Adaptive reuse of buildings is a sustainable practice implemented worldwide to cope with changing user requirements. It is a resource-efficient building intervention that can promote circularity in the built environment by reusing building assets and extending their longevity. As a type of building alteration, adaptive reuse needs to facilitate future changes by adopting principles of building adaptability: the ability to modify or adjust the configuration and composition of buildings to meet changing needs over time. This involves flexible design, modular construction, or innovative use of materials. While the benefits of future-proof circular adaptive reuse are acknowledged, its implementation remains challenging due to a lack of knowledge and other practical obstacles. The combination of circularity and adaptability in adaptive reuse projects requires a collaborative development process that aligns diverse demands. Drawing from the authors’ theoretical and empirical studies, this chapter outlines the essential design prerequisites – key foundational conditions – for circular and adaptable building reuse as an emerging practice in the built environment. This chapter stems from synthesizing these insights into actionable prerequisites that support circular and adaptable reuse design. These prerequisites comprise asset inventory; iterative and interdisciplinary co-design, knowledge acquisition and dissemination; and adoption of an approach to requirements alignment.

This paper investigates how new EU sustainability regulations, specifically the
EU Taxonomy, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD),
Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), and Corporate
Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), are reshaping highest and best
use (HBU) valuation in real estate. A literature review on Highest and Best Use,
sustainable real estate valuation and real options theory is conducted. A
theoretical model is developed for HBU analysis under regulatory constraints,
with formal stochastic calculus derivations illustrating how real options can be
valued. Investors must account for regulatory uncertainty and technological
change, which elevate the value of flexible strategies. A real options approach
enables the quantification of the value of waiting to retrofit, expanding green
features, switching asset use, or abandoning projects in response to stochastic
factors, such as energy prices or carbon costs. This study integrates the
impacts of EU sustainability policy with real estate valuation principles and
real options financial theory. A mathematical derivation for real estate
valuation under regulatory uncertainty is presented. The results inform
appraisers, investors, and policymakers on aligning valuation methods with
sustainability objectives.

The concept of value has been central to economic thought for centuries; the idea of what makes something valuable shapes how we exchange, produce, invest, and measure well-being. Neoclassical traditions have dominated the contemporary economic framework, privileging financial value as the primary metric of worth. This emphasis on quantifiability, reinforced by positivist methodologies, has marginalised broader considerations of multiple values and incommensurability. Real estate valuation perfectly embodies and exemplifies these tensions. This disjuncture between theory and practice reflects a broader issue within economics: the persistence of an overly narrow understanding of value. In response to these challenges–ranging from sustainability commitments to shifting societal priorities–we turn to a historical narrative of value theories to examine how foundational assumptions about value shape economic thought, resource allocation, and societal priorities. Recent studies point to a growing dissatisfaction with existing valuation models along with a shifting value paradigm: one that increasingly recognises multiple forms of values, the limits of commensurability, and the influence of social and ecological considerations on the practice of appraisal.

Purpose
Institutional investors play a critical role in adapting the built environment to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. However, little is known about their decision-making behaviours and the factors driving climate adaptation (CA) investments. Drawing on institutional theory, this study aims to examine how organisational and institutional contexts influence CA decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a qualitative approach, drawing on nine semi-structured interviews with senior managers at different management levels in Dutch real estate investment organisations.

Findings
Although coercive, normative and mimetic pressures drive CA, their capacity to generate action remains limited by low legitimacy perceptions for taking CA actions, lack of prioritisation of CA goals, partial enforcement of regulatory or policy frameworks, divergent views on climate uncertainty and low environmental interconnectedness. These limitations point to a prevailing institutional pattern of sustainable finance 2.0 that positions CA as a risk management tool rather than a systemic response.

Practical implications
This study highlights structural institutional constraints that can limit stronger CA adaptation approaches and provides insights for policymakers and industry practitioners seeking to promote or engage in more coordinated, collective and systemic adaptation responses in real estate investment.

Originality/value
The study contributes to a limited but growing body of knowledge on CA in institutional real estate investment by empirically enquiring about the drivers and institutional factors shaping CA decision-making. Grounded in theory, it contributes to the sustainable finance debate by providing new explanatory insights into why growing awareness does not consistently translate into CA actions, pointing to a structural lock-in that constrains CA.

The abandonment of industrial buildings, driven by global economic changes and deindustrialization, has led to a growing interest in their adaptive reuse as a strategy for sustainable regeneration. This paper explores how disused industrial heritage can be transformed from waste into a valuable resource, aligning with circular economy principles. The main objective of the research is to propose an evaluation framework capable of assessing the multidimensional impacts (environmental, economic/financial, and socio-cultural) of adaptive reuse projects for industrial heritage across various project phases. To achieve this, a systematic literature review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines, identifying key criteria and indicators used in previous evaluations. The review highlighted the complexity of balancing heritage conservation, community needs, and sustainability goals. While numerous studies propose multicriteria evaluation frameworks, few explicitly address the circular economy perspective. In this context, the European Commission’s Level(s) tool (currently the only officially recognized framework for assessing building sustainability in a circular economy perspective) was selected as the basis for this research. The Level(s) tool was integrated and expanded to account for the unique characteristics of industrial heritage, including historical significance and socio-cultural values. The resulting evaluation framework consists of six thematic-areas, nine macro-objectives and a comprehensive set of 48 criteria and 100+ indicators. Indicators are categorized by evaluation phase (ex-ante, ongoing, ex-post) and lifecycle status (renovation activity, in-use, future adaptation potential), ensuring relevance across the building lifecycle. They also distinguish between impacts on the building/site itself and those on its urban context. The framework allows stakeholders, including designers, investors, policymakers, and communities, to evaluate the sustainability of adaptive reuse projects in a structured, transparent, and comparable way. It supports decision-making through multicriteria analysis and encourages stakeholder collaboration. Moreover, it emphasizes the integration of qualitative and quantitative data and accommodates varying levels of technical expertise. This study provides a replicable, flexible, and interdisciplinary tool for evaluating the circular regeneration of industrial heritage. Future research will focus on applying this framework to real-world projects to validate and refine its components.

The extreme weather events of recent years have highlighted the vulnerability of real estate assets to climate risks and the urgent need to adapt the built environment to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. Institutional investors, as key stakeholders in commercial real estate, play a critical role in this effort. However, little is known about their decision-making behaviours and the processes that drive or hinder investments for climate adaptation measures in existing assets. This paper investigates the decision-making behaviours of institutional real estate investors through the lens of institutional theory, offering a framework to analyse both the rational and the cognitive tendencies that influence climate adaptation investment decisions. Using a qualitative research approach, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with senior managers across the different management levels of institutional real estate investors in the Netherlands. The findings aim to identify and classify the underlying tendencies shaping these decisions into normative, coercive, and mimetic pressures. By doing so, this study will provide valuable insights for industry practitioners to enhance their decision-making practices towards climate adaptation, offer guidance to policymakers on where regulations, policies, and incentives are needed, and contribute to the existing body of literature on real estate investor behaviour in the context of climate change.

Value drives actions in our modern day economy. In their turn, these actions are the pillars for how well societal transitions are achieved in the long run. In the past decade, we’ve seen governments heavily funding and subsidizing transitions in action to better achieve desperately needed societal targets. Examples are the prevention of climate change, climate transition, and a decrease in resource consumption. However, these significant initiatives are not nearly close to being self-reliant. And with the current retraction of a lot of funds and subsidies on the horizon, the achievement of these transitions has gotten in serious jeopardy. The authors of this abstract posit that these funds and subsidies have not been able to make a significant step forward to successful transitions, mostly because the efforts still focus and rely on the monetary values and motivations and ignore the rest.. It is argued that the introduction of value beyond monetary terms and a way to determine this value is needed. In response, this abstract is intended as the ontological start for developing a summer school, which is part of a recently granted Marie Curie Doctoral Network programme, called QuiVal, where the concept of value is revisited using quantum theory. The summer school under development marks the doctoral network's first educational notes. The aim of the summer school therefore is to stimulate conceptual creativity and critical thinking on the concept of value and offer first clues on how value can be reimagined in practical fields of application surrounding the real estate sector. As preliminary examples to the content of these lecture notes, the authors aim to discuss the implications on value from the position of quantum finance versus classical finance, the potential of these implications to unlock perceptive capability for hard-to-measure value (e.g. social and environmental values) and how it can open up various dimensions of potential value measurements that are important to the multiple transitions in our built environment. To this background summer school, QuiVal aspires to broaden the recognition of non-financial values in industry, government, and research unlocking more sustainable approaches to real estate. For example, by developing models and tools for (non-financial) value measurements we could support decision-making and demonstrate the attractiveness of social and environmental projects better through the research by the doctoral network.

Adaptive reuse of buildings offers a sustainable strategy for reducing global CO2 emissions by repurposing existing structures, conserving resources, reducing the need to extract new materials, and minimizing waste. However, the decision-making process in adaptive reuse projects is often complex, involving conflicting criteria and diverse stakeholders. Current approaches tend to polarize alternatives, focusing either on broad functional use or specific design options, which can limit decision effectiveness and quality. This study addresses these challenges by developing a participatory mixed-methods approach that integrates Cross-Impact Balance (CIB) analysis with creative scenario-building techniques, including generative AI and participatory workshops. This approach balances the extremes of current decision-making processes, offering a more comprehensive overview of desirable futures for decision-makers. The methodology was applied to create 15 “big picture” circular adaptive reuse scenarios, each incorporating circular building adaptability (CBA) strategies, and enriched with AI generated narratives and visualizations. These scenarios provide stakeholders with a nuanced understanding of potential future pathways, enhancing decision-making processes. This mixed-method approach demonstrates the potential of participatory CIB scenario development in advancing circularity, offering a valuable tool for navigating the complexities of adaptive reuse decision-making.

Background and aim. Adaptive reuse enhances circularity by repurposing buildings, reducing carbon emissions, and preserving heritage. However, decision-making is complex due to stakeholder conflicts, regulations, and uncertainties. This study introduces an integrated framework combining Cross-Impact Balance (CIB) analysis, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and Fuzzy-TOPSIS to support structured, participatory decision-making.

Methods and Data. A mixed-method approach integrates CIB for scenario development, AHP for stakeholder-driven prioritization, and Fuzzy-TOPSIS for ranking reuse scenarios. A hypothetical case study demonstrates the framework’s applicability.

Findings. The integration of CIB, AHP, and Fuzzy-TOPSIS provides a structured decision-making approach that enhances scenario coherence, aligns decisions with stakeholder priorities, and improves scenario ranking robustness. The framework enables systematic exploration of adaptive reuse scenarios, ensuring alignment with stakeholder objectives.

Theoretical / Practical / Societal implications. Theoretically, this study advances scenario-based decision-making by integrating scenario development and decision-making approaches, addressing gaps in adaptive reuse decision frameworks. Practically, it provides policymakers, urban planners, and developers with a structured tool to navigate complex decision-making in adaptive reuse projects. Societally, it supports sustainable and inclusive urban development by fostering consistent, long-term strategies that balance environmental, economic, and social considerations.

Construction activities in the built environment use a vast amount of resources, making the circular economy an attractive paradigm against the linear take-waste-dispose economy to reduce this resource consumption. Within the built environment, this transition encompasses the use of circular strategies across the product life cycle for materials. This entails efforts from multiple stakeholders across the product value chain. In this study we therefore explore how stakeholders engagement can aid the process to arrive at a common understanding of a public sector circular business model (PSCBM) in the case of a circular concrete paver. We conducted a participatory design workshop aimed to design this PSCBM with all relevant stakeholders across the product life cycle were (re)presented. We conclude that the presence of stakeholder perspectives was observed to be necessary in drafting up a PSCBM for a concrete paver, but caution is needed. Outcome-wise stakeholder engagement was necessary to sharpen the dream, indicating stakeholder value propositions, activities required, value trade-offs and to arrive at a relevant set of indicators. Process-wise, stakeholder engagement in this setting was relevant because stakeholders were enabled to share perspectives and challenge each other perspectives accordingly. This leads to the advantage that the practical feasibility of proposed ideas could immediately be challenged. However, outcomes and assumptions should always be cross-validated and updated according to new insights (e.g., relevant outcomes of tests or regulations, latest insights on reuse and recycling innovations). The outcomes are time- and context-bound and very much reliant on the perspectives shared. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of how stakeholder engagement in a workshop setting, can potentially be useful to strategize about circular products. We conclude that this for example, could help to improve the functional and esthetical requirements for product procurement.

Background and aim. Temporary use of vacant spaces—the short-term activation of properties awaiting transformation—has gained recognition for its potential to foster urban revitalization. While such uses provide a platform for experimentation, accessibility, and social inclusion through participatory and cultural activities, they often remain precarious and underutilized as strategic tools for circular economy. This study aims to explore how specific hybrid approaches to temporary real estate management can transform temporary use into a social circular economy strategy, balancing social values with market logics.

Methods and Data. This research employs a qualitative analysis, first defining a framework from literature and then analysing specific temporary use projects through a retrospective case analysis of three cases by Plateau Urbain (France), communa (Belgium), and Stad in de Maak (Netherlands). Data collection included interviews, project documentation, and field observations, allowing an in-depth exploration of the enabling conditions for successful hybrid approaches in creating social value.

Findings. This study makes three key contributions. First, it conceptualizes collaborative temporary use as a social circular strategy, clearly defining the evolution of the concept and its potential in temporary real estate adaptive reuse. Second, by drawing on the literature on organizational hybridity and case study analysis, it identifies key enabling conditions, such as tweaking the balance between social value and market logic over time to recalibrate impact—that underpin temporary use projects as social circular economy strategies. Third, it offers a framework to determine whether a temporary real estate reuse initiative can function as a social circular economy strategy.

Theoretical / Practical / Societal implications. This study offers theoretical insights into hybrid organizing for urban development and practical recommendations for integrating temporary reuse of real estate into social circular economy frameworks. Societally, it underscores the potential for collaborative temporary use to foster circular urban transformation by balancing economic goals with community-driven social value creation.

Circular and adaptable strategies in building reuse are key to achieving a resource-efficient and future-proof built environment. Despite significant advances in circular building research, this field is affected by a significant theory–practice gap. To bridge this gap, we applied an action design research methodology, implementing a circular building design framework over a five-month period in the context of a Dutch monumental office building reuse. The objective of these interventions was to observe practitioners engaging with the framework and identify the barriers they encountered when considering and applying circular building strategies. We observed that the framework primarily functioned as a descriptive tool. Enhancing its usability and effectiveness required several refinements, including simplifying its self-description, clarifying its strategies through practical solutions and connections to related models, providing robust assessment tools, and improving its accessibility. Through iterative action research conducted during the observation and intervention period, we addressed these issues and advanced the framework. Our design-oriented approach led to the development of key design artifacts: a prescriptive guiding, assessment, and reporting tool; a stepwise approach to streamline application; and a hands-on worksheet for practitioners. These artifacts were integrated into a user-friendly platform, transforming the framework into a practical tool for real-world implementation. For theory, this study incorporates a circular perspective into a usable framework and demonstrates how an action design research approach can co-develop and improve frameworks and their usability and relevance. For practice, the produced artifacts represent boundary objects tailored to practitioners’ needs; thereby paving the way for future circular adaptive reuse. Clinical trial number: not applicable.

The short-term reuse of vacant real estate has demonstrated to be able to generate multiple benefits (Bishop, 2015; Madanipour, 2017; Oswalt et al., 2012; Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung Berlin, 2007), and being a quick solution to prevent abandonment risks, providing opportunities to access low-cost space. Research has demonstrated that short-term non-profit projects have the potential to drive innovation and generate social value (Mangialardo & Micelli, 2017; Pinard, 2020; Saleh, 2022). In fact, temporary initiatives can establish transient communities, test new land-use models, and inform real estate transformations (Lepik, 2012). Mostly, creative, artistic, and informal occupations (Andres, 2011; Honeck, 2017; McArdle, 2022; Shaw, 2005; Vivant, 2022) gained attention over the last 25 years, because they have demonstrated capacities for placemaking (Camerin, 2024; Hernandez-Santin et al., 2020; Karachalis, 2021) and urban regeneration (Darchen & Simon, 2022; Martin et al., 2019). For these and other reasons, temporary use projects have been increasingly integrated in urban studies (Chang, 2021) and in urban planning (Lehtovuori & Ruoppila, 2012), despite that the seduction of short-term solutions can hide unfair dynamics (Ferreri, 2015). In this context, Temporary Uses (TU) have been observed critically, considering issues as gentrification risks (Assiter, 2022), benefit distribution (Ferreri, 2020; Mens et al., 2023; Vivant, 2022), negotiations among actors (Zhang, 2018), and outcomes in co-production (Jaspers & Steen, 2019). However, we still don’t have models to measure the economic impact of real estate TU in their urban contexts. Thus, we ask: 1) What are the economic impacts that the social value of a TU produces on urban context? 2) What factors describing urban changes and TU of vacant buildings correlate? And, consequently, 3) how does TU social value contribute to urban dynamics? To address this gap, this study aims at defining and test a methodological framework to measure the economic impacts generated by the social value of temporary uses on the urban context, with a focus on some non-profit initiatives1. The objective is to understand how social value generates effects and impacts on the urban context (street or neighbourhood) improving the place quality, considering both space (urban context) and effects (observing its changes over the years). A mixed method analysis is applied to a set of case studies first at the urban scale and then at the real estate scale. We consider multiple cases of temporary use in the Region of Brussels (Occupation Temporaire OT), that have been mapped and monitored by temporary.brussels. First, we conduct an urban analysis of the neighbourhood place quality (Carmona, 2019) to observe the characteristics and the trends of main socio-economic indicators, land use functions, presence of services and amenities, and ongoing transformations in the area together with local policies. Then, we will assess the impact of each temporary use case measuring a set of quanti-qualitative indicators with data from direct observations, project reports, and interviews2. The TU assessment framework has been developed based on literature review and qualitative analysis of cases in the Netherlands, in Belgium and in France. Finally, we’ll carry out a correlation analysis applying the Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) (Fotheringham et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2016; Wu et al., 2019) in GIS (running R packages). Findings from this research contribute to the ongoing discourse on temporary urbanism by discussing how temporary uses support not only communities but also long-term urban development. The proposed framework for defining, measuring, and analysing temporary use provides insights for scholars, policymakers and urban planners interested in leveraging these initiatives considering a fair resource distribution for sustainable and inclusive urban regeneration.

Purpose: This study assesses the success of a real project in practice, using identified success factors from recent systematic literature. It investigates how theoretical insights translate into real-world outcomes by answering the question: “How do success factors identified in existing literature contribute to the success of a real-world adaptive reuse project?”. Design/methodology/approach: This research utilizes a case study methodology to explore the adaptive reuse phenomenon through the lens of the Fenix I in the Netherlands. Three comprehensive semi-structured interviews with key decision-makers provide insights into experiences, challenges, and ultimately the evaluation of success factors in practice. Data analysis involves deductive coding, systematically organizing success factors into ten categories derived from the literature, to implement the analysis and align with the research objectives. Findings: The results demonstrate the application of a majority of success factors identified in literature within the case study. This study reveals differences in the levels of significance among these factors, their categorization and their existence, particularly between listed and non-listed heritage buildings. Moreover, it shows the remarkable impact of public-private collaboration from the early stages of decision-making through project implementation. The study confirms that a successful real-world project addresses a significant proportion of the success factors identified in the literature. Originality/value: This research facilitates the decision-making process for stakeholders and practitioners in adaptive reuse projects, aiming to foster the development of more successful initiatives in this field.

Despite the significant growth of the literature on adaptive reuse, little is known about the specific criteria unfolding throughout the different phases of the adaptive reuse decision-making process. To address this gap this paper aims to provide a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of the decision criteria for adaptive reuse throughout the adaptive reuse process. Through an integrative literature review with a systematic search strategy, three phases are substantiated: pre-project phase, preparation phase, and post-completion phase. This paper finds that despite the similarities between the different phases, with a predominant repetition of economic and architectural categories, more specific environmental decision criteria are still overlooked. The findings underscore the necessity for additional research on circularity within the adaptive reuse process, emphasizing the significance of the often overlooked implementation phase, crucial for practices like disassembly. By offering a novel process perspective on AR decision-making, this study contributes to the growing discourse on adaptive reuse and provides a basis for further enhancement of AR decision-making frameworks.

The built environment plays a crucial role in the ongoing challenge of climate change, primarily through resource consumption, energy use, and contributions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As urbanization accelerates, the environmental footprint of construction and building operations has grown significantly. Currently, buildings account for 40% of the world’s waste, 40% of material resource use, and 33% of human-induced emissions.

Constructing price indices for commercial real estate (CPPIs) is challenging due to heterogeneous and limited observations. Common price index methods often result in volatile index series. Attempts to reduce volatility often lead to frequent revisions of the entire index series and a loss of methodological index properties. When it comes to CPPIs in official statistics, both volatility and frequent revisions are undesirable. Revisions could compromise the confidence of users if indicators are allowed to change indefinitely, while instable indices insufficiently reflect structural underlying developments. In this study, a combination of hedonic imputation, multilateral calculations, time series analysis, and window splicing is introduced. The result is a method that produces stable and limited-revisable indices with the ability to detect turning points in an early stage. Commercial real estate transactions in the Netherlands are used to empirically test the method. The resulting CPPIs appear suitable for monitoring financial stability and, therefore, seem appropriate for the use in official statistics.

Om het woningtekort op te lossen moeten er jaarlijks zo’n 90.000 nieuwbouwwoningen aan het woningbestand worden toegevoegd. Transformatie van leegstaande gebouwen en herbestemming naar woningen draagt bij aan de oplossing hiervoor. De maatschappij stelt hogere eisen aan duurzaamheid dan voorheen, en stelt randvoorwaarden zoals lager energieverbruik, beter omgaan met bouwmaterialen en minder afval genereren. Transformatie voldoet aan deze duurzaamheidseisen. In de transitie naar een circulaire economie is er meer aandacht voor hergebruik van bouwcomponenten en materialen. Dit is iets wat steeds vaker gebeurt, maar wat nog niet algemeen is. Voor de financiële crisis van 2008 kwam transformatie minder vaak voor. Leegstaande gebouwen werden vaak gesloopt in plaats van getransformeerd. Tegenwoordig zijn volledige nieuwbouwprojecten eerder uitzondering dan regel, en de verschuiving naar herbestemming weerspiegelt dan ook de veranderde maatschappelijke eisen.

It is recommended to integrate specific management competencies in academic education to support the transition towards environmentally sustainable practices, particularly in the construction and real estate sector. This paper explores how architectural management education can integrate environmental sustainability within its current university programmes. In recent years TU Delft explored and experimented with various education initiatives to bring forward environmental sustainability knowledge and to connect with policy, societal and industry practices. This paper describes what we learned from both bottom-up and top-down initiatives implementing environmental sustainability in construction and real estate management education. Bottom-up educational initiatives show that knowledge about transition policies, stakeholder experiences, business models and management practices from a European perspective can help students across the globe to apply knowledge into their local context, reflecting on the overarching management principals across stakeholders, institutions, academic disciplines and cultures. Top-down initiatives show that the university has a vision on integrating sustainability in its curriculum, but that integrating environmental sustainability in construction and real estate management education is still challenging. Adapting the academic curriculum to integrate building and portfolio responses to environmental challenges might be a way forward and the experiences from numerous elective courses and educational initiatives can be a basis to identify the development of a future standard curriculum.

Over the past two decades, research promoting a sustainable built environment has pioneered new horizons to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Yet, these efforts are suffering from a significant theory-practice divide. This article offers three interconnected research themes to bridge this gap: 1. Distinguishing circularity practices across spatial and time scales; 2. Redesigning the value of design and its process; and 3. Learning from sister transitions for acceleration.