The integrated and sustainable renovation of vulnerable building stock is a priority to achieve global targets for both greenhouse gas emission reduction and seismic risk mitigation. Sustainable retrofit interventions require innovative solutions able to align with new performance objectives, aiming to minimize environmental, social, and economic impacts throughout a building’s life cycle.

The SAFER-REBUILT project, aligned with the scientific objectives of the Extended Partnership “Multi-Risk sciEnce for resilienT commUnities undeR a changiNg climate” (PE RETURN), aims to define new performance objectives based on Life Cycle Thinking principles and develop integrated techniques for the sustainable refurbishment of common building types.

In this context, the present paper focuses on a sustainable, low-impact local solution for strengthening the beam-column joints of RC buildings while also dissipating energy from ground shaking, thus enhancing both local and global seismic performance.

A large experimental campaign is in progress, involving both standalone devices and retrofitted sub-structures ideally extracted from real buildings. The results are analyzed and extended to other device configurations through numerical simulations in a micro-modelling framework.

Further, experimental and numerical results will be used to define a cyclic moment-rotation relationship for the retrofitting device, enabling its application in lumped modelling approach in Opensees. Based on this approach, the structural response of a 3D prototype, representative of existing RC building types designed only for gravity loads, will be investigated to assess the effectiveness of the proposed retrofitting device under seismic actions also facing possible foundation settlements induced by earthquakes.