REFURBISHMENT
AND ITS ADVATAGES
by Turnie Morolong
What is refurbishment?
Refurbishment is undertaken on an existing building, and
entails giving a building a new purpose with an upgrading and
reconfiguration that goes beyond the cosmetic. More often than
not, a refurbishment exercise extends the useful life of a building.
Why refurbish?
Building refurbishment can be required for:
Commercial reasons
• To increase the floor area or expand the business
• To increase income
• To retain an existing tenant
• To attract a new tenant
• To improve marketability of the building
• To reduce operating costs
• To meet corporate social responsibility
Operational reasons
• Due to a change in use ( eg hotel to residential, retail to leisure
etc)
• Due to change of tenant/owner
Technical reasons
• To meet legislative requirements eg Health and Safety
• Environmental reasons
• Energy reasons
Advantages of refurbishment
Shorter development period
The main advantage of refurbishing a building as opposed to a total
new build is that new accommodation is available in a much shorter
period of time. If a total demolition and construction of a building is
planned instead of refurbishing, it generally will take a considerably
longer time period to carry out.
Planning permission may not always be necessary
More often than not, planning permission is not needed for
refurbishment especially if the refurbishment is internal with nothing
being carried out on the exterior of the building.
Environmental aspects
In these days of increased environmental awareness, we constantly
hear about the effects, problems and concerns of global warming.
Experts tell us that it is because of the world’s huge consumption
of energy that we now need to re-use, re-place and re-cycle our
present resources much more so as to decrease our rate of using up
our energy resources and to slow down global warming. Whenever
a building is refurbished rather than demolished, a large amount of
energy is being saved by avoiding the need to extract raw materials
and converting them into a replacement building.
Aesthetic and/or architectural aspects
A refurbishment project undertaken on a building that already has
aesthetic and architectural qualities, will benefit from these qualities,
and along with professional workmanship could add to the financial
value of the building when the works are finally com ]Y