Apartments in South Korea have high maintenance costs and an average lifetime of 25 years due to poor construction qualities. The common apartment redevelopment strategy is completely demolishing the neighborhoods and then replacing them with new buildings. However, this research discusses the framework for the refurbishment of an existing building in Seoul using Building Information Modeling (BIM) and parametric tools. The virtual model of an exemplary existing building is constructed in a BIM environment. Parametric software is used to simulate the building’s environmental performance, in order to determine its energy demand for heating and cooling and the indoor comfort. In order to reduce the energy demand for heating and cooling, improve the indoor comfort, generate photovoltaic energy and extend the building’s lifetime, a modular building envelope renovation system is developed. Building simulation results of the improved building envelope are used to quantify the differences with the existing building. The research results illustrate significant improvements in energy performance, comfort and lifetime extension that can be achieved. Furthermore, a guideline for a streamlined building optimization process is provided, that can be transferred and used for the planning and optimization of other building renovation projects.

More than 60% of housing in South Korea consists of mass constructed apartment neighborhoods. Due to poor quality construction materials and components, the average operative life of apartment buildings is 20 years. The rapid degradation and low maintenance condition of transparent and semi-opaque components, as well as the limited daylight access in the standard apartment layout, are cause for the lower visual comfort of occupants. This research analyzes the improvement in visual comfort for the renovation of an exemplary apartment unit in Seoul, using Building Information Modeling (BIM) and parametric environmental analysis tools. The existing apartment is virtually reconstructed with BIM software. The building model is exported to Computer-Aided Design software to execute parametric daylight analyses through environmental simulation software. An enhanced modular building envelope and apartment layout are developed to reduce the energy demand for heating, cooling, artificial lighting, and to improve visual and thermal comfort. The visual comfort analysis of the refurbished apartment results in average improvements of 15% in terms of Daylight Factor and 30% of daylight autonomy. Therefore, this research proposes, the renovation of aged Korean apartment buildings to enhance daylighting and visual comfort.

The objective of this study was to illustrate the urban flood resilience and sustainability improvement potential by integration of decentralized water management systems in sustainable urban regeneration projects. This paper discusses sustainable and resilient urban regeneration potentials using the example of an industrial compound (ICs) conversion in Seoul, South Korea. Urban flood vulnerability has been a concern globally due to land use changes, limited capacity of existing stormwater management infrastructures and the effects of climate change. Due to their comparably low building density, ICs can effectively contribute to the separation and decentralized retention and infiltration of stormwater. However, no sustainable and resilient conversion examples of ICs have been realized in Seoul so far. After identification of a representative IC, its exemplary sustainable conversion with implementation of decentralized water management infrastructures were designed. The rainwater collection, retention and infiltration system was dimensioned in order to create a stormwater discharge-free property. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the improvement potentials before and after the conversion unveiled that this conversion contributes also to the improvement of the neighborhoods' sustainability, spatial quality and resilience to disasters. The research results are transferable to other urban ICs and are a good practice example for sustainable and resilient regeneration of existing urban districts.

Apartment buildings are the most common housing typology in South Korea. The mass construction of apartment neighborhoods during a period of rapid economic growth (1970–1997) involved the minimization of material use and quality, as well as industrialized construction processes. Accordingly, apartment buildings require essential renovation after only 20 years of operation. This study focuses on the improvement of thermal comfort for the renovation of an exemplary apartment building based on an integrated Building Information Modeling (BIM) and parametric software framework. The existing apartment was reconstructed with BIM software, and the virtual model was utilized for a parametric building energy simulation to calculate the thermal comfort condition of occupants during the entire year. The thermal comfort analysis results defined the criteria for the development of an enhanced building envelope system characterized by modular panels. The parametric energy simulation was executed for the renovated apartment condition with the enhanced envelope system, and the thermal comfort improvements were quantified by comparing the results for the apartment condition before and after renovation. This study aims to provide the tools and criteria for the comfort analysis of apartment occupants, as well as propose sustainable solutions for the improvement of thermal comfort in aged buildings with similar conditions, internal distribution, and construction components.

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