Abstract:
Building Adaptive Reuse (BAR) has been recognized to be a viable option to deal with
old building stock in spite of the trivial decision of either demolish or reuse. An objective
scale to gauge the accuracy of this choice is however non-existent even there is a
potential to do so. Hence, the aim of this research is to ease out this decision by
developing a rational framework. A comprehensive literature survey, expert’s interview
and questionnaire survey was carried out. 35 experienced industry personnel
participated in the questionnaire survey. The topics entailed were their exposure to BAR
projects in Sri Lanka, BAR potential and drivers and barriers affecting BAR decision.
Expert opinion was taken to verify the findings. In order to understand the importance
level of each of the recognized factors, the Relative Important Index (RII) technique was
used as the primary data analysis method. Analytical Hierarchical Process that involves
pair-wise comparison, normalised comparison and consistency calculations was used to
augment a baseline score in order to make the BAR decision rational. It was found that
structural integrity is the highest priority acquiring 12.8% in the total factor score out
of 36 globally important indices. The Overall Global Importance score has been
considered in this decision making model against 5 successive adaptive reuse projects
in Sri Lanka. A pass mark of 60 has to be the minimum threshold to proceed with
adaptive reuse. The outcome offers a national benchmark
