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A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the lean principles and the challenges of building refurbishment. To have an in-depth investigation of the application of lean principles to address the challenges of refurbishment projects, ten expert interviews following a qualitative research approach were utilised in this research. Data were analysed using manual content analysis to derive the framework.

The refurbishment of buildings has attracted the attention of the present construction industry. However, uncertain project characteristics, information deficiency, limited space for construction activities and less stakeholder involvement make it complex. Since the lean concept effectively deals with complex and uncertain projects, this study focusses to investigate the application of lean principles to overcome the challenges of refurbishment projects in Sri Lanka by developing a framework.

It was found that the five main lean principles of customer value, value stream, value flow, pull and perfection are appropriate for building refurbishment projects in Sri Lanka. Precise identification of clients and end-users, value adding and non-value adding activities, interruptions and stakeholder communication chains, setting scope, examining the possible technologies and taking measures to deliver the exact product to ensure the successful application of lean principles for refurbishment projects. Further, 27 benefits of five lean principles were identified which can be used to address the 13 identified challenges of building refurbishment of projects. Finally, a framework has developed portraying the application of lean principles in building refurbishment.

The framework developed is beneficial for the building refurbishment project team to address the barriers of refurbishment projects by applying lean principles.

This framework can be used as a guideline for the implementation of building refurbishment projects by addressing their challenges with lean principles.

The aim of this review article is to identify a number of key research efforts related to decision making tools in building refurbishment projects and selected energy efficiency efforts in the built environment. Following these findings a proposed research area with focus on energy in the building environment will be suggested for further investigation.

Through a multilateral review study, a number of major research efforts in sustainable refurbishment are highlighted. The necessity of directing future research towards energy conservation is illustrated for a specific approach to developing the built environment.

The findings of this article identify high performance thermal insulation solutions as one of the promising approaches to significant energy consumption reductions in buildings.

This review study is solely limited to the revisited research directions.

This study successfully identifies a number of decision making tools related to building refurbishment and an initial research path in favor of building energy consumption reductions.

Pressure is growing globally for larger businesses to improve the energy performance of the buildings in which they operate. Property or facility managers are usually responsible for these improvements through energy‐led refurbishment. The number and complexity of possible interventions pose challenges that these professionals attempt to meet by using decision support tools (DSTs). The work aims to identify key features of DSTs for energy‐led building refurbishment and define an optimum approach.

A desk study examined ten DSTs reported in the available literature and evaluated them against a set of desirable attributes that a property or facility manager would value for this task.

The results of the desk study concluded that no DST offers every feature and that there is an opportunity for a new DST for energy‐led refurbishment. An optimum DST template is proposed, consisting of a seven‐step process from assessment of the existing state of the building through to continuous evaluation and improvement of the refurbished building.

The work combines the best features of available DSTs into a novel optimised strategy for energy‐led refurbishment of non‐domestic buildings, which is geographically non‐specific and could be applied anywhere in the world.

The paper's objective is to empirically study the effects of building refurbishment on the prices of the dwelling units in a contiguous housing estate in Hong Kong.

In a congested living environment like Hong Kong, it is difficult, if not impossible, to have a view unobstructed by buildings. As such, the quality of views is dependent on the aesthetic quality of surrounding buildings. It is likely that poorly maintained buildings will impose negative visual effects on their immediate surroundings. Refurbishing these poor buildings should, therefore, reduce or even counter this negative externality. To study the positive externality brought about by building refurbishment, a hedonic price analysis was conducted on a set of panel data consisting of property transactions in a large housing estate located in Pokfulam. This estate was chosen because its adjoining buildings underwent refurbishment in 1998.

The results showed that the refurbishment increased significantly the prices of those properties which faced refurbished buildings, keeping other things constant. The increments, on average, amounted 6.6 per cent of the prices of the properties.

Building refurbishment can have various scopes and scales but this study did not consider how the characteristics of the building refurbishment affected the prices of neighbourhood properties.

Given the problems of aging buildings in most urban areas, the results presented significant practical implications for building refurbishment and urban renewal as a whole. Developers or property owners may be lured to invest in the refurbishment of adjacent dilapidated properties with a view to enhancing the values of their own properties.

Although previous studies analytically suggested that building refurbishment created positive externality, this study is the first attempt to explore this connection.

This work is initiated under the premise that reliable evaluation methods are necessary to ensure investments in energy conservation, and the purpose of this paper is to contribute to that literature. It describes some pilot changes and their impact in an actual field study oriented toward upgrading municipal public housing (MPH) units.

The research for this paper was connected to an MPH refurbishment project situated in northern Sweden. The overall energy efficiency goal within the project was a 40-50 percent reduction in the supplied energy for central electricity, domestic hot water and space heating. In order to evaluate if these goals were feasible, a measurement system was installed in a pilot building and in a neighboring building used as a reference. The evaluation was conducted by comparing the post-retrofit performance of the pilot building with the performance of the reference building when it was kept in its initial state (a comparison possible because both buildings had initial similarities).

Impacts could be quantified insofar as a reference (control) building in the same environment was sustained for comparison purposes. A 43 percent improvement was observed in energy utilization in the pilot building compared to its reference companion (99.8 vs 174.5 kWh/m² per year). When the approach described herein was applied to new construction, the present goal of 65 kWh/m² was approached as measured by Swedish standards.

Results should be of interest to academics in the housing field, professionals involved in refurbishment and residents themselves, renting MPH flats.

This study is unique in the following ways: first, it really was a field experiment with a control, thus it did not have any exogenous interference in interpreting results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind. The second interesting characteristic was that results were subsequently used in the refurbishment of other buildings in the complex and in the construction of others. The major value of the paper may be associated with its timing. It comes at a time when the Kyoto agreement has raised concerns about sustainability, but also at a time when many buildings are facing a need for refurbishment.

The purpose of this paper is to establish how UK offices and double skin façade (DSF) technologies can be best matched for refurbishment purposes.

This research uses a mixed methodology including primary and secondary data collection, analysis and interpolation through document analysis, comprehensive critical literature review, and case study approach.

In total, 22 benchmarks have been developed to represent 75 per cent of the existing office stock in the UK. Through a comparison with 36 case studies of European buildings refurbished with DSFs, two benchmarks showed to be most suitable for a DSF refurbishment and most appropriate configurations for a successful DSF refurbishment have been identified. Findings have been also checked against a large sample of DSF buildings in the UK.

The benchmarks delivered in this study can be developed further into parametric models, where variations can be obtained by changing the parameters provided. A follow-up study can be designed to help define the exact share of existing stock represented by each benchmark and to foster research where a more typological or statistical approach might be intended.

Findings from this research can be of practical use to academics and practitioners alike involved in research related to office refurbishments, DSFs, and the UK existing office stock. The design for this research can also be adapted to similar studies on its own or further developed to suit different contexts.

Improvements to existing buildings can preserve established communities, with a clear social advantage.

This paper represents the first attempt to systemically shed light on how existing UK offices and DSF technologies can be best matched in refurbishments. The benchmarks developed, the DSF case studies, and guidelines for suitable DSF technologies in UK office refurbishments represent the original contribution of this research.

Examines the context of design of intelligent buildings. Considers the potential to create intelligent buildings during refurbishment in the light of refurbishment limits – quality and quantity of space, appearance of building. IT and services distribution and environmental performance. Concludes that refurbishment to provide intelligent buildings is viable if IT use is not high and building limits can be overcome, since it is faster, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than redevelopment.

Reviews the theory and principles of economic appraisal in redevelopment and rehabilitation/refurbishment. Explains some of the statistical research in housing and commercial office appraisals, including the results from computer simulations and sensitivity tests of the important methods of appraisal and analysis.

Any building refurbishment is challenging and school buildings offer no exception. They are increasingly in need of refurbishment due to their age and evolving teaching and learning. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of literature on sustainable refurbishment so as to identify key lessons from selected successful refurbishment projects. The review findings are expected to contribute to the development of refurbishment plans in an effective and innovative manner that should extend building’s service life, focus on resource efficiency, and comfort their users. It will also contribute to knowledge base of refurbishment and suggest future directions for research.

The paper has undertaken a literature review on the sustainability assessment of buildings and frameworks for sustainable refurbishment. Besides, the work also provides a review of recent successful refurbishment projects to collect and structure systems experiences which can be adopted in developing a sustainable refurbishment strategy for school buildings.

Findings include three groups of lessons in terms of reasons, process and barriers in the selected refurbishment projects that assist stakeholders to prepare a suitable refurbishment plan for their school buildings. The potential of 3D scanners and BIM applications in the refurbishment process will also be reviewed in order to develop a proposed framework of 3D scanner vs BIM for the refurbishment process. Recommendations highlight the role of a national strategy as a driving factor for applying the advantages of information technology to enhance optimal solution selection processes to get better and more sustainable results.

The conceptual framework for 3D scanner and BIM applications within sustainable refurbishment for school buildings is currently under researched, and the findings aimed to address such a gap when considering 3D scanners and BIM applications in the refurbishment process.

The more contemporary views on managing projects recommend stakeholder engagement as an important part of the process. Challenges have been reported when attempting to involve project stakeholders in a construction project due to the complexity of the processes. In projects such as refurbishment projects, the efforts to incorporate end users' needs and preferences into spatial environmental functions increase the complexity of stakeholder engagement during the journey of the project. This paper presents a unique technique used to integrate different tools within the system enquiry methodology in modelling the project stakeholder engagement process for refurbishment projects.

Aiming to address the problem, system dynamics (SD) has been selected as the most suitable method for modelling the dynamic behaviour of this complex system over time. A tool known as a rich picture diagram (RPD) is proposed as the precursor of the development of a causal loop diagram (CLD) to facilitate a more holistic abstraction for applicable solutions. An example of a single case study involving the refurbishment of a higher education building project is presented to explain the analysis undertaken in the process of developing the CLD that models the dynamic behaviour within end-user stakeholder engagement.

This paper demonstrates the complementarity capabilities of the soft and hard systems of enquiry in modelling stakeholder's dynamics within the refurbishment construction contexts. The RPD soft system tool was found useful to congregate diverse stakeholder expressions and experiences of a complex system in a holistic manner. Subsequently, the development of the CLD was fully guided by the information and relationship captured and presented in the RPD to yield a representative system model. Furthermore, this paper also reports the dynamics of the actors, situations, events and their inter-relationship found in the presented refurbishment project.

This paper enriches the techniques within the system enquiry methodology by integrating hard and soft system tools for dynamic process modelling purposes. This is particularly achieved by utilizing the RPD as the precursor of SD that provides a useful way for researchers and stakeholders to fully understand the dynamics and develop robust systemic interventions to optimize end-user stakeholder engagement during the journey of refurbishment projects, particularly of higher education buildings.