Assignment Task
Purpose
This assignment relates to the following Unit Learning Objectives/Outcomes:
- Evaluate the concepts of depreciation and obsolescence in buildings within the context of sustainability.
- Proposethesuitablebuildingmaintenancestrategiesduringlifecycleofa building.
The purpose of this assignment is to produce a building diagnostic report, identifythe defects of one chosen building and make suggestions on suitable building maintenance and remedy strategies/methods for the identified building defects.
Assessment Task
Based on the above assumptions, supported by basic research the assignment tasks areas follows:
1. Undertake building inspection: You are required to undertake an inspection of a building (house or an apartment, e.g., current place of residence) and provide a description of your adopted inspection process(es), e.g., sequence and mode of inspection, any tools or equipment (including drones) you have used to carry out the inspection, time and date, weather conditions, safety checks and any significant observations.
2. Provide a brief description of the building site: Provide a brief description of the site including the topography/slope, size, building site-coverage, and the ability for machinery to access the site if major repairs are required.
3. Provide building description: You are required to provide a detailed description of the building (house or an apartment) including the age, style/design, lay-out, orientation, building materiality. This should cover all significant building structural and non-structural elements/systems from the foundations to the roof (or slab to slab/ floor to floor if an apartment is inspected). In this section, you may group certain elements. For example, if the materials in each of 3 bedrooms are the same, rather than making 3 tables for the materials of the 3 bedrooms, you may simply do one table for all three bedrooms.
4. Assess building condition: For each part of the building, you must identify the condition of its structural and non-structural elements/systems and materials. Include in this section faults/defects and their likely causes. For example; you may find some rotting timber and may note that a lack of regular painting (maintenance) may be the cause OR, if a deck has rotting timber, rather than just say the deck is rotting due to being wet, perhaps check and state that the roof guttering above it is too small to cope with the rain-water flow (that the water spills onto the deck) and that the remedy is not just to fix the deck, but also to fix the guttering system.
5. Provide recommendations: Here is where you must provide recommendations regarding of fixing significant defects and the resulting benefits. The recommendations should target only three (3) areas/defects that are identified in earlier parts of your report. Your justification (resulting benefits) should relate to building performance (energy use, carbon footprint, increased functionality, etc.). You may include financial cost-benefit analysis; however, no marks will be allocated to it.