Deriving a baseline score for selecting adaptive reusable projects: a quantitative approach

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