Exploring the Relation Between Circularity and Adaptability in Adaptive Reuse

Mohammad B. Hamida is a PhD researcher of the chair of Real Estate Management at the Department of Management in the Built Environment (MBE) of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. Under the supervision of the project promoters dr. Hilde Remøy and Prof.dr.ir Vincent Gruis, Mohammad pursues providing practitioners in the building industry and real estate market with a knowledge-based framework for promoting circularity and adaptability in building adaptation in light of the enabling and inhibiting factors that could influence such a process. To achieve this aim, Mohammad has critically reviewed the relevant bodies of literature and conducted multiple case studies to conceptually establish this framework. He has been conducting participatory research to collaboratively expand this framework with experts from the building industry and real estate market in the Netherlands. In this video, Mohammad explains the importance of Adaptive Reuse as well as its dependence on complex social dynamics and emergent phenomena. He also introduces the concept of Circular Building Adaptability (CBA) and the CBA model, a conceptual framework that promotes the capacity of any adaptive reuse intervention to add value to building assets.

• The term Adaptive Reuse can be simply described as the process of re-purposing and re-using a building to meet the functional requirements of a new use.
• Adaptive Reuse depends on a number of complex factors such as: building obsolescence, property vacancy, market volatility, demographic changes, technological advancements, and environmental degradation.
• The concept of ‘Circular Building Adaptability’ (CBA) represents the capacity to contextually and physically alter the built environment and sustain its usefulness, whilst keeping the building asset in a closed-reversible value chain.
• Bringing circularity and adaptability together, and aligning them with adaptive reuse of buildings is a way to redevelop our properties in a future-proof and resource-efficient way.

• Foster, G. (2020). Circular economy strategies for adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings to reduce environmental impacts. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 152, 104507. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104507
• Hamida, M.B., Jylhä, T., Remøy, H. and Gruis, V. (2023). Circular building adaptability and its determinants – A literature review. International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation, 41(6), 47-69. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBPA-11-2021-0150
• Hamida, M.B., Jylha, T., Remøy, H., and Gruis, V. (2022). Operationalising circularity and adaptability related real estate strategies: An exploratory study. In 28th Annual Conference of the European Real Estate Society, ERES: Conference. Milan, Italy. https://eres.architexturez.net/doc/eres-id-eres2022-206
• Hamida, M.B. and Hassanain, M.A. (2022). A framework model for AEC/FM knowledge in adaptive reuse projects. Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, 20(3), 624-648. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEDT-05-2020-0203
• Pinder, J.A., Schmidt, R., Austin, S.A., Gibb, A. and Saker, J. (2017). What is meant by adaptability in buildings?. Facilities, 35(1/2), 2-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-07-2015-0053
• Remøy, H.T. and van der Voordt, T.J.M. (2007). A new life: conversion of vacant office buildings into housing. Facilities, 25(3/4), 88-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632770710729683
• Hamida, M.B., Remøy, H., Gruis, V. and Jylhä, T. (2023). Circular building adaptability in adaptive reuse: multiple case studies in the Netherlands.  Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEDT-08-2022-0428