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Content archived on 2024-05-07

A decision-making tool for selecting office building upgrading solutions

Objective



The total stock of buildings in Europe in the office sector is estimated at 1200 million m2 of conditioned floor space. 70% of this stock is less than 25 years old. Therefore it consists of relatively new buildings. For all that the office building retrofitting market has seen considerable growth over the past 5 years. This means that there is a new market developing which requires specific application tools.
The main objective of the TOBUS project is the development of an evaluation tool for assessing retrofitting needs and the costs to meet these needs in compliance with the improvement of energy performance and indoor environment. The final result will be a computer-based multimedia programme addressing the multi-disciplinary and multi-professional problem regarding the retrofitting of office buildings. This tool will allow architects and engineers to carry out an audit within a limited time period (about one day), thus obtaining reliable information on retrofitting, maintenance, cost and planning, possible energy savings and indoor environmental quality improvements.
The structure of this tool will enable to analyse all the major problems which arise on office building retrofitting:
- Evaluating the physical state of degradation of building elements (envelope and equipment) and its cost of revamping.
- Evaluating the functional obsolescence of the building services and the cost of bringing it up to current standards. Functional obsolescence of a building encompasses a whole series of factors such as the degree of security (fire detection and protection), of work space flexibility, the level of equipment in terms of communication, automation and management, the capacity to facilitate maintenance work.
- Evaluating the energy performances of the building in terms of consumption (heating, air conditioning, lighting, office equipment, lifts and electromechanical equipments, etc.) and proposing innovative solutions for reducing these consumption
- Evaluating the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of the building and proposing solutions for improving working conditions.
The main innovative aspects of this project are as follows:
1. The building as a whole is being assessed.
2. Improvement measures are evaluated separately in terms of costeffectiveness and collectively so as to avoid any overlaps or confiding measures.
3. The final users of the software (building managers, architects, engineers) are being associated with its development.
4. The software outputs meet the users' professional needs directly 5. The software is being developed using the most recent data processing techniques for the benefit of the end user (better user-friendliness, use of visual aids, saving of time, etc.).
The project team consists of 3 industrial partners and 5 research/university organizations which each have their own field of expertise and are complement to each others. The team aims at a good balance between practical and scientific knowledge which is essential to fulfill the goal of the project.

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Coordinator

CENTRE SCIENTIFIQUE ET TECHNIQUE DU BATIMENT
EU contribution
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Address
84,Avenue Jean Jaures 84 - Champ sur Marne
77421 CHAMPS-SUR-MARNE
France

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Participants (7)

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