Promoting Energy Efficiency Buildings: To Build or To Retrofit - Research Paper Example

To conduct a primary research study and an extensive literature review as a way to determine whether it would be more environmentally and socio-economically beneficial to encourage more professional house building developers to preserve the existing homes through renovation and retrofitting or simply encourage them to start building new homes that use of the latest building technologies.Research Method: Regardless of age, gender, and nationality, qualified research interviewees for this study include the young professionals who have been working as Engineers and Architects in the UK for the past five (5) years.

Applicable to this study, a total of five (5) professional Engineers and Architects were invited to participate in a one-on-one research interview with the researcher. Basically, the rationale for selecting this particular research method is to provide the researcher with the opportunity to have the time and attention of each qualified research interview respondents.Research Findings: Retrofits and renovation as well as demolition and reconstruction have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Since demolition and reconstruction are more costly and environmentally damaging because of the massive construction waste and air pollution, a lot of engineers and architects today strongly support the development of retrofits and renovation. Retrofits and renovation do not only preserve the old designs of buildings, but they also cost a lot cheaper as compared to demolition and reconstruction.Aside from food and water, a good shelter is considered a significant part of the human physiological needs.

Recently, the UK government has been targeting a target of 240,000 new homes by 2016 and yet only half of this figure has been completed in 2015 (De Castella, 2015). Since the first quarter of 2015, several online news reports highlighted the fact that the UK is at risk of facing the long-term socioeconomic consequences of the ‘housing crisis’ (De Castella, 2015; Denton and Lambert, 2015; Chan, 2014).