Sustainable early design exploration of mid-rise office buildings with different subsystems using comparative life cycle assessment

Abstract

Minimizing environmental impacts over a building's life cycle is critical to achieving sustainable communities. Early design is the most critical step to improve construction's sustainability, as the majority of important decisions have not yet been made. However, the implementation of sustainability assessment in early design is data-and effort-intensive, resulting in limited whole building life cycle assessments. Previous studies have mainly focused either on single residential structures, included only a subset of building components, or investigated early design parameters mostly associated with energy efficiency. Whereas, comparison of alternative building subsystems at early design received less attention. This study aims to provide and utilize benchmark data for the life-cycle impacts of mid-rise office buildings, focusing on the impact of building subsystem selection at early design exploration. Environmental impacts were compared across six professionally-designed archetypes comprising compatible combinations of foundation, floor, and structural assemblies for a site in Charleston, South Carolina. Detailed operational energy modeling was performed using the EnergyPlus framework, where a range of code-compliant envelope systems are studied and paired with other assemblies. Lastly, sensitivity assessment and statistical analysis are performed to quantify uncertainty associated with the use of such data for early design guidance. The results suggest that decisions associated with the use phase (such as envelope selection) dominates life cycle impacts and should be prioritized. Additionally, no single subsystem governs all embodied impacts across different buildings. Lastly, it is critical to consider a large number of alternatives at the early design stage, as excluding a combination of subsystems might close pathways to reaching a more environmentally suitable alternative during design iterations/optimization.

Sustainable Building Standards, Codes and Certification Systems: The Status Quo and Future Directions in Saudi Arabia

“…Sustainable/green buildings have not yet become standard practice and a sustainable assessment methods adaptation would move forward towards this [61]. The increasing demand for energy in the AEC industry also drives the need for change to combat global warming and climate change [62]; however, international bodies and organisations have also clearly highlighted the role of sustainable buildings [63].…”

A comprehensive study on engineering and sustainability characteristics with emphasizing on 3R's approach in building construction

“…The increase in energy efficiency and the development of new building materials are both significantly influenced by sustainable development in both the building design and the civil infrastructure [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] ]. Global warming and greenhouse gas emissions into the environment have been rising worldwide due to increased urbanization and population [ 7 , 8 ].…”

Integration of Energy Simulations and Life Cycle Assessment in Building Refurbishment: An Affordability Comparison of Thermal Insulation Materials through a New Sustainability Index

“…According to this background, the integration of energy assessment and environmental analysis of insulation materials can represent an added value in the renovation process of buildings [32]. Against this background, the present paper represents a further investigation of the key research problem addressed by previous studies of the International Energy Agency [7][8][9] and Almeida and Ferreira [10], by considering three important aspects of the building renovation process: primary energy need, environmental impact of insulation materials, and economic analysis.…”