| Upgrade and rehabilitation of existing building have become such significant issues that more than half of the total construction budget has gone to some form of renovation, remodeling or reutilization of existing buildings for the last decade in the United States (3, 86). In large urban areas, building rehabilitation economics is becoming more favorable. This is because buildings are viewed as public assets, and their depreciation affects their surroundings, which are essential for creating the environment required to attract economic development, and the people needed to sustain a metropolitan area's future growth and prosperity.; Specific research areas important to building rehabilitation/repair problems are clearly stated in the proceedings of a February 1985 workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Four major research areas to be emphasized are: (1) how to assess the current condition of buildings, (2) methods for effective repair and rehabilitation, (3) application of (1) and (2) to real problems, and (4) how to monitor building behavior under service conditions (6).; The goal of this study is to respond to the research issues related to building condition assessment. A virtual condition assessment is made by input of regression coefficients to a deterioration model. By doing so, the approximate level of building damage and the economic feasibility of rehabilitation can be determined without actual assessment, because these are not necessary until the need for a detailed assessment is established. In this study, deterioration models are developed for the purpose described above, and their validity and suggestions for future research are discussed. |
