Edinburgh Napier University

  The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the cost of disruption in office retrofit building projects.

This work adopts a positivist approach and evaluates the cost of disruption based on the estimated level of disruptiveness of retrofit technologies. Different Building Configuration Permutations (BCPs) in two recent case study projects - A and B, are developed. The cost of disruption in the projects are estimated as a proportion of the staffing and business operating cost in respective organisatioins.

It was found that the average cost of disruption in Project A can lead to an additional cost of 2-12% relative to the initial capital cost; and the average cost of distruption in Project B can lead to up to 0.2-1.5% relative of the initial capital cost.

The research focused on only two case study projects. It will be helpful to further examine the cost of disruption in larger samples of office retrofit building projects, and also develop alternative approaches to evaluating the cost of disruption.

An understanding and accurate evaluation of the cost of disruption in office retrofit building projects will enhance the robustness in the cost estimates of retrofit scenarios, and will prove invaluable in improving the whole-life cost assessment of retrofit buildings.

The paper has evaluated the cost of disruption in selected retrofit projects and this information will assist property developers and investors in better understanding the economic implication of office retrofit projects. This work will also aid the development of cost models, specific to retrofit scenarios.

Based on the case study projects, it was found that the added cost of disruption can increase the initial cost of acquisition of retrofit options by up to 1.5% and 12% in Project A and Project B respectively.