Economic Relevance of Building Elements—Studies, New Framework, Evolutions and Support for Refurbishment Operations

A supported decision-making based on aspects as the construction costs is considered essential in different stages of the construction process. The awareness of the relevance of each part of a building in its global cost is also helpful to the several actors involved and to a more efficient project management. Naturally, the economic relevance of each part of a building can be considerately different as it is influenced by many factors, namely the technical solutions applied, the construction products, the dimension of the construction, the type of use and the age of the design. The present work is focused on this topic. Through a review of the several studies performed in Portugal until present time concerning cost breakdown structures (CBS) of residential buildings and developing new studies to fill the information gaps it is intended to provide a perspective of the evolutions occurred. Besides the analysis of the main changes, the work also proposes a different approach and update for the work breakdown structure (WBS) in which the CBS’s are organized. From the data collected it is possible to state that significant changes have happened in the CBS’s of the Portuguese residential buildings since the 1980s.