Building Maintenance Strategy: A Sustainable Refurbishment Perspective

The entire life cycle of a building include construction, operation, maintenance, demolition and removal, and the normal expected life span of a commercial building may up to 100 years. During this time span, building refurbishment is an important topical in facilities management but limited attempt has been made to study the sustainable refurbishment. In fact, refurbishment strategy should always be one of the core business decisions in the management agenda. The purpose of this research study is to collect the view from a group of practitioners of Australia prior to deciding the building maintenance strategy of existing commercial building. Through extensive literatures review and the quantitative and qualitative data collecting approaches, this paper concludes that traditional maintenance strategies are not adequate but sustainable approach is the right direction. Along the line, the key factors affecting sustainable refurbishment are economical considerations, and the obvious benefits relates to social matters. Respondents also suggest three precedent strategies in sustainable refurbishments to materialize such benefits: namely reusing building elements, applying sustainable techniques and using new materials and adopting new technologies.