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Historical and old buildings with their distinctively decorated facades constitute an integral part of city centers or villages and create unique architecture. Most of these important buildings are attacked by refurbishment interventions with the use of incompatible modern rendering materials affecting appear of facades and causing their different service life-related problems. To ensure material compatibility between historical rendering materials and newly prepared alternatives requires special attention. Techni...

Old buildings, in particular, those coming from the first half of 20th century often suffer with increased dampness in masonry coming from different sources. Some of them, however, have aesthetically rendered valued facades which are worth saving. For the design of new alternative mortars for renovation interventions, it is essential to obtain properties of original renders. Mechanical properties of mortars are in general assessed on standardized test samples; however, this approach cannot be always well applicabl...

Current challenges in the building industry are related mostly to the preservation of virgin/natural materials, decreasing the environmental footprint, and increasing the reuse rate of disposed materials. This paper reflects current trends in the use of secondary raw materials of various industrial processes as sources for the production of alternative materials, for example, alkali-activated materials (AAM). Specifically, the paper deals with the description of the basic physical and mechanical properties of fine...