A Study in Behavioral Economics in Adaptive Reuse Development Projects: The Whole Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts

Abstract

Globally, heritage adaptive reuse real estate development projects are becoming more prevalent and important as a part of a city’s development in areas of sustainability and resiliency. Traditional methods of measuring societal benefits can be challenging and subjective, leading to having these social values and benefits in the side-lines. Different stakeholders in the real estate development field have been trying to discover an impactful and quantifiable way to measure intangible values created by corresponding projects.

This thesis demonstrates the following two innovations:

(1) In heritage adaptive reuse real estate development projects, the conventional single- or dual-purposed use of space is less conducive to producing synergies to foster such user attributes. A 3-pillar adoption incorporating “work-play-learn” layered onto three time scales “past, present, future” enables emergence thus enhancing such fostering. The interplay is further enhanced by applying behavioral economic principles.

(2) In order to assess and evaluate intangible attributes of users of a physical space, proxies and data science analytics through machine learning are developed, including supervised and unsupervised learning methods. Developing such tools made it possible to quantify and measure the effectiveness of the designed / intended functions which impact human.

The Mills in Hong Kong, is a structural experimental project a heritage AR project. The methodologies employed are as follows:

(1) The space incorporates a commercial mall (play / present), a museum (learn / past) and work space (work / future). Tenants of these are encouraged to maximize linkage and interaction amongst the three.

(2) Three approaches are provided for refining programmatic design and implementation. These approaches are: (i) Top-down, which is owner-prescribed, (ii) Bottom-up, which is user-centric, and (iii) synergetic approach, which is an iterative approach involving input from (i) and (ii).

The thesis's findings can provide insights and tools to support the design and implementation of heritage adaptive reuse projects that can enhance the social and societal benefits.

Date of Award	6 Jul 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Siu Ming LO (Supervisor)