Sustainability by adaptable and functionally neutral buildings

The continuing high levels of office building vacancy in the Netherlands cause a loss of income for building owners and - since the physical life span of the buildings is not getting shorter – an increase of obsolete office buildings. These buildings are deteriorated or even prospectless, with no perspective on future lease or reuse for office...

Adaptive reuse of office buildings into housing: Opportunities and risks

Conversion into housing is a way of adapting and reusing vacant office buildings. Former research has shown possibilities for this type of conversion, and has delivered instruments for determining the conversion potential of vacant offices. While adaptation and renovation of outdated offices can prove to be a successful real estate strategy,...

Sustainability and office to residential conversions in Sydney

The built environment contributes 40% to total global greenhouse gas emissions and 87% of the buildings we will have in 2050 are already built. It follows, if predicted climate changes are correct, we need to adapt existing stock sustainably. In city centres outside Australia there is a history of office to residential conversions. These types...

Conversion Meter: A new tool to assess the conversion potential of vacant office buildings into housing

Building owners and other stakeholders can adopt different strategies to cope with vacancy, such as consolidation, rent reduction, selling the building, renovation, transfor-mation and conversion to adapted reuse, or demolish and build a new building. This paper dis-cusses a new developed tool to cope with vacancy by adaptive reuse. It presents...

Conversion Potential Assessment Tools

Building owners and other stakeholders can adopt different strategies to cope with vacancy, such as consolidation, rent reduction, selling the building, renovation, transformation and conversion to adapted reuse, or demolish and build a new building. This chapter discusses various tools to cope with vacancy by adaptive reuse. It presents an...