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Historical buildings are unique assets in any society, embodying cultural significance and architectural heritage. Denmark, with its rich architectural background, has taken steps to preserve these values. As the imperative of sustainability continues to grow, recognizing the social, economic, and environmental values of historic buildings is becoming increasingly important. As an important step towards adapting sustainability certification systems for historic buildings in order to identify and preserve their historical values, this paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis between the GBC and HB (Green Building Council–Historic Building), which has been adapted for historic buildings in Italy and the Danish GBC system (GBC-DK or so-called DGNB-DK). The study is based on a theoretical framework underpinned by a systematic approach utilizing a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) alongside the triangulation method. This includes a systematic literature review comparing the GBC-DK and GBC-HB systems and an analysis of an actual building renovation project at a municipal hospital in Aarhus, Denmark. The findings indicate a notable absence of criteria and sub-criteria pertaining to the protection of tangible and intangible values in the application of the GBC-DK system. It is justified that in order to improve the sustainability of historic buildings in Denmark, a broader and more in-depth study on the adaptation of the GBC-DK system for historic buildings is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complexity in the sustainable renovation of heritage buildings requires adoption of more sophisticated technologies and project management models to deal with the contradiction between sustainable design and heritage values preservation, as well as enhancing process productivity and final performance. This research aims to assess the application of several Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) strategies and tools through Building Information Modelling (BIM), determining shared collaborative practices across the projects and the level to which the teams were able to implement the tools and processes effectively to enhance sustainability aspects and efficiency of renovating heritages. The research adopts a mixed methodology, Qualitative Comparative Analysis triangulating the collected data. An intensive review of related literature is carried out, besides data collection and analysis of four real-world heritage cases (in different contexts). The research study enables a comprehensive and systematic exploration of the potential use of IPD and BIM within the development of an analytical framework consisting of a set of defined variables including 50 criteria, classified into 15 categories, and grouped into five thematic strands (people, process, policy, technology, and product). The findings reveal that IPD and BIM simultaneous use allows integrating heritage values into holistic decision-making frameworks attaining high-performance outcomes in heritage renovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining, developing, and delivering value is critical in integrated design processes (IDP) in building design and its two core design disciplines, architectural design and engineering design. Even so, how values emerge—the creation part itself—is underexposed. Using the seminal four p model from creativity research (person, process, product, and press) as an analytical lens, the paper explores blind spots in two building design cases that we as architects and researchers in creativity and engineering design have been involved in. On this basis, the paper contributes a four-leaf clover model of potential blind spots in collaborative value creation in building design. The model is comprised of value exploration, value negotiation, value formulation, and value manifestation. Design researchers can use the model as a scaffold for new design value theory, and design practitioners can employ it as an instrument to better navigate collaborative building design processes with multiple stakeholders, whose individual value sets may not always be clearly articulated and hence may sometimes collide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the barriers for building renovation has revealed a lack of methodologies, which can promote sustainability objectives and assist various stakeholders during the design stage of building renovation/retrofitting projects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a Holistic Multi-methodology for Sustainable Renovation, which aims to deal with complexity of renovation projects. It provides a framework through which to involve the different stakeholders in the design process to improve group learning and group decision-making, and hence make the building renovation design process more robust and efficient. Therefore, the paper discusses the essence of multifaceted barriers in building renovation regarding cultural changes and technological/physical changes. The outcome is a proposal for a multi-methodology framework, which is developed by introducing, evaluating and mixing methods from Soft Systems Methodologies (SSM) with Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). The potential of applying the proposed methodology in renovation projects is demonstrated through a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual Reality (VR) is receiving ever-increasing attention and is utilized by many construction companies in their current practices. This paper aims at a critical investigation of the impact of VR technology on how sustainability and cost are understood and perceived by the users in building design projects, which could lead to improving and supporting the actual building design processes. The research study focused on evaluating design alternatives using Building Information Modeling (BIM)-enabled VR technology integrated with cost and sustainability life cycle assessment (LCA) software. In doing so, the paper begins with reviewing the relevant literature in the mentioned areas. Thereafter, it adopts an experimental-qualitative-quantitative method to test the research hypothesis and analyze the effects of 360-degree VR on the users (66 participants), while distinguishing between users who have a relevant background in building/construction engineering (i.e., architect engineers and civil engineers), and those who have not (i.e., owners and clients). It is observed that despite their background, the user participants positively embrace the ideas and aspirations of sustainability, and that there is some evidence of respondents preferring the economy over sustainability. Likewise, the participants are not making an effort to measure the emissions of their design options rather than focus on the building's economic aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]