Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Start date: 2020Subject: search.filters.subject.Buildings

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    C-DREEM: A framework for estimating the cost of earthquake-damaged buildings – A New Zealand study
    (2025-09-01) Kahandawa Appuhamillage R; Domingo N; Chawynski G; Uma SR
    Natural hazards created by earthquakes require an accurate post-earthquake cost estimation mechanism on the road to recovery. However, there are no identifiable accurate post-earthquake cost estimation mechanisms. This has led to major deviations between the initial and final construction costs. For example, the estimated cost of repair of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence changed from 41 billion NZD to $53 billion NZD (adjusted for inflation). Previous research identified eleven factors that specifically impact post-earthquake cost estimation. The recognisable literature was unable to identify a post-earthquake cost estimation model that considers these factors. Therefore, this research aims to fill this gap by developing and validating the cost of damage repair (including refurbishment) and the Earthquake Estimation Model (C-DREEM) framework. The C-DREEM framework was developed based on previous literature and inputs from a development team that included eleven industry professionals. The developed framework was then verified through a focus group interview consisting of nine professionals. The research developed and verified a framework for cost estimation for earthquake damage repair work, C-DREEM, that impacts earthquake damage repair work. C-DREEM incorporates the factors affecting post-earthquake cost estimation and improves the speed and accuracy of post-earthquake cost estimations for damage repair work.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Towards zero carbon refurbishment of existing buildings in Aotearoa New Zealand : a decision support framework : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023) Bui, Thao Thi Phuong
    Refurbishing the existing building stock is considered a fundamental element of reducing carbon emissions towards sustainable development. The renewal of the existing buildings is not only supposed to provide a better, healthier, more comfortable environment for people in which to live and work but also limit global warming, contributing to climate change mitigation. Due to existing buildings comprising the largest segment of New Zealand’s building stock, encouraging the low-carbon performance of existing buildings will contribute to achieve the net-zero carbon target by 2050. As a result, it is crucial to ensure that existing buildings are well-refurbished to reduce whole-of-life carbon emissions. Strategic decision-making in building refurbishment can increase building adaptability, durability, and resiliency, as well as achieve zero-carbon goals. However, it is complex and challenging as the consideration of lifecycle carbon performance must be integrated with other requirements, such as building regulations, client’s expectations, and stakeholders’ values. Before this thesis, limited research has explored the main factors and actors that affect decision-making in reducing carbon emissions and how to better make decarbonisation decisions for building refurbishment comprehensively. This thesis was undertaken to create a critical understanding of the decision-making process that incorporates carbon reduction initiatives in building refurbishment. This thesis aims to improve the decision-making towards zero carbon refurbishment of existing buildings in New Zealand. Following a sequence of multiple qualitative enquiry modes, a multi-method qualitative research design was applied to address the research aim, including literature review, preliminary study using semi-structured interviews, case studies and focus group discussions. Through examining the current practices of building refurbishment and the decision-making process for reducing whole-of-life carbon emissions in building refurbishment, a novel decision support framework towards zero carbon refurbishment of existing buildings in New Zealand was proposed as the main result of this thesis. Findings from this research have revealed that New Zealand’s building and construction industry is in the early stage of transiting to a net-zero carbon built environment, with many barriers to reducing carbon emissions in the design and construction of buildings, such as are financial issues, the shortage of knowledge, capacity and capability, the lack of legislation, and organisational culture barriers. Moreover, stakeholders involved in building refurbishment have faced many challenges in integrating carbon reduction in their decision-making practices in different areas of the pre-design and design stages of the refurbishment process, including (1) inexplicit carbon goal setting, (2) ineffective building condition assessment, (3) deficient and incomprehensive relevant whole-of-life carbon information to support the decision-making, and (4) inconsistent and ambiguous carbon-calculation guidelines and benchmark. The results also emphasise that considering both embodied and operational carbon impacts is critical to maximising carbon reduction in a building throughout its life cycle. Especially, for building refurbishment, the priority should move from reducing operational to whole-of-life carbon emissions. The results from this thesis also provide an in-depth understanding of the characteristics of the decision-making process in practice, lessons learnt for improved implementation of building refurbishment and the effectiveness of collaborative rationality among the diverse stakeholders. Based on theoretical propositions found in the literature and practical knowledge from empirical findings, a comprehensive decision support framework was developed that provides a detailed guideline to better-delivering building refurbishment towards zero carbon. The framework supports the stakeholders involved in building refurbishment to understand the refurbishment decision-making process and requirements for reducing carbon emissions in certain activities, identify areas for addressing carbon issues in the early stages of the refurbishment process, determine relevant information key factors and actors in driving carbon-reduction solutions, and promote stakeholder collaboration and integration in carbon-reduction building refurbishment. This thesis updates both the practical and theoretical understanding of challenges and improvement measures to establish a greater way to support decarbonisation decisions for building refurbishment. The decision-support framework from this thesis offers building stakeholders a more holistic and streamlined interdisciplinary guide to recognise the decarbonisation decision with its required information, expertise, and mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions for the refurbished building throughout the decision-making process in practice. Findings from this thesis are also of relevance to the theoretical and practical knowledge of how the decisions are made to maximise carbon reduction in building refurbishment as a guide for other researchers who are pursuing closely related research topics to that of this thesis.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Cost estimation model for earthquake damage repair in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Construction at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2021) Kahandawa Appuhamillage, Ravindu Visal Dharmasena Kahandawa
    Earthquakes are natural hazards that can devastate nations, their people and the surrounding built environments. Designing a suitable strategy for rapid recovery requires an accurate damage assessment process for the built environment. Loss estimation models were developed to predict the cost of repair, but these models were not used to estimate the costs of post-earthquake repair. This could be due to the fact that these probability-based models tend to provide less accurate outputs. In fact, there is no existing literature on post-earthquake repair cost estimation models that can rapidly produce repair cost estimates. This research developed a post-earthquake cost estimation model for earthquake damage repair work (referred to as a cost of damage repair, earthquake estimation model or C-DREEM). The research used an exploratory sequential research design that used semi-structured interviews (N=19) with engineers, quantity surveyors and builders with experience in earthquake damage repair work as the primary data collection. Then a web-based survey questionnaire (N=310 distributed, N=92 received) of professionals with experience in cost estimation for earthquake damage repair work was the second data collection. The collected data was analysed using thematic analysis, descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests. Based on the findings in the literature, document review and research data analysis, a cost of damage repair earthquake estimation model (C-DREEM) was developed. The C-DREEM model was then validated through a focus group interview session with participants who had experience in the cost estimation for earthquake damage repair work in New Zealand (N=9). Key findings identified from the research were: (i) 11 factors have a critical impact on the accuracy of cost estimation of earthquake damage repair work (CEEDRW) which includes consequential damage, initially unforeseen damage, and changes to the final repair state; (ii) Use of a unit rate and lump sum amount methods were some of the most suitable ways incorporate these factors to CEEDRW; (iii) detailed damage evaluation reports are the most likely information sources post-earthquake for CEEDRW; and (iv) the standardised and automated cost estimation model, C-DREEM, developed by this research can improve both pre and post-earthquake CEEDRW process with include the benefits of sharing consequence functions and probable damage information with probability-based methods. The key contribution to knowledge from this research is identifying the factors affecting CEEDRW, evaluating the significance, selecting methods to incorporate the factors into the costing process, and creating the C-DREEM costing process that combines the pre-and post-earthquake loss estimation processes. The research also supports the professional practice by providing: a standardised and automated cost estimation process; specifying the areas that should be improved, such as the damage reporting process; and a better cost control and monitoring process through standardised rates. Through the findings of the research, government and insurance companies: can standardise and improve the accuracy and speed CEEDRW process, and makes informed decisions to manage the impact of the eleven factors affecting CEEDRW identified by this research.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Impacts of the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016 on the retention of historical buildings in New Zealand's provincial city-centres : towards promoting seismic resilience through adaptive reuse : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2020) Aigwi, Itohan Esther
    The impacts of the increasing scale of earthquake disasters on New Zealand's historical buildings are becoming so prevalent to the extent of threatening the stability and existence of provincial urban areas, hence, resulting in local resilience emergencies. This thesis is designed to promote seismic resilience and city-centre regeneration through the retention of earthquake-prone historical buildings for New Zealand’s provincial regions that have an abundance of underutilised earthquake-prone commercial historical buildings in their city-centres. No prior research has explored the main factors that contribute to the loss of historical buildings in New Zealand’s provincial city centres as a result of the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016, and how the retention of the buildings can be improved. This thesis aims to address such inadequacy by identifying representative New Zealand’s provincial cities and the contributing factors to their inner-city decline with links to the impact of the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016. The applicability of the adaptive reuse approach (i.e., the change of use of an existing building) is also explored as a sustainable approach to retain underutilised commercial earthquake-prone historical buildings and promote seismic resilience and city-centre regeneration, by developing a performance-based framework to improve the adaptive reuse decision-making process. Using a sequence of qualitative and quantitative research enquiry modes, the research question was answered to justify the overall aim of the thesis. The findings revealed Whanganui and Invercargill as representative examples of New Zealand’s earliest cities currently experiencing a decline in their city centres, and also identified socio-economic and regulatory factors that may have contributed to their decline. Correspondingly, the impacts of the actions (or inactions) of local councils and building owners regarding compliance with the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016 have also been addressed. Examining the importance of heritage buildings in New Zealand and the allocation of government funding in the form of grants for the retention of these buildings imply that though New Zealand’s government heritage grant systems are the most extensive non-regulatory incentives for the protection of built heritage, most of the grants are allocated to the bigger cities with the least per capita distribution of heritage buildings. The provincial regions with the most per capita ratio may continue to struggle to conserve their oversupply of heritage buildings if a disproportionately lower allocation of heritage protection grants to provincial regions continues to happen. Findings from this thesis also revealed the main parameters (economic sustainability, built-heritage conservation, socio-cultural aspects, building usability, and regulatory aspects) for a performance-based framework to prioritise optimal underutilised commercial earthquake-prone historical buildings for adaptive reuse. The findings established the practicality of the validated framework in balancing the diverse interests of all stakeholders in an adaptive reuse decision-making process. The consensus among the multidisciplinary stakeholder group was acknowledged to be consistent and insensitive to reasonable changes in weighting. An in-depth understanding of the characteristics of adaptive reuse stakeholders (i.e., identified as investors, producers, regulators and users) and the effectiveness of collaborative rationality among the diverse stakeholders was also found to improve: (i) active participation of stakeholders for future adaptive reuse prioritisation exercises; (ii) public consciousness and knowledge regarding adaptive reuse issues; (iii) transparency and accountability among the stakeholders; (iv) trust and organised networking among the stakeholders; and (v) legitimacy and quality of adaptive reuse decisions. Accordingly, the efficacy of adaptive reuse has been justified in this thesis as a sustainable approach to renegotiating seismic resilience and vitality in the city centres of Whanganui and Invercargill. This thesis significance updates both the practical and theoretical understanding of seismic resilience and city-centre regeneration through the adaptive reuse of underutilised historical buildings in New Zealand’s provincial areas to mitigate the impacts of the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016, hitherto lacking. As a practical significance, the performance-based framework from this thesis guided Whanganui district council, as both a planning and measurement tool to prioritise and conserve underutilised earthquake-prone commercial historical buildings in their city-centre for adaptive reuse, while balancing the diverse interests of all relevant stakeholders. Also, findings from this thesis are of relevance to the theoretical body of knowledge as a guide for other researchers who are pursuing closely related research topics to that of this thesis.