Assessing the Transformability of Public Housing through BIM

Abstract

Public residential buildings make a large portion of the European existing stock and they quite often require deep renovation interventions. A methodology for setting priorities and targeting regeneration investments should be defined relying on the increasing use of building information modelling (BIM) tools even for managing existing buildings. The aim of this paper is to integrate the evaluation process into BIM Revit software developing a specific plug-in, a Decision support system (DSS) that will help to identify the most appropriate flats to be transformed. It is based on measuring three indicators: Usability, Fragmentation, and Constructive Modifiability. Through their weighted average it is possible to obtain a final transformability score. The proposed approach has been tested on a case study chosen within the 1st P.E.E.P. (1st public plan for council and affordable housing) that has been approved in Rome in 1964. The results demonstrate that the transformability of apartments is related mainly to the Constructive Modifiability indicator and buildings with reinforced concrete frames show higher scores. A widespread application of such a methodology on large real estate portfolio may lead stakeholders involved in housing management investments in clear choices related to maintenance of buildings.

Assessment of Disused Public Buildings: Strategies and Tools for Reuse of Healthcare Structures

“…the typological layout of the pre-existence". This definition is in line with the goal of the present paper, which aims to integrate conservation issues for listed buildings with the concept of transformability introduced by Acampa et al [79] for residential buildings.…”

“…Sustainability 2022, 14, x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 26 for listed buildings with the concept of transformability introduced by Acampa et al [79] for residential buildings.…”

“…The surfaces calculation is the net of internal partitions and walls and external spaces. Regarding layout reconfiguration, for healthcare facilities' reuse, on the contrary to housing reconfiguration [79], the lower the usability indicator is, the lower the chances are of transformation. This is because when distribution spaces are large, there is little room space for the required functions.…”

“…Numerically, it is the ratio between the external wall length and internal wall length, with the square of the gross area (2). Contrary to the formula provided in [79], the denominator is calculated as the square of the gross area, to compare buildings of different sizes.…”

“…The higher the internal fragmentation, the lower the opportunities are for transformability and the higher the cost of layout reorganization. Boundary values have been selected looking at other pieces of research where such indicators were applied [79,81], fine-tuning them according to the particular set of heritage masonry buildings here considered. In Table 4, single boundaries are shown.…”