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Professional guide to evaluating the structural and material integrity of buildings and the financial viability of adaptive use and preservation projects.
This book is designed for architects and engineers who need to evaluate existing buildings for a new use or for continuing a current use. It details each step of the evaluation process using an easy-to-follow and easy-to-implement approach that greatly reduces the possibility of unexpected costs and setbacks. Moreover, the book covers every part of the building itself, from interior and exterior structures to systems and materials.
This book begins with an overview of architectural character and the identification of character-defining elements from the colonial period to modern architecture. Next, the authors offer you a step-by-step guide to the evaluation process, covering:
- Comprehensive survey of existing conditions.
- Electrical and mechanical systems.
- Plumbing, bathrooms, accessibility, and fire systems.
- Sustainability.
- Pro forma analysis, including constructing an Excel spreadsheet.
- Testing structures, materials, and systems.
Illustrations throughout the book help you visualize and perform key procedures. In addition, the authors examine building evaluation issues for structures of different scales, such as medium and small commercial structures and residential buildings.
Most important, the authors help you assess the financial viability of a proposed adaptive reuse or preservation project, helping you and potential investors decide whether the proposed project offers a desired return on investment.
An architect and engineer must consider many aspects of any building that is being evaluated for an adaptive re-use project. Careful and precise evaluation of an existing building's structure, systems, and materials are necessary for both design considerations and for financial feasibility analysis. This professional guide to evaluating structural and material integrity of existing buildings covers everything from foundation issues to decorative details, identifying the causes of building failures as well as techniques for repair.
Building Evaluation for Adaptive Reuse and Preservation considers building assessment issues for structures of different scales: midsize commercial, small commercial and residential buildings.
Building repairs on adaptive re-use or historic preservation projects are an essential consideration in the financial outlook of a project, and this book details each step in the assessment process in an easy-to-understand way.
From the Preface
When considering the feasibility of a building for adaptive reuse, there is no widely accepted method for the early stages of the process when clients and the professionals they enlist to inspect properties and structures intended for development must answer many questions. Is the structure sound? What has to be done to make it safe and meet building codes? What components can be used and what must be replaced? Will construction costs allow the desired return on investment? Many historic buildings have had updates and systems added that may or may not be adequate or compatible with the new planned use - what can be salvaged? What is needed to bring them up to modern standards?
The list is endless, and knowing some of the answers will tell the interested parties whether a project is economically possible or prohibitive. In too many instances, developers and inspectors encounter problems that translate into increased construction costs and reduced profits. Up until now, experience and intuition are often the only guides to making decisions for adaptive reuse. Too often developers and business people need the expensive services of design professionals to determine the spatial fit and the financial expenditures necessary to complete the construction and occupy the space. A reference manual outlining inspection and assessment methodology is badly needed - and this is the objective of this book. It provides both the seasoned veteran and the novice with a systematic method for determining the condition of a building's structure, its systems, and the cost of improvements to make the building functionally and aesthetically pleasing - and profitable. The "Pro Forma Analysis" included here can be an initial indicator of project feasibility. Upon its completion, a decision to buy or lease can be made with a minimum expenditure of time and monies. If a project is feasible, the next step in the process, the more expensive programming or spatial allocation phase, is now easily justified.
Existing material assessment books are available. However, each is focused on specific materials and considers primarily deterioration or failure. So it is obvious that a systematic method of investigation and assessment is needed. To address this, we have developed a book that comes after Structural Analysis of Historic Buildings (John Wiley & Sons, 2000) by coauthor J. Stanley Rabun. We take a different route by giving you a clear, comprehensive method of investigation and assessment for making that critical decision whether to reuse, build anew, or pass up on an unsuitable structure. The authors utilize many years of experience in the construction industry. Both are responsible for many projects of the type discussed in this book. They have encountered many of the variables that go into making informed business decisions. This is necessary because every existing building contains systems that need to be assessed to determine if replacement or updating is necessary. This volume fills the gap in asking the right questions, finding the right answers, and making the right decisions to make adaptive reuse a profitable as well as rewarding venture in preserving the structures that so often provide our cities and towns with their identity.
From the Introduction
Expenditures for renovations of buildings rival that for new construction in the United States. Of these expenditures, a large portion is for preparing an existing building for a new use. This book is intended as a guide for those who are considering such a project. It focuses on the existing building and its internal systems. It should be on hand - and in mind - during walk-through inspections of the building and during the conceptual design stages of the work.
Dr. Rabun's book, Structural Analysis of Historic Buildings, explained the rationale behind the structural support systems in existing buildings and identified the need for additional information on existing buildings. John Wiley & Sons was the natural publisher for this volume as the recognized leaders in technical publications.
The authors have chosen to organize this book by the systems that serve a building much the way we are organized by our skeleton, internal organs, arteries, and veins. That is, by a building's systems - structural, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing. One reason for this organizational pattern is that the systems are, under current practice, usually designed by specialized professionals. Another reason is that each system to some extent can be evaluated separately. Construction work is typically handled by trades focused on each of the systems. Costs can be broken down by subcontracts in the same way.
This is not to say that the systems are independent of each other - those analogous systems in a human body we know are not. The systems of a building are linked and intertwined. They function together. Keeping to this principle, the parts of this book are intended to function together as well as to give an overview of the status and condition of an existing building and assist in decision making regarding potential reuse.
Specialized professionals can analyze and evaluate the systems in an existing building without much assistance from a work such as this. However, even for specialists, it is a checklist of things to consider and a source for background information on older ways of designing and building - that is, it provides various expertise beyond their own experience. This book also provides information on how systems are related, another area where being too specialized can be a limitation.
Real estate developers, architects, contractors, and building owners are the primary readers and users the authors have in mind - especially those who are new to the field of adaptive reuse. Such professionals learn to identify the historic horizon of a building, its probable system types, what systems can be reused, and the upgrades or new systems that may need to be installed to achieve profitability.
There is a trend in progress for teams of professionals to cooperate in the survey, analysis, design, and construction of adaptive reuse projects as contrasted from the traditional owner-developer/architect/contractor arrangement. The older organization was based on competitive and adversarial relationships between these individuals.
A more effective and sustainable organizational pattern is for all to be on board from the beginning and to contribute in all phases of the project. In this way sustainable features can be incorporated from the very inception and can often result in cost-saving measures in other areas.
The system chapters, 3 through 5, are arranged with a description of the historic development of that system by eras. This is followed by guidance in identifying the system and advice on evaluating the performance of that system and its suitability for continued use in the new occupancy. The chapter then recommends choices for replacement or upgraded systems in lieu of existing systems. Chapters 6 and 8 respectively discuss the sustainability of the building for reuse and the tests that can be employed to gain further information on the condition and performance of systems.
Chapter 7 features a "Pro Forma Analysis" that is, a Microsoft Excel worksheet designed to accept simple data inputs from initial square footages, rental rates, taxes, mortgage rates, and the like for the building. Estimates of construction costs by square foot and other specialty expenses are a part of the input data. The pro forma analysis worksheet can provide a number of different rates of return on the investment. It is a valuable tool for earliest stage feasibility analysis, which is all that is needed to determine if the project as conceived provides a positive return. If the project is proven feasible, then as consultants become involved and a more comprehensive set of construction estimates and rental rates evolve - with an accurate determination of the net rentable square footage - a more sophisticated set of worksheets and other kinds of computer applications will be appropriate.
This book includes detailed instructions that enable the reader to construct a pro forma spreadsheet identical to the one in Chapter 7. Adapting it to another project is simple as the variable input data is all set to be entered on sheet one (even additional items of expense or income can be set up on the first sheet). Sheets two, three, and four automatically generate the information and comparisons needed to evaluate the financial feasibility of a project.
Table of Contents
Preface. Acknowledgments. Introduction. Chapter 1: Architectural Character. Chapter 2: Survey of Existing Conditions. Chapter 3: Electrical Systems: Background. Chapter 4: Mechanical Systems. Chapter 5: Plumbing, Bathrooms, Accessibility and Fire Systems. Chapter 6: Sustainability. Chapter 7: Proforma Analysis. Chapter 8: Testing. Bibliography. Index.
About the Authors
J. Stanley Rabun, PhD, PE, RA, is a professor at the University of Tennessee. As an architect and structural engineer, he has designed many residential and commercial buildings and continues to consult on a wide array of projects. Dr. Rabun also serves as an expert witness in construction accidents and building failures, testifying on cases involving water leakage and mold. Dr. Rabun is the author of Structural Analysis of Historic Buildings (Wiley).
Richard Kelso, PhD, PE, is a mechanical engineer and a professor at the University of Tennessee. A partner in a consulting engineering firm for more than twenty-five years, Dr. Kelso serves as an expert witness in construction accidents and building failures, testifying on cases involving HVAC systems and mold. |
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