Measures for resource for resource and soustainable practices management in building rehabilitation

The rehabilitation of buildings is a kind of practice that involves an improvement of the comfort and building habitability conditions through the reuse of existing resources. However the rehabilitation process has not, at present, standard solutions different of those from new construction, and sometimes requires ingenious solutions and specific knowledge by all stakeholders, especially designers and builders. Portugal has many buildings with rehabilitation needs, and this pattern concern not only old buildings but also the more recently built ones. The reuse of material resources existing in buildings that aligned with the adoption of environment concerns materials could balance the embodied energy and water and also emission reduction. In addition, the reuses of these materials decrease the natural resources extraction and could promote buildings energy efficiency when compared to new construction practices. On the other hand, the human resources chosen must have experience and expertise in rehabilitation works but this is not always an easy task. Most of construction companies involved in building rehabilitation works, as well some designers and other construction technicians, treat them as new construction, disregarding the specificities of the former works. However, efficient construction procurement could facilitate this process, if it is done though design/build proposals. The construction procurement could also adopt a management contracting process which requires a specialized contractor presence to support the design phase development. This article describes a set of measures to support the project management process during building rehabilitation works. These measures stem from the results of a questionnaire survey conducted on designers and other technicians involved in the design and construction of building rehabilitation works. The set of proposed measures could facilitate the skilled labour and material resources management, which is focused on the principles and assumptions of sustainability. In addition, it could also give a contribution to devising different ways to organize and manage works in buildings with rehabilitation needs.