An integrated approach to the "Relife" of office buildings

Traditionally, decision making of building stakeholders when facing the alternatives is typically economically driven. This leads to the tendency to either delay refitting for as long as possible thus causing building conditions to deteriorate, or simply demolish and rebuild with least development cost mentality. With resource and sustainability considerations, the challenges of refit therefore re-life an existing building as opposed to new build will need to respond to political, social, environmental and financial implications. In reality however, few known projects have taken such holistic approach. An Australian research was aimed at providing a more holistic approach to the decision making of relifing office building projects. Following a Delphi study to gather industry based evidence and research foci, the project engaged building stakeholders and researchers to explore four key areas of residual service life, recycling and waste management, floor space optimisation and construction project management. This paper introduces methodologies developed for the assessment, evaluation and problem solving in each area. It also discusses the case studies that helped produce best practice guidelines for integrated decision support when dealing with the relife of old office buildings.