Refurbishment vs. demolition and reconstruction: analysis and evaluation in order to choose the intervention

A critical phase of the building life cycle is one in which, for physical or functional obsolescence, or to damages caused by natural disasters, it should be considered whether to repair the building, adapting it to the current regulatory and performance requirements, or demolish and rebuild it. In the practice of building reuse, the adaptation to standards of comfort and energy savings, together with the structural safety, lead to improve some evaluations about the benefit limit between the demolition with reconstruction and repair of existing buildings, and you have to take into account also the environmental impacts associated with the different interventions. In the case of reconstruction it is necessary to consider not only the technical, economic and environmental factors related to the new construction, but also those associated with the demolition and disposal of materials. In the case of repair and adaptation degradation state and residual useful life are most relevant. In the proposed paper, we examined the critical factors for the definition of a benefit limit as a decision support benchmark for a rational and sustainable transformation of use, in order to a reuse of existing volumes and a zero land consumption.