DURABILITY, USE AND RE-USE OF BUILDING STOCK

A substantial share of the building stock in Europe is older than 50 years. Many buildings in use today are hundreds of years old. More than 40% of our residential buildings have been built before the 1960s, when energy building regulations were very limited. The energy consumption and emissions are actually very significant. The refurbishment and renovation of the building stock is the main issue in the government agenda. Furthermore the maintenance and refurbishment is the most important activity of the European construction sector. Nevertheless the regeneration of housing estates of our suburbs is a complex topic common to major European cities. The decision to refurbish or demolish and rebuild the large building stock built during the sixties and seventies of the last century requires a deep evaluation of social, economic and technological issues. The buildings, in particular the public and social housing, are mostly obsolete in terms of layout, energy performances and durability. The topic of refurbishment of public housing is very complex and also the technological aspects are becoming more significant facing the challenge of energy consumption and emission reduction and accomplishing sustainability. One of the most important issues to allow the responsible use of natural as well as financial resources is the feedback from building use and operation to the design. The lack of information about the service life of buildings can be overcome by design tools and procedures to evaluate durability and performances of the building and components over their life time. The research suggests the use of methods of analysis of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to develop a procedure for the service life prediction and prevention of defects. Through the model the reliability of such data is properly managed by a probabilistic approach and the probability of failure related to environmental agents, users, quality of materials and components, design options and workmanship skills is estimated.