A new future for the past: a model for adaptive reuse decision-making

Purpose – Adaptive reuse is an effective strategy for optimizing the operational and commercial performance of built assets. While the benefits of adaptive re‐use have been widely espoused, it would appear that owners and practitioners lack a point of reference to justify and evaluate their decision‐making with regard to reusing existing assets. This paper therefore aims to develop a model to assist practitioners with their decision‐making when considering to re‐use or demolish an existing built asset.Design/methodology/approach – To gain an understanding of the issues that owners and practitioners are confronted with when considering adaptive re‐use, demolition and issues pertaining to sustainability, an interpretative research approach was adopted. A total of 81 in‐depth interviews were conducted over a six‐month period with a variety of stakeholders such as architects, developers, planners, building managers/owners and property consultants. Content analysis was used as the primary analysis technique on...

[1]  Peter A. Bullen.  Adaptive reuse and sustainability of commercial buildings , 2007 .

[2]  Esra Kurul,et al.  A qualitative approach to exploring adaptive re‐use processes , 2007 .

[3]  L. Ellison,et al.  Socially Responsible Property Investment: Quantifying the Relationship between Sustainability and Investment Property Worth , 2007 .

[4]  D. Spennemann,et al.  The Future of Defunct Religious Buildings: Dutch Approaches to Their Adaptive Re-use , 2007 .

[5]  Ellen van Bueren,et al.  Establishing sustainability: policy successes and failures , 2007 .

[6]  A. Tallon,et al.  City Centre Regeneration through Residential Development: Contributing to Sustainability , 2005 .

[7]  Keith Hutchinson,et al.  Sustainable construction: some economic challenges , 2000 .

[8]  Peter E.D. Love,et al.  Toward the sustainable adaptation of existing facilities , 2009 .

[9]  R. M. Ball,et al.  Re use potential and vacant industrial premises: revisiting the regeneration issue in Stoke-on-Trent , 2002 .

[10]  Peter E.D. Love,et al.  The rhetoric of adaptive reuse or reality of demolition: Views from the field , 2010 .

[11]  N. Kohler.  A European perspective on the Pearce report: policy and research , 2006 .

[12]  R. Shipley,et al.  Does Adaptive Reuse Pay? A Study of the Business of Building Renovation in Ontario, Canada , 2006 .

[13]  Rick Ball,et al.  Developers, regeneration and sustainability issues in the reuse of vacant industrial buildings , 1999 .

[14]  Ian Cooper,et al.  Post-occupancy evaluation - where are you? , 2001 .

[15]  Wei Yang,et al.  Long-term management of building stocks , 2007 .

[16]  Peter E.D. Love,et al.  A hybrid life cycle assessment method for construction , 2000 .

[17]  Peter E.D. Love,et al.  Using national input/output data for embodied energy analysis of individual residential buildings , 2001 .

[18]  N. Kohler,et al.  The building stock as a research object , 2002 .

[19]  B. V. Venkatarama Reddy,et al.  Embodied energy of common and alternative building materials and technologies , 2003 .

[20]  Frank Schultmann,et al.  Energy-oriented deconstruction and recovery planning , 2007 .

[21]  D Caccavelli,et al.  TOBUS — a European diagnosis and decision-making tool for office building upgrading , 2002 .

[22]  S. Kvale.  Interviews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing , 1996 .

[23]  Laure Itard,et al.  Comparing environmental impacts of renovated housing stock with new construction , 2007 .

[24]  Theo van der Voordt,et al.  A new life : Conversion of vacant office buildings into housing , 2007 .

[25]  David J. Silverman,et al.  Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook , 1999 .

[26]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology , 1980 .