The problem of vacant buildings affects cities globally, and office vacancy rates have become a specific political issue in Australian CBDs. Specifically, arguments made in public debate claim that building regulation inhibits the take-up for adaptive reuse of vacant office buildings to mitigate obsolescence. Technical performance standards within Australia’s National Construction Code (NCC) are cited as a key barrier to adaptive reuse in public discourse and by previous studies. This thesis pursued an inductive methodology investigating which aspects of NCC standards are barriers to adaptive reuse. The research focuses on the office building population within Adelaide, South Australia. The mixed-methods research design includes analysis of public debate in news articles, a survey of professionals in Australia experienced in adaptive reuse, semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in Adelaide, and an examination of untenanted and ‘greyspace’ vacancy types in Adelaide’s building population using a novel quantitative method developed in this research, referred to as the Vacancy Visual Analytics Method (VVAM). Contrary to popular belief, this study did not find conclusive evidence that building regulation inhibits adaptive reuse of office buildings. While content analysis of news articles and data from the survey and semi-structured interviews highlighted that building regulation is typically presented as a barrier to adaptive reuse, there is a lack of convincing detail, beyond generalised anecdotes. The examination of vacancy, through VVAM, questions simplistic representations of aggregated vacancy rates, present in the public debate, and the need for adaptive reuse to address the perceived obsolescence. Examination of the sample (n=118) revealed that while 56 buildings had high vacancy (office-use vacancy rate above 50%), around 65.3% of high vacancy (276,644m2) resides within only 24 relatively new primary offices. Findings also revealed that only 4 largescale (GLA(BUILDING)>3000m2) secondary buildings had potential for whole building adaptive reuse; however, the vacancy in these 4 buildings was predominantly greyspace, and contextual factors made whole building adaptive reuse unlikely. On a scale smaller than whole building adaptive reuse, 21 large secondary buildings emerged as potentially suitable for mixed-use-multi-level adaptive reuse. Further examination revealed 17 of these buildings had less than 2 stacked floorplates which were wholly untenanted, reducing the viability of multiple level adaptive reuse. The distribution of vacancy across the population reduced the suitability of whole building and mixed-use-multi-level adaptive reuse as a city-wide strategy to solve perceived vacancy problems. This study concludes that aggregated market vacancy rates are poor predictors of the suitability for adaptive reuse as an urban regeneration strategy to mitigate obsolescence in existing buildings. Therefore, a reduction in building regulation requirements would not necessarily lead to greater adaptive reuse of under-used office buildings as the distribution of vacancy does not lend itself to whole building adaptive reuse. This research provides new critical perspectives on the relationship between adaptive reuse and building regulation. Research findings can help shape policy development in urban planning, and interrogate agendas seeking to reduce NCC regulation of existing buildings. Findings can also inform building owner feasibility decisions for adaptive reuse development and has implications for changing stakeholders’ attitudes towards regulation in architectural practice.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture & Built Environment, 202
