Costs of Implementing Design for Adaptability Strategies in Wood-Framed Multifamily Housing
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 29, Issue 1
Abstract
Owners, occupants, and society are constantly changing the demands and expectations placed on buildings. Design for adaptability (DfA) provides one approach for delivering buildings that serve current needs and that can be readily adapted to meet future demands. The benefits and strategies of DfA have been widely reported; however, there is a dearth of information on the costs of implementing DfA. This paper presents a case study evaluating the economic costs of applying select DfA strategies to a wood-framed multifamily residential building in Atlanta. Comparisons are made between the construction costs of a baseline non-DfA building and a series of adaptable buildings. DfA strategies in the adaptable buildings include increased floor live load, increased floor-to-floor height, and the use of post-and-beam framing instead of interior structural walls. When all three of these strategies were implemented in the same design, the estimated building construction cost increased by 14%. The cost increase ranged from 1% to 7% when only one of the DfA strategies was implemented in a design. These comparisons are intended to facilitate cost–benefit analyses by designers, owners, and contractors interested in intentionally designed adaptable buildings.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge and thank PES Structural Engineers who provided the structural plans to the research team. The assistance from Dr. Zoraya Rockow with the cost estimation is also greatly appreciated. The work was funded by the United States National Science Foundation under Grant CMMI #1553565. Anna Kate Becker’s and Jocelyn Wong’s assistance with editing and submission is gratefully acknowledged.
References
ACI (American Concrete Institute). 2019. Building code requirements for structural concrete. ACI 318-19. Farmington Hills, MI: ACI.
AISC (American Institute of Steel Construction). 2017. Steel construction manual. 15th ed. Chicago: AISC.
Arge, K. 2005. “Adaptable office buildings: Theory and practice.” Facilities 23 (3/4): 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632770510578494.
ASCE. 2017. Minimum design loads and associated criteria for buildings and other structures. ASCE/SEI 7-16. Reston, VA: ASCE.
AWC (American Wood Council). 2018. National design specification (NDS). Leesburg, VA: AWC.
Beadle, K., A. Gibb, S. Austin, A. Fuster, and P. Madden. 2008. “Adaptable futures: Sustainable aspects of adaptable buildings.” In Proc., 24th Annual ARCOM Conf. Cardiff, UK: Association of Researchers in Construction Management.
Becker, A. K., B. E. Ross, and D. Albright. 2020. “Evaluating the weighted-sum approach for measuring buildings’ adaptability.” J. Green Build. 15 (3): 37–54. https://doi.org/10.3992/jgb.15.3.37.
Brand, S. 1994. How buildings learn: What happens after they’re built. New York: Viking.
Brigante, J. 2021. “Costs of implementing design for adaptability strategies in wood-framed multi-family housing.” MS thesis, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Clemson Univ.
Cheung, K. 2010. “Multi-story wood frame construction in North America.” In Proc.,11th World Conf. on Timber Engineering. Trentino, Italy: Trees and Timber Institute.
Conejos, S., C. Langston, and J. Smith. 2014. “Designing for better building adaptability: A comparison of adaptSTAR and ARP models.” Habitat Int. 41: 85–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2013.07.002.
Cowee, N. P., and P. Schwehr. 2012. The typology of adaptability in building construction. Zurich, Switzerland: vdf Hochschulverlag AG.
Gordian. 2021. “RSMeans online.” Accessed December 2020–July 2021. https://www.rsmeansonline.com/.
Heidrich, O., J. Kamara, S. Maltese, F. Re Cecconi, and M. C. Dejaco. 2017. “A critical review of the developments in building adaptability.” Int. J. Build. Pathol. Adapt. 35 (4): 284–303. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBPA-03-2017-0018.
Hu, M., and M. Skibniewski. 2021. “Green building construction cost surcharge: An overview.” J. Archit. Eng. 27 (4): 04021034.
IBC (International Building Code). 2018. International code council. Falls Church, VA: IBC.
Keymar, M. 1998. “Design strategies for new and renovation construction that increase the capacity of buildings to accommodate change.” MS thesis, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT.
Municipality of Anchorage. 2017. “Building and floor heights in multifamily districts.” Accessed January 2021. https://www.muni.org/Departments/OCPD/Planning/Documents/R3A%20Zoning%20District%20Proposed%20Working%20Draft/R-3A%20Bldg%20Height%20Diagram.pdf.
O’Connor, J. 2004. “Survey on actual service lives for North American buildings.” In Proc., Woodframe Housing Durability and Disaster Issues Conf., 1–9. Las Vegas: Forest Products Society.
Pinder, J. A., R. Schmidt, S. A. Austin, A. Gibb, and J. Saker. 2017. “What is meant by adaptability in buildings?” Facilities 35 (1/2): 2–20. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-07-2015-0053.
Rockow, Z. R., and B. E. Ross. 2020. “An areal openness model (AOM) for quantifying the ‘openness’ of floor plans.” Int. J. Build. Pathol. Adapt. 39 (3): 470–489.
Rockow, Z. R., B. E. Ross, and A. K. Becker. 2021. “Comparison of building adaptation projects and design for adaptability strategies.” J. Archit. Eng. 27 (3): 04021022. https://doi.org/ 10.1061/(ASCE)AE.1943-5568.0000481.
Rockow, Z. R., B. Ross, and A. K. Black. 2018. “Review of methods for evaluating adaptability of buildings.” Int. J. Build. Pathol. Adapt. 37 (3): 273–287. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBPA-01-2018-0013.
Ross, B. E., D. A. Chen, S. Conejos, and A. Khademi. 2016. “Enabling adaptable buildings: Results of a preliminary expert survey.” Procedia Eng. 145 (Supplement C): 420–427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2016.04.009.
Sarkisian, M., N. Mathias, R. Garai, and J. Lyrenmann. 2017. “Historic Desmond building—A case study of an integrated retrofit.” In Architectural Engineering Institute Conf. Reston, VA: ASCE.
Slaughter, E. S. 2001. “Design strategies to increase building flexibility.” Build. Res. Inf. 29 (3): 208–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613210010027693.
Yoders, J. 2021. “2Q cost report: Supply issues persist even as lumber, other prices stabilize.” Engineering News-Record. Accessed June 2021. https://www.enr.com/articles/52031-2021-2q-cost-report-supply-issues-persist-even-as-lumber-other-prices-stabilize.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 4, 2021
Accepted: Oct 17, 2022
Published online: Dec 14, 2022
Published in print: Mar 1, 2023
Discussion open until: May 14, 2023
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.