Evaluating Social Housing Retrofit Options to Support Clients’ Decision Making—SIMPLER BIM Protocol

Patricia Tzortzopoulos, Ling Ma, João Soliman Junior and Lauri Koskela
Additional contact information
Patricia Tzortzopoulos: School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
Ling Ma: The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, Faculty of the Built Environment; London’s Global University, London WC1H 0QB, UK
João Soliman Junior: School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
Lauri Koskela: School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: The UK government made significant commitments to upgrading the energy efficiency of seven million British homes by 2020, aiming at reducing carbon emissions and addressing fuel poverty. One alternative to achieve better energy performance in existing houses is retrofit. However, there are difficulties associated with retrofitting social housing. It is currently challenging to compare scenarios (retrofit options) considering costs, potential energy efficiency gains, and at the same time minimising disruption to users. This paper presents a Building Information Modelling (BIM) protocol aimed to support decision making by social housing owners. It adopts BIM to simulate alternative retrofit options, considering: (a) potential reductions in energy consumption, (b) 4D BIM for retrofit planning and reduction of users’ disruption and (c) simulation of costs. A what-if scenario matrix is proposed to support decision making in the selection of social housing retrofit solutions, according to client and users’ needs. A case study of the retrofit of a mid-terrace house is presented to demonstrate the workflow. The main output of the work is the BIM protocol, which can support client decision making in diverse social housing retrofit projects, considering all three elements (energy simulation, planning for reduced disruption and cost estimation) in an integrated fashion. Such an integrated approach enables clients to make better informed decisions considering diverse social housing retrofit options through a simple process using readily available BIM technology.

Keywords: retrofit; building information modelling; social housing; energy simulation; cost estimate; 4D simulation; construction disruption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2507/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2507/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:9:p:2507-:d:227087

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().