IN Brief:
- Implenia has won modernisation contracts worth more than CHF180m.
- The work covers existing properties in Switzerland and Germany.
- The awards cover retrofit, energy upgrades, adaptive reuse, and complex refurbishment.
Implenia has secured more than CHF180m of modernisation contracts across Switzerland and Germany, adding a series of complex existing-building projects to its European workload.
The new contracts cover a range of existing properties with challenging characteristics, including schemes in western and German-speaking Switzerland as well as Germany. The programme includes residential renovation, office-to-residential conversion, commercial modernisation, and work intended to improve future building performance.
Refurbishment and modernisation are taking a larger share of European construction workload as existing buildings are pushed to meet new expectations around energy efficiency, comfort, flexibility, carbon, and long-term asset value. Contractors able to work within occupied, constrained, or structurally complex environments are likely to see steady demand as clients reassess older assets.
Modernisation carries a different risk profile from new-build construction. Contractors have to deal with unknown existing conditions, limited access, live building interfaces, legacy materials, outdated services, structural constraints, heritage requirements, planning limitations, and the need to maintain safety and continuity for users or neighbours.
Surveys can reduce uncertainty, but they rarely remove it completely. Once strip-out begins, projects can uncover structural movement, hidden services, water ingress, fire-stopping gaps, obsolete materials, or previous alterations that do not match the available records. Those conditions place pressure on programme, contingency, procurement, and design responsiveness.
The residential elements of the contract wins follow a broader European push to improve housing quality without relying entirely on new land. Energy renovation of existing homes is central to decarbonisation, particularly where older stock performs poorly and heating demand is high. Upgrading envelopes, windows, ventilation, heating systems, and internal layouts can extend building life while reducing operational energy use.
The office-to-residential conversion element is equally significant. Across Europe, changing working patterns have placed pressure on older commercial buildings, while cities still need more homes. Converting offices into residential accommodation can make use of existing structures and central locations, but it is technically demanding.
Floorplates, daylight, acoustics, fire escape, services distribution, balconies, waste, cycle storage, and planning standards can all challenge viability. Some buildings convert cleanly; others require interventions that erode the carbon, cost, or programme advantages of reuse. Early technical due diligence is therefore critical before a conversion is treated as an easy route to housing delivery.
Commercial modernisation adds another layer. Retail, office, and mixed-use assets must compete for tenants and visitors in a market where sustainability credentials, energy cost, amenity, flexibility, and public realm all influence asset performance. Contractors are increasingly being asked to renew buildings while allowing parts of them to remain operational, compressing programmes and raising the importance of logistics planning.
Implenia’s modernisation package sits alongside its wider European infrastructure and building activity. The company is also active in major rail tunnelling work on the Brenner southern access route, where work on the Gardena Tunnel has illustrated the scale of its role in complex cross-border infrastructure. The modernisation wins add a different capability: managing technical risk in assets that already exist.
For the broader construction market, retrofit and modernisation are no longer peripheral. Carbon reduction targets, high replacement costs, planning resistance, and the embodied value of existing structures are pushing clients to consider reuse more seriously. At the same time, insurers, funders, and occupiers are demanding better performance and clearer evidence of compliance.
That combination creates opportunity for contractors with strong engineering, surveying, sequencing, and stakeholder-management capability. It also exposes weaker delivery models. Existing-building projects can quickly become commercially difficult where risk is pushed too far down the supply chain or where clients underestimate the cost of discovery, temporary works, and building services integration.
Implenia’s CHF180m order intake points to a European market increasingly shaped by the renewal of existing assets. The work will test how effectively older buildings can be adapted for new uses, lower energy demand, and longer service life while keeping control of programme, cost, and technical quality.
