Sustainability in the strengthening process of the load-bearing historical structures

Preservation of the load-bearing historical structures represents a common research topic nowadays, as it stands a provocative and difficult task. At the same time, sustainability represents a concept of high interest in the light of recent climate change events, a concept that has become a responsibility in the past years. Safeguarding of the historical buildings with heritage value is an obligation of society to be able to pass on to future generations the historical cultural value of the buildings and the traditional construction techniques on which they were built. Nowadays, many historical buildings are consolidated with modern reversible materials and technologies, without attempting a sustainable consolidation with local traditional materials using the original building techniques and local building materials, which have already proved their effectiveness in the past. This article presents the sustainable consolidation methods proposed to consolidate the historic building of the Villa Abbatis guesthouse in the village of Apos, Sibiu County, Romania. The proposed consolidation techniques use bricks that are manufactured according to traditional method in a recently built brickworks and reuse existing building materials in the building and from abandoned buildings after the departure of ethnic Germans from Romania until 1990. The aim of this paper is to highlight the value of the traditional materials and technologies, that can bring in the retrofitting process not only the assurance of the bearing capacity, but also the preservation of the authenticity and sustainability of the entire process, in a holistic approach.