Nguyen, Dinh Manh (2017) Maintenance practices: Improving sustainability performance of existing office buildings: An Australian case study. PhD thesis, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to establish a method to analyse the interaction between the environment and existing buildings, to examine how the impact of existing buildings on the environment can be reduced and to suggest strategies by which any negative effects can be minimised. The investigation is focused on the development of a strategic framework to maintain and improve existing office buildings performance through sustainable maintenance strategies. It concentrates on reducing emissions generated within office buildings over their life cycle. The developed framework is a model for sustainable maintenance of office buildings entitled SMOB: an Australian case study.Over many decades, office buildings have been recognised as a significant area contributing to the negative impacts on the environment over their life cycle, hastening climate change or global warming. In return, climate change also impacts on buildings with extreme heatwaves occurring more frequently and raising the earth's temperature. Increased temperatures make many advanced techniques as applied in buildings ineffective, which then require more energy to provide indoor comfort. The operation and maintenance phase is the longest period of operation over a building's life span. In this period, office buildings consume the highest rates of energy and water; and consequently, emit the highest rates of greenhouse gas pollution, especially CO₂, into the environment.The framework of SMOB includes four indicators and 23 criteria for scheduling sustainable building maintenance through routine, ad hoc and upgrading practices which are derived from analysis of data collected through questionnaire survey, focus group discussion and a Delphi study. Case studies were used to verify the SMOB and results show that when using the model, energy and water consumption, and in particular CO₂ emissions in the buildings are significantly reduced, and that the buildings will satisfy environmental protection requirements. The research shows that the SMOB is well suited for assessing the costs and returned benefits against economic and environmental criteria in sustainable office building maintenance.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Ding, Grace and Runeson, Goran |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | building maintenance; case studies; case study; climate change; focus group; life cycle; operation and maintenance; pollution; questionnaire survey; scheduling; sustainability; sustainable building |
| Index terms: | case study, pollution, Delphi method, sustainability performance, office building, life cycle, comfort, investigation, sustainable office building, interaction, scheduling, environmental protection, building maintenance, focus group, operation and maintenance, routine, upgrading, survey, global warming, strategy, questionnaire, sustainable building, greenhouse gas, climate change, water consumption, heatwave |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, value management, management, sociology, occupational health and safety management, environmental engineering, environmental health, strategic management, construction type, climate science, operations research, environmental resource management, maintenance engineering, sustainability assessment, sustainable construction, behavioral psychology |
| Topics: | Sustainability, Project Management, Health and Safety, Construction Technology, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Time Control, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here