Adaptable buildings for sustainable built environment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the ability of “adaptable buildings” to respond to future potential built environment changes in sustainable way. Design/methodology/approach – A detailed literature review and a case study were undertaken to identify the life cycle changes of typical buildings over a period of more than 100 years. In total, 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted among construction industry professionals to identify how adaptable buildings enhance sustainability within the built environment. Case study data were analysed through a Morphological Analysis, and the interview data were analysed through discourse analysis. Findings – Out of the many adaptable features, the results revealed “change of use” as the dominant trend within the buildings of the selected urban cluster. More than 60 per cent of buildings have changed their original use during their life cycle. Around 10 per cent of them have changed their use frequently (every six year) during the last 20 years thereby signalling an increase in the rate of change. The positive contribution of adaptable buildings in achieving sustainability in terms of economic, social and environmental considerations, were confirmed through the analysis of semi-structured interviews. Originality/value – This paper reports a longitudinal study spanning over 100 years, exploring the extent of building adaptation within a selected cluster of Liverpool city centre, UK. The study further confirms the need to incorporate adaptability as a key criterion when designing buildings. The increased rate at which “change of use” has occurred further reinforces the need. Lack of a track record of designing for reuse makes this an interesting challenge for the construction industry, hence likely to have significant implications for policy/strategy formulation

Sustainable implications of building reuse and adaptation

Built environment products and processes are now biased more towards profitable markets while giving sustainability the first priority in achieving the same. Consequently, value has become one of the main concerns while seeking various cost reduction methods through sustainable implications. Building reuse is one distinctive way that reflects the aforementioned sustainability in multiple ways. The existing building stock in the UK does not support sufficient flexibility that can be used for future adaption. Demolition of those buildings and construction of new builds does not seem to be an optimum solution, unless it helps increasing the building redundancy. Thus, an effective and achievable solution is required to address this problem. Apparently, design for adaption and application of adaptable features from the initial stage of every new build seem to be the most sustainable way that can be endorsed with sustainable, flexible buildings that last long and resist the future potential changes. The research has exploited qualitative methods to explore the aforementioned problem. The research itself is based on a case study of Liverpool City Centre. Ten Structured interviews were conducted to identify the sustainable implications of building reuse and adaptation while an Archival Analysis was undertaken to identify the patterns of building change of use and their ability to reuse. The findings illustrate that economic factors have immensely influenced towards building reuse and adaptation. The research findings would also help different stakeholders to make decisions on how reusable features could incorporate within the new building designs through sustainability