Sustainable development has become a goal for all countries seeking a balance between social, environmental and economic needs. The principal vision of a sustainable built future is about developing creative designs that utilize energy and materials effectively. However, this vision should consider historic buildings that were built centuries ago. Although many of these buildings are standing in a stable state, they are obsolete and their values are not fully utilized. Towards revitalizing and generating sustainable values of these buildings, adaptive reuse is adopted as a process of modifying, adapting and reusing obsolete buildings with their existing structures to extend their life cycle whilst performing a new function. This is currently practiced worldwide, specifically when a building has a unique architectural character and is in a stable condition. The adaptive reuse of a historic building should have minimal impact on the heritage significance of the building and its setting. This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of adaptive reuse as an innovative approach for generating sustainable values of historic buildings in developing countries. To achieve this aim, a research strategy is designed to accomplish four objectives: first, literature related to sustainable development, sustainable values, adaptive reuse and developing countries is reviewed; second, two case studies are presented and analysed to investigate the role of adaptive reuse towards increasing the sustainable value of heritage buildings; third, a strategy with its action plan is developed for facilitating adaptive reuse of historic buildings in developing countries and finally, research conclusions are outlined and recommendations useful to professionals concerned with adaptive reuse of historic buildings are proposed.
Purpose Despite the active role of continuous learning on improving organizational performance, the construction industry generally and architectural design firms (ADFs) in particular are criticized for their inability to properly use learning to improve their performance. This paper aims to develop a business improvement framework based on post occupancy evaluation (POE) as a learning tool for improving the performance of ADFs. Design/methodology/approach To achieve the above-mentioned aim, a twofold research strategy, namely, theoretical and practical, is used to achieve four objectives. The theoretical approach is used to conduct thorough literature review to investigate three main topics: building performance, organizational performance and learning organization. The practical approach is used to present and synthesize two relevant field studies to examine the role of POE toward improving the performance of ADFs and evaluate the perception and application of ADFs in Egypt toward improving their performance through POE. Based on the results gleaned from the objectives, the research developed a framework to facilitate the adoption and application of POE as a learning tool for improving the performance of ADFs. Finally, research conclusions and recommendations useful to ADFs and future research are outlined. Findings The construction industry is a fragmented business that is characterized by low performance compared to other industries. This is because the separation between design, construction and end-users results in missing the opportunity to provide designers with learned lessons, feedback and suggestions for design improvement that ultimately obstructs the performance of ADFs. POE is an effective tool adopted to measure building performance and provide learning environment to improve the performance of new projects and ADFs. The research realized that there is a need to fill the gap in construction literature concerning improving ADFs’ performance through POE and to develop a framework to facilitate the adoption and application of POE as a learning tool for improving the performance of ADFs. Research limitations/implications The research focused on improving the performance of ADFs only. Practical implications The framework developed by this research establishes organized procedures to enable AFDs to implement POE and use its benefits toward improving their performance. Originality/value This paper presents a business improvement framework integrating POE as learning tool for improving the performance of ADFs. This ideology has received scant attention in construction literature. The developed framework represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.
PurposeThis research is built up upon exploring the concepts of building information modeling (BIM) adoption and strategy formulation with the aim to develop a strategy for implementing BIM in the Egyptian construction industry.Design/methodology/approachThe development of the BIM implementation strategy was based on two pillars, namely the literature review and results of the survey questionnaire and interviews. First, the review of literature helped investigating the BIM challenges and international strategies developed to implement BIM worldwide.FindingsThe research presented recommendations to assist policymakers in Egypt to facilitate BIM implementation.Originality/valueAlthough multiple frameworks have been proposed to aid in BIM implementation, a practical strategy to implement BIM in Egypt is still lacking. Moreover, current market scale studies neglect nonsoftware aspects of BIM adoption, do not identify market gaps or reflect market-specific criteria. As such, it cannot be used by policymakers to facilitate BIM diffusion.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.