A decision-making framework to prioritize existing buildings for adaptive reuse with a case study of school buildings in Guilan, Iran

The paper seeks to outline a framework to prioritize existing buildings for adaptive reuse. Twenty-nine schools were selected and investigated to determine their priority for adaptive reuse. By evaluating obsolescence and calculating the useful life of the buildings, their potential for reuse was identified using Adaptive Reuse Potential (ARP) model. According to the reuse potential and best time for reuse intervention, these projects were prioritized. By determining the most important obsolescence types and setting priorities among them according to their impact on reducing the buildings’ useful life, different strategies to mitigate/avoid each obsolescence have been discussed. The results show that functional, technological and physical obsolescence are the most important types of obsolescence respectively. Also, according to the results the average effective useful life of all case studies is 54%. Therefore, with the persistenceof the current conditions, only about half of the expected life of the cases will be utilized.