- ≈50%
- of residential buildings were built up to 1980
- 3.1%
- built between 2011 and 2021
- ≈2%
- building area renovated with an energy-efficiency focus relative to 2018, ELPRE monitoring
Experience is not repeating the past. It is using the past to make better decisions today.
Experience does not mean doing everything the same way forever.
Twenty years ago, many solutions used in homes were perfectly normal. They would still function today. That does not mean they would still be the first choice.
Materials have evolved. Energy-performance requirements have increased. Technology has changed. Perhaps most importantly, the way we expect to live in buildings has changed too.
Energy performance is no longer secondary
Europe has progressively raised building energy-performance requirements, and Portugal implements that framework through its building energy certification system and associated legislation.
Insulation, solar control, airtightness, ventilation, efficient equipment and renewable energy now enter the conversation much earlier. That has a direct impact on architecture and construction.
The housing stock shows why this matters
The 2021 Census shows that around half of Portugal’s residential buildings were built up to 1980. A significant share of the population therefore lives in buildings designed before current expectations for comfort and energy performance.
Portugal’s Long-Term Building Renovation Strategy reported that the area of buildings renovated with an energy-efficiency focus was close to only 2% relative to 2018. This is one reason why energy renovation and adaptation of existing buildings will be so important over the coming decades.
What does the 2050 horizon suggest?
Portugal’s energy authority developed the JANUS B model to study the evolution of the national residential building stock, distinguishing between unrenovated, partially renovated and deeply renovated buildings.
Its scenarios support analysis of pathways towards a highly efficient residential sector with greater thermal comfort, very high use of renewables and very low operational emissions. This is not a prediction of what will automatically happen; it is a planning tool for assessing possible pathways.
We have changed too
Twenty years ago, a home office could be an exception. Today it may be a requirement. Kitchens have increasingly become social spaces. Indoor-outdoor connections matter more. Acoustic comfort, lighting, connectivity and energy performance carry greater weight.
Building to last means anticipating that evolution.
More than 20 years of experience should help us build better today
It means knowing which problems have already occurred, understanding which details caused defects, recognising which decisions looked small during construction but created consequences years later — while remaining open to new materials and new systems.
That combination is what matters.
