Rehabilitation Of Buildings Research Articles

Local Development and Gentrification Resulting from the Rehabilitation of Singular Buildings: Analysis of Neural Networks

The recovery of a built heritage and specifically of singular buildings is a key aspect of local development. The aim of this study was to understand the influence of these regenerations on their environment by transforming adjacent businesses and initiating parallel processes of gentrification and local development. The renewed attraction of these new businesses to the area can result in increased employment and production. The methodology used was based on self-organizing maps of neural networks with matrix architecture and competitive learning. Through the analysis of neural networks, we were able to identify common relationships and behaviors in commercial properties which are adjacent to singular buildings and that share common patterns and characteristics or attributes. The singular buildings analyzed are located along the Spanish Mediterranean coast in the cities of Almería, Barcelona, and Valencia. The results obtained were based on the following hypotheses: occupancy model and the classification based on total occupancy, total variation in occupancy, and the most common types of usage of a given ground floor commercial property. Among the conclusions, we highlight the existence of commercial premises that display anti-cyclical economic behavior and the presence of commercial premises considered to be “unfortunate” or with low potential.

Validation of nondestructive methods for assessing stone masonry using artificial neural networks

The aim of this study is to deepen the technical and scientific knowledge related to the characterization of granite masonry based on geophysical tests, mechanical techniques, and neural networks. We used a nondestructive test method to characterize traditional stone masonry and further obtained data on the mechanical parameters of the elements. Historic buildings are typically constructed with stone masonry and make up the urban heritage. The maintenance and rehabilitation of historic buildings are crucial for maintaining interest in history, owing to the historical and cultural values of such buildings. The preservation of buildings classified as historical and cultural heritage is of collective interest, as they mark the history of society. Because the research object is considered a traditional structure, the use of destructive test techniques is discouraged. Thus, a mechanical characterization simulation tool using artificial neural networks (ANNs) was developed and applied to traditional granite walls. This database was developed through ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and sonic tests to characterize wall samples built. The walls were analyzed in a controlled environment, and the elastic modulus was used in response to the ANNs. Two case studies representing traditional granite masonry buildings in Portugal were evaluated through nondestructive characterization tests. For the Mancelos church and Miguel Bombarda Street building, ANNs were applied based on the sonic and GPR test results. The feasibility of using ANN simulation tools for characterizing traditional and historic buildings constructed with granite stone masonry was demonstrated.

Proposal for a Methodology for Sustainable Rehabilitation Strategies of the Existing Building Stock—The Ponte Gêa Neighborhood

Having in mind the objectives of the United Nations Development Agenda 2030, which refers to the sustainable principles of a circular economy, it is urgent to improve the performance of the built environment. The existing buildings must be preserved and improved in order to reduce their environmental impact, in line with the need to revert climate change and reduce the occurrence of natural disasters. This work had as its main goal to identify and define a methodology for promoting the rehabilitation of buildings in the Ponte Gêa neighborhood, in the city of Beira, Mozambique, with an emphasis on energy efficiency, water efficiency, and construction and demolition waste management. The proposed methodology aims to create a decision support method for creating strategic measures to be implemented by considering the three specific domains—energy, water, and waste. This model allows for analyzing the expected improvement according to the action to be performed, exploring both individual and community solutions. It encompasses systems of standard supply that can reveal greater efficiency and profitability. Thus, the in-depth knowledge of the characteristics of urban space and buildings allows for establishing guidelines for the renovation process of the neighborhood.

Colour Ageing in Acrylic Resin Plates and Natural Minerals on the Façade after 10 Years of Sun Exposure in the Marine Environment

The synthetic material developed by Dupont in 1963 for solid surfaces has been used since its origin for numerous applications. One of the most popular ones in the last decade is as a finishing layer on façades. The first references that contemplated this use on the outside were the Seeko’o hotel in Bordeaux executed in 2007 and the refurbishment of the 7700 m2 shell of the Hôtel Ivoire congress centre in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) in 2009. In Spain, the first example of the installation of this material is the rehabilitation of the main building of the La Rotonda de la Playa de San Juan urbanisation in Alicante, designed in 1965 by the architect Juan Guardiola Gaya and rehabilitated in 2010 by Miguel Salvador Landmann. Ten years later, our research is focused on the study of the colour ageing of the acrylic resin and natural mineral sheets on each of its façades, with different orientations and exposure to sea and wind. To this end, it has been studied the solar radiation of the surfaces, the wind exposure of their façades and tests with a tele-spectroradiometer has been carried out. The study makes it possible to quantify the differences in colour in all of them and to state that the combination of wind and radiation is the main atmospheric agent causing the degradation.

In-Service Thermal and Luminous Performance Monitoring of a Refurbished Building with Solar Control Films on the Glazing System

The global increase in energy needs and environmental awareness for a more efficient energy use have boosted building rehabilitation to decrease energy consumption. The installation of solar control films (SCFs) in buildings with large glazing façades makes it possible to reduce excessive solar gains through the glazing. The main purpose of the work is to assess, with field experimental data, the thermal and luminous performances of double-glazing units with SCFs installed in office rooms, in Lisbon. An experimental campaign was carried out simultaneously in three adjacent offices: one with a highly reflective SCF (external installation), one with a reflective SCF (internal installation) and one without an SCF. The exterior SCF showed the best thermal performance with reductions in the peak indoor air temperature of up to 6.9 and 2.3 °C during the representative days of the heating and cooling periods, respectively, increasing thermal comfort mainly during the cooling period. The interior SCF had a poorer thermal performance since it contributed to solar radiation absorption that is then emitted as heat into the indoor environment, increasing the greenhouse effect of the office. The presence of SCFs reduced the indoor illuminance levels, having a positive impact on thermal comfort and glare reduction in the cooling period.

Up-To-Date Challenges for the Conservation, Rehabilitation and Energy Retrofitting of Higher Education Cultural Heritage Buildings

In higher-education world heritage sites, the conservation and energy retrofitting of heritage buildings (HBs) is an important vector for their development, competitiveness and welfare. To guarantee their ongoing use, these buildings must be adapted to face current and emerging societal challenges: (i) the conservation of cultural heritage and the maintenance of their original characteristics and identity; (ii) the transformation of heritage sites into tourist centers that energize the local economy, generating revenue and jobs; (iii) the adaptation of the buildings to new uses and functions that demand energy retrofitting strategies to satisfy today’s standards of thermal comfort, indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy efficiency; (iv) tackling impacts of climate change, particularly global warming and extreme weather events; and finally, (v) the implementation of strategies to mitigate the impact of a growing number of tourists. The combined implications of these challenges require a comprehensive approach with interrelated measures strongly reliant on the use of technology and innovation. This work aims to discuss how higher-education cultural HBs can be rethought to serve these expectations. Moreover, a multidisciplinary intervention framework is provided to discuss how HBs can respond to the challenges and risks of rehabilitation, energy retrofitting, climate change and increasing tourism.

Holistic model for the assessment of restoration projects of heritage housing. Case studies in Lisbon

In urban centres across Europe, a large number of old dwellings, some of which are heritage buildings, fail to meet the current habitability standards. In order to achieve sustainable urban restoration, it is necessary to act from social, economic, and environmental standpoints, and also to promote socio-cultural sustainability and to prevent depopulation. The environmental assessment is a particularly complicated task in restoration projects of heritage buildings. Economic control, however, is often carried out, especially in publicly funded projects. The model proposed simultaneously enables the economic-environmental assessment of rehabilitation actions carried out on heritage housing. Three case studies of heritage housing in Lisbon (Portugal) are evaluated. The tool proposed is based on standardisation criteria and on conversion factors of work actions that transform them into cost and environmental impact. New work units related to seismic reinforcement are included, due to Lisbon’s history of earthquakes. The model also compares restoration costs to those of demolition and new construction; the cost is only 5–15% lower, but the environmental impact is 70 % lower than in a new construction. Furthermore, a reduction of over 50 % in annual CO2 emissions and 80 % in energy consumption for heating and cooling are also verified. The model evaluates the rehabilitation of heritage buildings from a holistic perspective in order to assist in the future planning and definition of urban political strategies.

Experimental and analytical investigation on flexural behaviour of glulam-concrete composite beams with interlayer

In various practical applications of timber-concrete composite (TCC) beams, particularly for the rehabilitation of timber buildings, there is a timber board interlayer at the interface. The timber board is applied as the formwork for the pouring of concrete slab and usually left behind as part of the composite structure. There are few investigations performed on the mechanical behaviour of TCC beams with timber board interlayer. In this paper, two full-scale glulam-concrete composite beams with inclined crossing screws and notched connectors were constructed and loaded by four-point bending to investigate the flexural performance of composite beams with timber board interlayer. Experimental results demonstrated that the failure mechanism of the composite beam was combined bending and tensile failure of the glulam beam. Due to the flexibility of the shear connector, relative slip occurred at the interface and the assumption of a plane section remaining plane did not hold for the composite cross-section as a unit. Additionally, analytical models for the bending stiffness and load-bearing capacity of TCC beams with interlayer were proposed. Comparisons demonstrated that the bending capacity and stiffness of TCC beams with interlayer could be well predicted using the calculation method.

¿Rehabilitar patrimonio o escolarizar a la población? Gasto público en la Sevilla de mediados del siglo XIX

Este artículo reflexiona sobre la provisión de servicios educativos públicos en la ciudad de Sevilla durante la Década Moderada, poniendo de manifiesto la contradicción entre la legislación nacional y la práctica local en la creación y puesta en funcionamiento de las escuelas públicas. El análisis de la documentación municipal demuestra cómo las obligaciones de los Ayuntamientos crecieron acompañadas de restricciones presupuestarias. Las decisiones de las autoridades locales, en última instancia, beneficiaron los intereses de las élites urbanas, y los escasos fondos destinados a la educación primaria se desviaron hacia la rehabilitación de edificios y el establecimiento de centros de enseñanza secundaria, en perjuicio de las necesidades de las clases populares y contraviniendo las normativas nacionales.

Most Frequent Problems of Building Structures of Urban Apartment Buildings from 2nd Half of 19th Century and the Start of 20th Century

An urban residential building from the second half of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, the so-called tenement house, is a significant representative of the architecture of the developing urban fabric in Central Europe. The vertical and horizontal load-bearing structures of these houses currently tend to show characteristic, repeated defects and failures. Their knowledge may, in many cases, facilitate and speed up the design of the historic building’s restoration without compromising its heritage value in this process. The article presents the summary of the most frequently occurring defects and failures of these buildings. The summary, however, is not an absolute one, and, in the case of major damage to the building, it still applies that, first of all, a detailed analysis of the causes and consequences of defects and failures must be made as a basic prerequisite for the reliability and long-term durability of the building’s restoration and rehabilitation. An integral part of the rehabilitation of buildings must be the elimination of the causes of the appearance of their failures and remediation of all defects impairing their structural safety, health safety and energy efficiency.

Approaches Regarding the Functional and Structural Rehabilitation of Historical Monumental Buildings

The aim of the research is to analyze the approaches to the problems of functional and structural rehabilitation of historic monumental buildings. The research examined the possibility of changing the destination of a historic building, which involves both functional rehabilitation (rehabilitation and adaptation of thermal energy, acoustics, water repellent and fire protection) and structural rehabilitation, by replacing or partially modifying the building or, if the structural system allows, complete restoration of its parts; local structural restoration (consolidation); structural modification, by introducing adjacent or incidental construction elements, which together with the existing structure can form another structural system and even change the structural concept using the procedures that can increase strength and stability. As a result of the research, it was established that changing the destination of a building involves both functional rehabilitation, by compartmentalizing the new function, rehabilitation and thermal, energy, acoustic, water repellent adaptation and fire safety of the building undergoing reconversion, and structural rehabilitation. When protecting historical monuments, a series of principles and rules must be observed regarding the owners’ interventions, the holders of the administration right, the concessionaires and the tenants.

ВОССТАНОВЛЕННЫЕ ЗАВОДЫ: НОВАЯ ЖИЗНЬ ИНДУСТРИАЛЬНОГО НАСЛЕДИЯ В ИТАЛИИ

In the wake of deindustrialisation, Italy too has been affected by the significant phenomenon of the closure of industrial plants and facilities, which in some ways has marked the end of an era. Physical evidence of past industrial activity was at first considered to be an obstacle to the development of areas and therefore to be removed. It was only at the end of the 80s of the last century that a more widespread interest in the protection of old factories was aroused. Three themes will be examined in the course of this article. First of all, an attempt will be made to identify the time frame of reference of the Italian industrial heritage, so as not to exclude past experiences of productive organization that anticipated the modern factory system. The second theme is the different methodologies of recovery and conversion of old work spaces into spaces for new activities. The characteristics of the industrial heritage require different methods of intervention, among which exemplary restoration is only one of the possible solutions. More often it is the task of the project to find the right balance between conservation and transformation in the rehabilitation of industrial buildings. The third theme concerns the role of industrial heritage in urban regeneration programmes. In order to be fully appreciated, this role requires a higher level of vision, a focus not on individual interventions but on the benefits that an entire district or city can gain from an integrated rehabilitation of its industrial heritage.

Retrofitting practices in various categories of RCC structures – A comprehensive review

Retrofitting has become more vital in the progress of civil engineering in recent years. It helps to rehabilitation and maintenance of buildings for both short-term and long-term processes so that the structures withstanding capability has been predicted to enhance the probability through the strengthening of existing structural elements. In this proposed article, operational evaluation of retrofitting practices has been discussed for residential, commercial, industrial and educational buildings and massive structures like buildings and dams. Progress and future scope of research have been identified in this article.

Cost benefit analysis for rehabilitation of buildings: case of Indian Medical Association, New Delhi

Cost benefit analysis for rehabilitation of buildings: case of Indian Medical Association, New Delhi

High resolution NDT in the characterization of the inner structure and materials of heritage buildings walls and columns

Rehabilitation, restoration and maintenance of monuments, heritage and buildings pose challenging tasks to engineers and architects, as any intervention must respect their architectural and constructive characteristics. Often these are unknown and sources of information have long been lost in time. Thus, there is a need to use methods capable of providing information on a wide range of aspects such as building foundations, construction characteristics and materials, alterations from the original layout, infrastructure mapping, pathologies, etc. These methods must respect the inherent structural delicacy and characteristics of ancient buildings and non-destructive methods, NDT such as geophysical methods, have been proposed to investigate these problems.It is common knowledge that a single geophysical method cannot provide full information on the problems to investigate. Thus, herein the combined use of Seismic Transmission Tomography and Ground Penetrating Radar – GPR - is demonstrated to provide important results in the investigation of the constructive elements (columns and walls) of a 14th century UNESCO monument. As demonstrated, high-resolution geophysical data obtained from both methods provide very good images of the interior of both walls and columns giving information on the quality and spatial distribution of the materials used in the construction of the monument.Finally, the results herein discussed prove the suitability and complementarity of these two methods to investigate, built heritage, monuments and buildings in general.

Architectural Rehabilitation and Sustainability of Green Buildings in Historic Preservation

The aim of the article is to alert to the fact that architecture must comprehend Nature and bring it back again to the daily life of Man, increasing his physical and psychological comfort. The "Green" in Architectural Rehabilitation can have several meanings and approximations. In this article we address "Green" as Color and Attitude. This paper has been developed through deepening the hypothesis of the color green in living coatings. The creation of an ecological skin in architecture accentuates the dilution of the presence of interventions in heritage contexts with an attitude of knowing how to add, involving Nature. These allow creating solutions that avoid the formalisms of architectural language, being of special relevance their application in the Architectural Rehabilitation of the Heritage. Examples of green roofs and green facades are presented and it is shown that rainwater management improves the sustainability of the historic place. Complementary, as a Green Attitude, it is essential to use renewable energy in buildings to achieve NZEB – Nearly Zero Energy Building. As a case study we have selected the Rehabilitation of the Cathedral of Portalegre in Portugal. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2020-01-04-04 Full Text: PDF

Seismic rehabilitation of concrete buildings after the 1985 and 2017 earthquakes in Mexico City

The 19 September 2017 Puebla–Morelos earthquake provides a unique opportunity to (a) study the effectiveness of seismic rehabilitation methods implemented in Mexico City after 1985 and (b) collect large amounts of data on current building rehabilitation practices. This article presents and discusses seismic rehabilitation efforts conducted on concrete buildings after the 1985 and 2017 earthquakes. Building damage and vulnerabilities, code provisions for rehabilitation, and common repair and retrofit techniques used in these two periods of time are summarized. The performance of four buildings rehabilitated after 1985 is examined based on results from field investigations conducted after the 2017 event. These rehabilitations were effective in improving the performance of these buildings according to observed damages and estimated shaking intensities. To allow a more systematic assessment of seismic rehabilitations in future earthquakes, an inventory of rehabilitated buildings in Mexico City is currently under development. Preliminary data obtained from this inventory effort are presented and discussed.

Palacete do Lima – Preventive Reabilitation

This text aims to discuss the partial rehabilitation of a 19th century building, Palacete do Lima, in Porto within the framework of cultural heritage’s preservation through architecture. In this case, it is addressed the existence of a hydraulic mosaic floor that was discovered during the rehabilitation’s process and that influenced the decisions that have been made. In effect at previous moments of intervention in the Palacete the mosaic was hidden and later recovered.This text’s reflections intend also to stress that the design solutions were as less intrusive as possible in order to not compromise future and deeper interventions that are foreseen to be undertaken.

Properties of a new material based on a gypsum matrix incorporating waste brick

Many rehabilitation operations of historic buildings have not succeeded to utilize appropriate material for purpose of the project. Currently, the use of construction waste, especially the waste brick, is largely expanded in the world due to construction and rehabilitation of buildings. For efficient and sustainable use of such material in the rehabilitation of the architectural ornaments, an experimental study was conducted to examine the influence of the waste brick content on the physical and mechanical properties of the gypsum mortar. The materials used to prepare the gypsum mortar were gypsum, natural sand, waste brick, water and superplasticizer. The main variable in this study were the waste brick content (0% to 100%) and the type of the substrate (limestone and brick). The W/B ratio of all the mixtures was kept constant to maintain a similar level of the workability. Several tests were performed to assess the physical and the mechanical behaviour of the gypsum mortars including the adhesion test, XRD and the SEM analysis. The results found show that the adhesion strengths in the mortars are more important when the substrate is made from limestone with the regard to the substrate made with brick. However, excessive percentage of waste brick in the mortar can lead to adverse effects and reduce the adhesive strength. Gypsum mortars made with 75% of waste brick should be recommended for the rehabilitation of the architectural ornaments.

Bayesian model selection for the nonlinear hysteretic model of CLT connections

Connections are important components to cross-laminated timber (CLT) structures. Although there are some hysteretic models available for CLT connections, the main challenge is how to select a predictable and robust model. In this paper, three popular hysteretic models, including the Bilinear model, SAWS model, and Pinching4 model, are briefly revisited. These hysteretic models exhibit their advantages and disadvantages, making them difficult to select the most suitable model for the simulation of hysteretic response. Based on the test data, the Bayesian approach is used to determine the most plausible model from five candidate models. The identified results show that the symmetric Pinching4 model has the highest evidence in shear loading, while in the tension loading the SAWS model possesses the highest value. For the evaluation of the identified results, both the idealized backbone curve and Park-Ang damage index are compared, showing a good agreement between the test and model results. These mechanical characteristics are crucial to the design and rehabilitation of timber buildings.