Hilde Remøy

A new life: conversion of vacant office buildings into housing

Purpose – The vacancy of office buildings leads to financial problems for the owners and social problems for the community, e.g. vandalism, dereliction and deterioration. A solution may be found through the conversion of vacant office buildings into housing. Vacancy‐threatened buildings are often part of the mediocre part of the building stock. Does conversion make sense in this case? What are the opportunities, threats and risks? What are the critical success factors? The purpose of this paper is to discuss financial, functional, structural, technical and aesthetic issues.Design/methodology/approach – Through previous research at the Delft University of Technology, tools are developed to decide the potential for the conversion of buildings. This paper discusses the risks and chances, and brakes and triggers of transformation projects, based on case studies. These case studies are performed through interviews with professionals involved in the transformation process and through analyses of architectural d...

Sustainable Building Adaptation: Innovations in Decision-making

Sustainable Building Adaptation: innovations in decision-making is a significant contribution to understanding best practice in sustainable adaptations to existing commercial buildings by offering new knowledge-based theoretical and practical insights. Models used are grounded in results of case studies conducted within three collaborative construction project team settings in Australia and the Netherlands, and exemplars are drawn from the Americas, Asia, Japan, Korea and Europe to demonstrate the application of the knowledge more broadly.

Adaptive reuse of office buildings into housing: opportunities and risks

One way of adapting and reusing vacant office buildings is conversion into housing. Former research has shown possibilities for this type of conversion, and has delivered instruments for determining the conversion potential of vacant offices. Although adaptation and renovation of outdated offices can prove to be a successful property (real estate) strategy, conversions into housing still only occur on a small scale. There are several reasons for this, including uncertainty about financial feasibility and little knowledge about the opportunities and risks of building conversions. A meta-study of the conversion of 15 office buildings into housing in the Netherlands is used to reveal the drivers for office-to-housing conversions as well as the opportunities and risks that arise in the conversion process. The findings show that various legal, financial, technical, functional and architectonic issues define the opportunities and risks of building conversions. These insights can be used to support the decision-making processes for dealing with vacant office buildings in order to minimize the risks and increase the opportunities.

Office building conversion and sustainable adaptation: a comparative study

Purpose – The City of Melbourne seeks to retrofit 1,200 CBD properties by 2020 as part of the strategy to become carbon neutral, whilst Amsterdam aims to cut CO2 emissions 40 per cent by 2025. Oversupply in the Amsterdam office market makes conversion to residential use viable. In examining converted buildings in Amsterdam and the Melbourne CBD typical attributes of converted stock can be identified to target retrofit measures. This paper seeks to focus on these initiatives.Design/methodology/approach – In Amsterdam five case studies were undertaken to reveal and define building attributes that explain the viability of these conversions. On the other hand, the Melbourne study was based on a database assembled containing all Melbourne CBD office building adaptations carried out between 1998 and 2008. The research analysed the conversion of office buildings and the scope for sustainable retrofit evaluating a limited number of attributes known to be important in adaptation.Findings – The outcomes of this res...

Adaptable office buildings

Purpose – Across use adaptation is a possible way of dealing with long term vacant office buildings, albeit previous research shows that there are many obstacles to be thrived. In The Netherlands several successful transformations of offices into housing were completed. Nevertheless, transformations do not take place on a large scale. High building costs are the main reason. Hence, new office developments should anticipate future programmatic transformation. This paper seeks answers to the questions: Is it possible to anticipate future programmatic change? To what extent will anticipation on future possibilities influence building costs?Design/methodology/approach – The authors reviewed existing studies to gather information about transformation building costs and the critical success factors of transformations. The building design and costs for new office buildings were then studied, designed with enhanced transformation potential, focussing on two standard office building types, the central core tower a...

Priorities in Accommodating office user preferences : Impact on office users decision to stay or go

Purpose When current accommodation is unsatisfactory, office organisations consider relocating to new accommodation that optimally facilitates their main processes and supports image and financial yield. However, due to high vacancy levels, public opinion and governmental awareness oppose new office construction. Reusing existing buildings could be the egg of Columbus. This paper aims at answering the questions: Which property characteristics are important push and pull factors for relocation? What does this mean for the decision: stay or go? Design/methodology/approach A literature review of factors determining organisations’ accommodation choices was conducted. Interviews were held with large-scale office organisations and creative organisations, discussing relocation drivers. Henceforth, a survey was held among creative organisations, collecting data about property characteristics important for their preferences. Finally, office user preferences were compared with characteristics of structurally vacant buildings. Findings Traditional push factors like car accessibility, extension need, and location and building image remain important. Nowadays sustainability issues like reducing energy consumption and better public transportation accessibility are highly prioritised pull factors as well. Regarding the creative industries, bike- and public transportation accessibility, multi-tenancy, and ICT and meeting facilities are most important. Practical implications Knowing office users’ preferences is important to attract and retain stable tenants. If office space supply is highly aligned to end-users demands and easily adaptable to changing needs, probably more organisations will decide to stay instead of go, leaving behind empty offices. Originality value This study combines data about push and pull factors with relocation decision-making, innovatively focussing on the creative industries. The data can be used to explore opportunities and risks of adaptive re-use of the existing building stock.

Green Building Certificates Drivers for BREEAM in use certification

National governments and local authorities worldwide aim at reducing building related energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve a climate neutral built environment in 2050, the Netherlands must decrease its emissions by 80-95%. This challenge requires an approach that combines governmental means and market approaches. Green building certificates is an instrument that can contribute to accelerate the transition towards a green built environment. An extensive body of knowledge on green building certificates already exists and covers topics varying from research on drivers and barriers to financial implications for building values and rents.This research builds on prior research on the environmental awareness of corporate real estate organisations, research on drivers for obtaining green building certificates, and financial and reputational effects. There is a lack of insight in the effects of green building certificates on the building value, business performance and capital justification for users, owners and financers of office buildings in use. In comparison with new buildings, certification of buildings in use must comply with the demands of all stakeholders involved. Rents cannot simply be increased after a building is certified because of running contracts between the tenant and building owner. Moreover, it can be questioned if a rent premium is justified as a certificate does not change the physical attributes of the building, neither does it contribute to increase productivity, nor reduce operation costs. This research aims to answer the following question: How do green building certificates affect the building and organisation of tenants, owners and financers of in use office buildings? The main goal of this paper is to identify and explain the effects on the building and organisation of tenants, owners and financiers of office buildings that are certified while already in use. Based on a literature review, theory is developed. The research is conducted using a multi-method research approach that combines semi-structured interviews with case studies and a questionnaire. Finally, findings are compared and evaluated by an expert panel.

Reuse into housing: Italian and Dutch regulatory effects

Purpose The need to speed up and simplify the practice of transformation and the topic of reuse is crucial in Italy. The purpose of this paper is to compare successful cases of reuse into housing in Italy and the Netherlands, in order to suggest improvements to the Italian situation. Design/methodology/approach Previous research at the University of Pavia showed the need to change living standards for new residential buildings. This research focusses on existing buildings and gives a comparative analysis of the Italian and Dutch legislation for residential buildings. Interviews with professionals have been conducted in Italy and the Netherlands to better understand the differences and problems related to housing regulations. Good examples of reuse into housing have been studied to define common guidelines for intervention. Findings The findings describe the building regulations in Italy and the Netherlands concerning adaptive reuse, and reveals differences between the two countries. Furthermore, the possibilities and barriers for the reuse of existing buildings are highlighted. Practical implications Lessons are drawn from both contexts, and finally suggestions for improvement of the regulatory system are made for Italy and the Netherlands. Originality/value This paper aims at revealing the opportunities and barriers of reuse in Italy and the Netherlands. So far, studies were performed to reveal the feasibility of adaptive reuse, though none of these focussed specifically on legal issues. No sufficient studies are performed so far on reuse into housing in Italy, and the comparison of the regulatory systems of the two countries is novel.

Current vacancy among primary schools in the Netherlands

The number of children in the Netherlands is declining and will continue doing so for the coming decade. Consequently, primary schools face vacant floor space. Media reports state an alarming situation, without mentioning exact numbers on the current scale of the problem. Nevertheless, it is very relevant since vacancy costs public funds. This research concentrates on hidden vacancy, which is defined as the situation in which a school uses the entire school building, while not needing all available floor space based on government regulations.The DAS-framework is used as a conceptual model to approach the problem. Vacancy is a result of a mismatch between demand and supply. To calculate vacancy, demand and supply must be known. Demand can be calculated, based on amounts of students per school. However, the total supply is unknown, since this information is decentralized. Until now only estimates of the current supply are available, which vary between 10 M and 15,8 M m2. This makes it impossible to estimate the current vacancy._ _To solve this knowledge gap, an extract from a Cadastral database (BAG), holding information on Gross Floor Area and building year, was matched with the addresses of schools as registered in a database of the Office of Education. However, the raw version of this database held serious limitations. Often information was clearly incorrect and a substantial number of schools was missing. Therefore 100 municipalities were requested for additional data. As a result the database is enriched with detailed object information of 18% of the Dutch municipalities.It was found that the current supply of primary schools is 9,6 M m2. This leads to a national vacancy level of 7,9%. However, taking into account a friction vacancy of circa 4% and the rent of floor space to third parties nuances this percentage. Thus it is concluded that vacancy among primary schools is not as alarming on a national scale as reported. However, it is also concluded that the demand will decline in the coming years. The cost of this vacancy, corrected for a friction vacancy of 4%, is between 6,7 and 17,5 M euro annually. If the supply is not adapted to this changing demand, increase of vacancy is expected.For academics, the findings of this paper nuance existing literature, give insight in the current supply of primary schools and the scale of the current vacancy. Last it provides valuable insights for future scientific use of Cadastral data and its limitations.