Including embodied energy considerations at the conceptual stage of building design

Yohanis, Yigzaw G.; Norton, Brian

doi:10.1243/095765006x76009

Cited by 31 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The consequences of this leap forward for the building industry would be enormous in terms of the way in which environmental efficiency is achieved through the built environment. The focus of the design teams, building ratings systems, policy makers and stakeholders would need a monumental shift towards the factor that has been generally accepted as presently the least considered: EE consumption (Thormark, ; Yohanis and Norton, ; Yohanis and Norton, ; Stephan et al ., ). If achieved, the major life cycle energy contribution will be EE.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating sustainable development principles into building design: a review from a structural perspective including case study

Miller

Doh

2014

Structural Design Tall Build

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SUMMARYThe incorporation of sustainable development (SD) principles into all industries is increasingly important. The contribution of the building industry to a wide range of environmental impacts is extensive with the construction, operation and maintenance of buildings accounting for approximately 50% of all energy usage and anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. In the building design process, structural engineers play a limited role in the sustainability of a design. The decisions on the incorporation of such aspects are usually at the mercy of the architect and client. A literature review was conducted to record and present the variability in research on issues directly related to the environmental performance of structures. There are inconsistencies in the published contribution of embodied energy (EE) and proportion of life cycle energy usage in structures. Outcomes demonstrate that due to this variability, environmental performance of structures is difficult to validate. A systematic approach beginning with standardized calculation procedure and database generation for EE of building materials is essential for practitioners to deliver sustainable structural designs. An analysis of a typical concrete office structure indicates potential benefits through the use of quantifiable environmental performance measures, delivering efficient solutions. Comparisons of slab construction techniques indicate overall EE reductions up to 40% being achievable.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating sustainable development principles into building design: a review from a structural perspective including case study

Miller

Doh

2014

Structural Design Tall Build

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“…The barriers in applying LCA to the AEC industry have been identified by previous research, including obtaining environmental impact data for building products, tracking material flows, and defining system boundaries [7]- [9]. In addition, despite being increasingly used by building designers to digitally represent a facility since the early design stages, BIM currently lacks interoperability with LCA tools and software [10].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodological Discussion of Insertion and Exportation of Lca Data Embedded in Bim Elements

Bueno

Fabrício

2017

WIT Transactions on the Built Environment

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The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology can be used to quantify, in the design phase, the impacts of a product throughout its life cycle and to determine which building components have the highest potential impacts. However, such a method has often been avoided due to the need for detailed input data and the complexity of the available tools. For that reason, although LCA is increasingly present in the construction sector demands, professionals continuously pursue new ways to incorporate such methodology to the building design and construction processes, as simple and uncomplicated as possible. A promising possibility is the incorporation of building systems LCA data in the BIM software tools. Numerous limitations of BIM-based LCA have been identified over the years. For instance, the complexity of LCA software tools, particularly as regards the data input and interpretation of results, and the interoperability issues, all need to be overcome. Once BIM models are composed of smart objects, which represent construction elements with encapsulated intelligence, they are expected to be where LCA data could be applied. In this paper a conceptual and methodological discussion will be developed on the practical possibilities of inclusion and export of LCA data embedded in BIM elements, focusing on Autodesk Revit software and its features. Such a discussion will take place by exploiting technological possibilities of such software and evaluating the possibilities of development and modification of parametric elements and families, as well as the further export potential of such embedded LCA information. The main goal is the construction of a robust theoretical framework that will precede the future development of a methodological BIM-LCA integration tool by the exploitation of the features available in the existing software.

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“…Studies referenced for comparative evaluation of embodied energy results. Stein, Stein, Buckley, and Green, (1981) Chen, Burnett, and Chau (2001) Pullen (2007) Honey and Buchanan (1992) Alcorn (2003) Crawford (2008) Kernan (1996) Scheuer, Keoleian, and Reppe (2003) Huberman and Pearlmutter (2008) Adalberth (1997) Reddy (2004) Hammond and Jones (2008) Blanchard and Reppe (1998) Almeida, Bragança, and Mendonça (2005) ICE (2011) Eaton, Gorgolewski, Amato, and Birtles (1998) Yohanis andNorton (2006) Ramesh, Prakash, andShukla (2013) the level of detail of the economic data and fuel mix between the United States and Australia may explain some of the variations in the magnitude of the positive correlation. The inclusion of the energy of labour and capital investment may also have caused some minor differences.…”

Section: Evaluation and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied energy and cost of building materials: correlation analysis

Dixit

2016

Building Research & Information

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The US building sector consumes 48% of the nation's annual energy as operating and embodied energy. Calculating embodied energy is difficult, complex and more resource-consuming than calculating operating energy due to a lack of complete, accurate and specific embodied energy data. One commonly used method to calculate embodied energy is input-output-based (IO) analysis, which utilizes economic data. The use of economic data indicates some relationship between embodied energy and cost. Some studies have investigated whether the embodied energy of a building can be predicted from its cost. These studies analyzed the relationship of the cost and embodied energy of a building and found a strong, positive correlation. However, when analyzed at the material level, the correlation weakened. This paper develops an improved input-output-based hybrid (IOH) model to calculate the complete, accurate and material-specific embodied energy of 21 commonly used building materials. After calculating and evaluating the embodied energy, the correlation of the embodied energy and cost of materials was analyzed. The results demonstrate a very strong and positive correlation between embodied energy and cost. In conclusion, more research may be required to predict embodied energy from cost data.

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Including embodied energy considerations at the conceptual stage of building design

Cited by 31 publications

References 25 publications

Incorporating sustainable development principles into building design: a review from a structural perspective including case study

Incorporating sustainable development principles into building design: a review from a structural perspective including case study

Methodological Discussion of Insertion and Exportation of Lca Data Embedded in Bim Elements

Embodied energy and cost of building materials: correlation analysis

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