Factors influencing the service lifespan of buildings: An improved hedonic model

Abstract

A large number of existing buildings were demolished indiscriminately during the urban renewal process in China, significantly shortening the average lifespan of buildings. This paper measures the average service life of existing buildings based on the investigation of 1732 demolished buildings in seven communities of Jiangbei District in Chongqing from 2008 to 2010, and then explores the influencing factors for a building's lifespan with an improved Hedonic model. It is found that the average lifespan of buildings is 34 years which is much shorter than the designed lifespan. The buildings with features such as small scale, near business centers, railway station, riverside and colleges, far away from the highway, and with high speed development of economy and high level social investment in fixed assets are more likely to be demolished and hence generally short-lived. The external influencing factors are more important than the internal influencing factors. And the internal factors, other than the floor area, are less important than expected. At last, this paper concludes some suggestions for prolonging the building's lifespan from the aspects of the demolition decision making system, maintenance and adaptive reuse of the existing buildings. © 2014.