TY - GEN
T1 - Estimating the useful life of buildings
AU - Langston, Craig Ashley
N1 - Conference code: 36th
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Obsolescence is a phenomenon that is widely discussed in the literature, although rarely in relation to buildings. In this paper parallels are drawn between obsolescence,depreciation and discounting in order to develop a new method for predicting the impact of building obsolescence based on measurable context factors. These factors have physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political characteristics. Useful life is defined as discounted physical life, where the rate of discount is determined from predicted future obsolescence. As part of the method, a new tool for determining the physical life of buildings is presented. Using an adaptive reuse paradigm to compare predicted useful life with actual useful life, a large number of case studies is analysed retrospectively. The findings demonstrate that the proposed method is robust and that the concept of discounting physical life using obsolescence as a discount rate is valid.
AB - Obsolescence is a phenomenon that is widely discussed in the literature, although rarely in relation to buildings. In this paper parallels are drawn between obsolescence,depreciation and discounting in order to develop a new method for predicting the impact of building obsolescence based on measurable context factors. These factors have physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political characteristics. Useful life is defined as discounted physical life, where the rate of discount is determined from predicted future obsolescence. As part of the method, a new tool for determining the physical life of buildings is presented. Using an adaptive reuse paradigm to compare predicted useful life with actual useful life, a large number of case studies is analysed retrospectively. The findings demonstrate that the proposed method is robust and that the concept of discounting physical life using obsolescence as a discount rate is valid.
M3 - Conference contribution
SP - 418
EP - 432
BT - Proceedings of the 36th Annual conference for Australasian Building Educators Association (AUBEA)
PB - AUBEA
T2 - 36th Annual Conference for Australasian University Building Educators Association
Y2 - 27 April 2011 through 29 April 2011
ER -