No abstract

The presented study is focused on the verification of a Building Environmental Assessment System (BEAS). A total of 13 detached family houses representing typical construction sites in Slovakia were chosen for analysis, evaluation and certification by using a BEAS which contains several main fields: A—Site Selection and Project Planning; B—Building Construction; C—Indoor Environment; D—Energy Performance; E—Water Management; and F—Waste Management. The results of this study show that the current construction method for family houses does not respect the criteria of sustainable construction as much as it possibly can. The reason for this is that investment costs for construction are prioritized over environmental and social aspects. Therefore, one house with a score of 1.10 is certified as BEAS BRONZE, ten family houses with scores of 1.56–2.88 are certified as BEAS SILVER and only two family houses with total scores of 3.59 and 3.87, respectively, are certified as BEAS GOLD. The overall results show that the weakest fields of sustainability are Waste management, Energy performance and Building construction. The best-rated fields are Site Selection and Project Planning, Indoor Environment and Water Management. In the future, it is essential to pay attention to those areas where the sustainability criteria have not been reached, as well as to raise project teams’ awareness of sustainability issues and subsequently to transfer them to building practices.

Qualitative training of specialists is a priority direction of educational institutions. Information is one of the subjects of work of the company’s specialists, without having a clear structured information base, which specialists can not take the right management decision, which jeopardizes the company’s activities.

An old office building located on the Garbiarska street, historic part of Kosice city, east of Slovakia was selected because it represents a brownfield and necessarily requires reconstruction. This study is aimed at the analysis of two design alternative solutions to underline the architecture of the reconstruction in terms of sustainability criteria taking into account the significance of the history of the city and its surroundings. Performed SWOT analysis considered strengths and weaknesses of restoration, opportunities and threats, shows that the most suitable is considering a restoration strategy in terms of preserving cultural heritage, at the same time restoring the building in the concept of green architecture. It is more than necessary to prioritize this renovation strategy over an economically viable renovation while maintaining the inappropriate height of the office building. This early analysis confirms the significance of the revitalization of territories in connection to the improvement of quality of life, the enhancement of the historical value of the locality and the creation of new economic opportunities.