Housing Pathology: Towards a Holistic Pathological Approach of Residential Buildings

Housing pathology is the holistic approach to identify, investigate and diagnose housing deficiencies, specify preventive measures and remedial interventions and evaluate their effects. In analogy with health as the core condition for the quality of human life, the health of housing accommodations stands for housing quality, being the ability of...

Sustainable Refurbishment for an Adaptable Built Environment

The reconsideration of the existing building stock is motivated by society’s efforts towards sustainability and resilience. The building sector has a considerable role to play in doing so. The process of refurbishment is complex, since aspects such as design decisions, existing construction, energy efficiency, and user behaviour need to be...

Extending buildings’ life cycle: Sustainability early design support tool

Sustainability concerns are in all sectors’ agendas, and building industry is not an exception. Sustainable design should both, reduce the environmental impact caused by buildings throughout their life cycle and positively contribute to people’s well-being by addressing and being adaptable to their needs. There is the need for an early design...

Innovations in building regulation and control for advancing sustainability in buildings (I)

This session brings together policy-makers, government officials, researchers and others to present perspectives on how innovation in building regulation and control, such as performancebased approaches, are currently being used to advance sustainability concepts in buildings, and where and how we might see further innovation in the coming years...

Life Cycle Costs of Dutch school buildings

There is a gap between investment and operating costs of public school buildings in the Netherlands. This gap is caused by separated responsibility for the financing of the accommodation for the primary and secondary schools. Municipalities finance the initial costs of construction of these schools and school boards are responsible for the...

Sustainable Reconstruction of Houses in Seismic Desert Areas

Sustainable retrofit potential in lower quality office stock in the central business district

Given the relationship between energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, the built environment has significant potential to lessen overall emissions. With around half of all greenhouse gas emissions attributed to the built environment; it has a significant role to play in mitigating global warming. With large percentages...

Advancement of sustainable development, contracting, design, and supply business vis-a-vis construction markets

The background involves the multiplication of Porter's (1980) five forces framework and the prior design of the 8-arena framework for capturing complexity of managing businesses within each of hundreds of (inter)national construction markets. In turn, the aim of this theoretical paper is to advance environmental sustainability as part of...

Improving the design of adaptable buildi ngs though effective feedback in use

For many years the issue of how to design buildings which can adapt to changing demands has posed a considerable challenge. This debate has had renewed significance given the emergence of the sustainability agenda and the need to extract additional value from built assets through life. Developing a better understanding of how buildings change...

Sustainability and office building conversions: A comparison of Dutch and Australian practices

Local Authorities worldwide are encouraging adaptation to reduce building related energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The City of Melbourne is promoting the retrofit of 1,200 CBD properties before 2020 with sustainability measures as part of their policy to become a carbon neutral city, and the City of Amsterdam aims at cutting...

Sustainability and within use office building adapations: A comparison of Dutch and Australian practices

Local Authorities worldwide are encouraging adaptation as a means of reducing building related urban energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The City of Melbourne is promoting the retrofit of 1,200 CBD properties before 2020 with sustainability measures as part of their policy to become a carbon neutral city. Australian cities date from...

Modelling the life-cycle of sustainable, living buildings

Credit-reductions by banks, as a consequence of the global monetary crisis, will hit the construction industry for many years to come. There are however still financing opportunities for building projects that are perceived as less risky. Buildings that are not only sustainable, but also flexible and adaptive, are becoming attractive...

The Sustainable Office. An exploration of the potential for factor 20 environmental improvement of office accommodation

Sustainable development is the goal of a balance between economy and the environment, whilst establishing a better spread prosperity across the world. In order to make this possible, the environmental load of our commodities needs to be reduced by a factor of 20. This factor 20 can also be translated to the office market. The PhD research...