Towards the development of a Decision Support System (DSS) for building renovation: Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM) for sustainability renovation criteria and renovation approaches

Future building renovation concerns more holistic perspectives related to the sustainability seen in a wider range of objectives/criteria facilitated by the renovation scenarios. In this regard, based on the studies upon existing sustainability evaluation and assessment tools carried out in previous research works, a characteristic diagram including a value map for evaluating a holistic sustainable retrofitting was developed. Further, in present paper, by reviewing the relevant literature, looking into recent European renovation research projects, the Danish SIGMA database, and investigation of a real case, a comprehensive list of renovation approaches (i.e. insulation technologies, windows replacement etc.) were classified in 26 categories. Using empirical information, this paper expands the Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM) between the recently developed criteria (18 criteria including 118 sub-criteria) and renovation approaches (26 categories including 139 alternatives). The aim is to consider how is the dependency between renovation approaches while they meet different criteria or sub-criteria, and vice versa, regarding to the selection of the criteria versus application of some possible renovation approaches. Developing Decision Support Systems (DSS) for generation of sustainable building renovation scenarios is ultimately an intricate, challenging task. The increasing complexity of decision problems regarding to the fulfilment of sustainability objectives/criteria, the growing number of subjects involved and keen competition between conflicting costs and interests make decisions-making difficult. Developing a DMM enhances the required insight for the development of an operational system for architecture of decision-makings. It has a strong effect to deal with existing complexity regarding to the large number of renovation approaches and various sustainability objectives/criteria. Added to this, the DMM can be used for understanding and tracking of the value (or added value) regarding to the other criteria (i.e. spatial quality) while the focus is on optimization of some common criteria i.e., improvement of energy efficiency or reduction of investment cost.