Literature review of green retrofit design for commercial buildings with BIM implication

Abstract

Purpose

This research paper is a literature review of the existing building retrofitting process. It proposes studying the functional, technical, and organizational issues of the green retrofit process. The purpose of this paper is to expand the domain of design framework for retrofitting existing buildings.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a review of the model-based design process from enrollment to evaluation stages representing the green retrofitting process in selected publications. The paper opted to review the Green Retrofit Design (GRD) process model for achieving a systematic design model of GRD development in the future.

Findings

Functional and maintenance issues are mainly for new buildings, also in the field for renovation and demolishing. Publications also show that environmental, social, and technical issues are often examined separately in the decision process of GRD. Papers in the facility management scale would concentrate more on organization/legal issues. Publications with questionnaire design are devoted to the usage on life-cycle assessment on existing building, but not yet on the stakeholder management and design process and related issues.

Social implications

The achievement of the study is to provide a new framework of design approach that is significant to the theoretical research, education, communication, and practical works in terms of GRD development.

Originality/value

The paper not only achieves a specific sequence of practical approaches, including awareness of problems, conceptual development, and design embodiment, to meet design objectives, but also conforms to academic practice-based research of creative design taking on GRD practice.

Citation

Bu, S., Shen, G., Anumba, C.J., Wong, A.K.D. and Liang, X. (2015), "Literature review of green retrofit design for commercial buildings with BIM implication", Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 188-214. https://doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-08-2014-0043