re not ready to be implemented in (military) heritage buildings.

Next to this, the “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” can offer it’s reservoir of operational knowledge on both technical and process aspects of the development and implementation of energy strategies for renovation of historical buildings. The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” can also offer it’s extensive European network of national and regional public and private organizations involved in climate proof renovation of monumental buildings and structures.