Ensuring Sustainability in Brownfield Revitalisation as PDF

The result of the appraisal using the GPR tool is displayed in a simple and
graphic manner by the allocation of stars (a maximum of five stars is
possible) as well as a graphic overview for the six areas of appraisal. A
generally comprehensible and clear appraisal of the examined buildings is
thus achieved.
The GPR program is based on Dutch legal and technical specifications and
building standards. The application in Germany thus requires the program
to be assessed, adapted and possibly extensively restructured. As well as
the legal and technical specifications, the German standards for building
extensions should particularly be taken into consideration here. Further
control mechanisms would also appear to make sense in order to examine
the entered data during the course of an official appraisal and to verify
the realised standards.
Besides the legal specifications, the program uses stored reference
projects to check the entered values. During the trial run it seemed that
only two reference objects were stored for each type of building
(residential, office and school building). The type and number of these
objects cannot be influenced. For an application in Germany, the planners
would therefore recommend saving German reference objects and
extending the number of objects.
Assessment of Different Buildings
The restriction of the GPR tool to monofunctional buildings (residential,
office and school buildings) greatly limits the applicability of the program
or results in distorted definitions when buildings with mixed uses are
adapted to the predetermined matrix.
The program assumes uniform building heights and types of roof. If there
are differing heights for one building (as for ‘Haus am Platz’) or different
types of roof (e.g. gable roof and flat roof extension), approximations have
to be carried out that influence the result.
The consumption values of a building are only requested and optimised by
means of the quality of materials, construction principles, standards for
building extensions (e.g. shower instead of bath tub) and in part by
consumer behaviour. Invoices demonstrating electricity and water
consumption, which would be requested again in a second entry session
after a certain trial period, are lacking. The appraisal regarding
sustainability is therefore only possible in a limited way and depends on the
information given by the product manufacturers.
The ‘quality of living conditions’ entry section concentrates on the building
properties. Quality characteristics for the vicinity – such as infrastructure
facilities, green spaces, building orientation – are not included in the
appraisal.
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