Revealing the influence mechanism of the service lifespan of residential buildings in China

Abstract

The total amount of resources and energy consumed by long-lifespan residential buildings (RBs) is far less than that of short-lifespan RBs with repeated demolitions and constructions. This study aims to expand revealing of comprehensive influencing of the service lifespan of RBs beyond the previous approach that focused only on the one aspect of physical conditions with RBs. This study proposed these latent variables (i.e., physical, functional, economic, environmental and social lifespans), which made a better understanding of the service lifespan of RBs. To analyze the influence mechanism of the service lifespan of RBs, an empirical RB's lifespan dataset was established and tested utilizing a two-stage structural equation modeling (SEM) method. The results indicated that: (1) functional lifespan (total effects = 2.15) and environmental lifespan (total effects = 1.46) have an obvious positive impact on the service lifespan of RBs; (2) the influencing factors including structure design, land finance, employment of migrant workers, planning forward, and technical measures have a significant impact in corresponding lifespan dimension; and (3) improving construction technology and guaranteeing land value are regarded as the fundamental extending measure for the service lifespan of RBs. This study complements the connotation of RB service lifespan to a certain extent and further improves the sustainable development theory. Policy implications derived from the results were discussed at the end of the study.