Improvement Of Existing Buildings For Sustainability As Against Maintenance And Rebuild

Many countries, especially in the developing world, did not meet the UN target of 2002 to achieve sustainable development because the issue of existing buildings which form the bulk of building stock were not adequately addressed. This paper did a literature review on how existing buildings could be sustained through improvement as against maintenance and rebuild; it revealed that the maintenance of unsustainable buildings could at best be returned to their unsustainable original standard at construction, while rebuild is costlier and less environmental friendly. Improvement is noted to be cheaper and more environmental friendly than rebuild, and will also reduce maintenance cost. The paper also reviewed some improvement models that can be applied for elimination of perceived waste and inefficiencies in existing buildings for sustainability.