Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemIntegrating embodied greenhouse gas emissions assessment into the structural design of tall buildings: A framework and software tool for design decision-making(ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA, 2023-10-15)Urgent changes are needed in the construction industry to address the adverse effects of material production on the environment. The construction of tall buildings results in a high temporal and spatial concentration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is largely due to the compounding influence of wind and earthquake loads on structural material requirements. Thus, to meet short-term climate change mitigation goals, the structural design of tall buildings must consider and minimise the embodied GHG emissions of structural systems. This study aimed to develop a framework to inform the design of tall building structural systems in order to minimise their embodied GHG emissions. A software tool was developed to implement the framework and automate the design, analysis, and embodied GHG emissions assessment of structural systems for tall buildings. Approximately 1,000 building models were iteratively designed, analysed, and assessed using the software tool. Through regression analyses, the resulting dataset was used to construct predictive models for the embodied GHG emissions of 12 unique combinations of structural system typologies and materials. By applying the framework and software tool to a 52-storey case study building, it is estimated that optimising structural material choices and geometric design strategies could reduce the embodied GHG emissions of tall building structural systems by up to 20% compared to current practices. The developed framework and software tool allow designers to use environmental assessment as a design decision-making tool, rather than an appraisal method for evaluating completed buildings, helping to reduce the environmental effects associated with tall building construction.
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ItemEPiC grasshopper: A bottom-up parametric tool to quantify life cycle embodied environmental flows of buildings and infrastructure assets(Elsevier BV, 2024-01)Reducing the embodied environmental flows of built assets is becoming increasingly important and is a key priority for actors in the built environment to improve life cycle environmental performance. Policies and related targets for embodied environmental flow reductions are emerging. Despite this, tools for quantifying the life cycle embodied environmental flows of built assets are limited in variety and scope. Parametric life cycle assessment (LCA) tools have emerged to address some of these limitations. These tools can enhance decision making, be embedded directly into CAD programs, and offer real-time LCA calculations across multiple design variations. Yet, existing parametric tools for LCA rely on process-based material environmental flow data, limited geometries, limited real-time data visualisation capacity, and often require specialised technical expertise to use. These gaps limit their ability to provide transparent, robust, and rapid assessments. This paper introduces EPiC Grasshopper, an open-source, open-access, bottom-up, parametric tool that enables the quantification of life cycle embodied environmental flows at the early stages of built asset design, bridging the aforementioned gaps. The key characteristics and functionalities of the tool are described, followed by verification (checking that calculations are correct), validation (checking that results are representative of reality), and demonstration of its application to two built asset case studies, i.e. parametrically-defined Australian house and road. The paper shows how the tool can be used to generate designs to meet specific embodied environmental flow targets as well as streamline and increase the uptake of embodied environmental flow assessment and considerations in built asset design workflows.
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ItemTowards a multiscale framework for modeling and improving the life cycle environmental performance of built stocks(Wiley, 2022-04-01)Cities are complex sociotechnical systems, of which buildings and infrastructure assets (built stocks) constitute a critical part. As the main global users of primary energy and emitters of associated greenhouse gases, there is a need for the introduction of measures capable of enhancing the environmental performance of built stocks in cities and mitigating negative externalities such as pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. To date, most environmental modeling and assessment approaches are often fragmented across disciplines and limited in scope, failing to provide a comprehensive evaluation. These approaches tend to focus either on one scale relevant to a discipline (e.g., buildings, roads, parks) or particular environmental flows (e.g., energy, greenhouse emissions). Here, we present a framework aimed at overcoming many of these limitations. By combining life cycle assessment and dynamic modeling using a nested systems theory, this framework provides a more holistic and integrated approach for modeling and improving the environmental performance of built stocks and their occupants, including material stocks and flows, embodied, operational, and mobility-related environmental flows, as well as cost, and carbon sequestration in materials and green infrastructure. This comprehensive approach enables a very detailed parametrization that supports testing different policy scenarios at a material, element, building, and neighborhood level, and across different environmental flows. We test parts of our modeling framework on a proof-of-concept case study neighborhood in Melbourne, Australia, demonstrating its breadth. The proposed modeling framework can enable an advanced assessment of built stocks that enhances our capacity to improve the life cycle environmental performance of cities.
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ItemImproving the uptake of hybrid life cycle assessment in the construction industry(Elsevier, 2017)With building-related greenhouse gas emissions(GHGE) having more than doubled since 1970, they represent one of the largest and most attractive opportunities for climate change mitigation. However, current focus has mainly been on reducing operational GHGE leaving building embodied GHGE (i.e. the GHG emissions associated with the extraction, manufacture and transportation of materials, and the building construction process itself) largely ignored. These embodied emissions have been estimated to represent between 10% to 97% of a buildings total life cycle GHGE. It is thus critical that decision-making in relation to buildings is based on a life cycle perspective. One of the main barriers to this approach is the uncertainty surrounding the financial implications of life cycle GHGE reduction strategies. Despite project cost being a key driver for decision-making, building developers, designers and owners have insufficient knowledge or appropriate tools to adequately consider these life cycle costs and balance them against GHGE savings. Several methods exist for quantifying the costs of a building, such as life cycle costing (LCC). However, LCC and life cycle GHGE assessments are often used in isolation. This study will address the urgent need to move towards integrating these assessments by developing a framework that can be used to ascertain the important relationships and trade-offs between financial and GHGE performance of various building-related GHGE reduction strategies. This framework can be used as part of the building decision-making process and help create a low carbon, affordable built environment.
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ItemTowards an automated approach for compiling hybrid life cycle inventories(Elsevier, 2017)There is an urgent need to reduce the environmental effects associated with the built environment. While a life cycle approach is considered essential for ensuring that these effects are not simply shifted from one life cycle stage to another, not all life cycle assessment methods provide the same level of detail. Three main approaches are currently used to compile a life cycle inventory capturing data on the inputs and outputs associated with a particular good or service: process, input-output and hybrid analysis. While process analysis is recognised for its specificity, it typically involves a truncation of the system boundary. Conversely, input-output analysis is systemically complete, but aggregates data at the economic sector or commodity level. Combining these two methods in a hybrid analysis has the potential to reduce their limitations, while maintaining their benefits. However, combining process and input-output data remains a highly manual and time-consuming process. The development of an automated approach for compiling life cycle inventories is a critical step in the uptake of hybrid analysis methods. This study aims to explore automating the hybridisation of process and input-output data using the Path Exchange method. Major practical barriers that usually prevent automating the integration of process and input-output data in hybrid life cycle inventories are discussed and a case study focusing on concrete is used for the purpose of illustrating the approach.
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ItemThe Australian industrial ecology virtual laboratory and multi-scale assessment of buildings and construction(Elsevier, 2018-04-01)As global population and urbanization increase, so do the direct and indirect environmental impacts of construction around the world. Low-impact products, buildings, precincts and cities are needed to mitigate the effects of building construction and use. Analysis of embodied energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across these scales is becoming more important to support this direction. The calculation of embodied impacts requires rigorous, flexible and comprehensive assessment tools. Firstly, we present the Australian Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory (IELab) as one such tool discussing its structure, function and wide scope of application. Secondly, we demonstrate its potential high level of resolution in a case study: assessing embodied GHG emissions in an aluminium-framed window by combining product-specific life-cycle inventory data. The input-output analysis at the core of the IELab is mathematically comprehensive in the assessment of direct and indirect impacts and the tool can be applied at a range of scales from building component, to precincts and cities, or to the entire construction industry. IELab uses a flexible formalism that enables consistent harmonisation of diverse datasets and tractable updating of input data. The emissions and energy database supporting IELab has detailed data, aligning with economic accounts and data on labour, water, materials and waste that enrich assessment across other dimensions of sustainability. IELab is a comprehensive, flexible and robust assessment tool well positioned to respond to the challenge of assessing and aiding the design of a low-impact built environment.
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ItemThe EPiC database: Hybrid embodied environmental flow coefficients for construction materials(ELSEVIER, 2022-05)Demand for new buildings and infrastructure continues to grow and will only increase in coming years to cater for forecast growth in global population. This demand will result in considerable strain on the natural environment, resulting from the operation of these new built assets as well as the demand for resources required to construct and maintain them. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can be used during the design or refurbishment of new or existing buildings or infrastructure projects, to assess and improve their environmental performance. A life cycle assessment is often time consuming and complex, especially when used for the analysis of entire construction projects. This is particularly true when it is used to analyse construction-related, or embodied, environmental flows (e.g. embodied greenhouse gas emissions). To simplify the process, especially with projects that have tight time or budget constraints, product-based environmental flow coefficients are often used, which provide an indication of the environmental flows associated with specific construction materials. However, existing coefficients are typically based on process data, inherent with truncated product system boundaries. This paper introduces the Environmental Performance in Construction (EPiC) Database, a comprehensive database of hybrid embodied environmental flow coefficients for construction materials in Australia. EPiC uses a hybrid life cycle inventory approach to fill the gaps that exist in process data and provide embodied environmental flow coefficients that are systemically complete. This study has shown that existing process data for materials is on average 55% incomplete, but considerable inconsistency in system boundary coverage means that this incompleteness varies from 2% to 99% across materials and environmental flows. Other key strengths of EPiC are its transparency, providing open access to all data, and methodological consistency, with coefficient data sources and methods being the same for all materials. Environmental flow coefficients from EPiC can be used on their own or integrated into existing life cycle assessment tools, informing improvements to the environmental performance of construction projects.
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ItemThe ‘building paradox’: research on building-related environmental effects requires global visibility and attention(Emerald, 2020)The construction and operation of buildings is a major contributor to global energy demand, greenhouse gases emissions, resource depletion, waste generation, and associated environmental effects, such as climate change, pollution and habitat destruction. Despite its wide relevance, research on building-related environmental effects often fails to achieve global visibility and attention, particularly in premiere interdisciplinary journals – thus representing a major gap in the research these journals offer. In this article we review and reflect on the factors that are likely causing this lack of visibility for such a prominent research topic and emphasise the need to reconcile the construction and operational phases into the physical unity of a building, to contribute to the global environmental discourse using a lifecycle-based approach. This article also aims to act as a call for action and to raise awareness of this important gap. The evidence contained in the article can support institutional policies to improve the status quo and provide a practical help to researchers in the field to bring their work to wide interdisciplinary audiences.
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ItemThe influence of structural design methods on the embodied greenhouse gas emissions of structural systems for tall buildings(ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, 2020-04)The construction of tall buildings generates a high spatial and temporal concentration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Research has shown that as building height increases, more resources per floor area are required to withstand the increasing effects of wind and earthquake loads. This has major implications for the environmental performance of tall buildings since the embodied GHG emissions (EGHGE) of structural systems tend to represent the greatest portion of the life cycle EGHGE of tall buildings. In mitigating the effects of climate change, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been proposed as an early stage design tool to facilitate the choice of structural systems and materials for tall buildings. Existing studies that use LCA to compare alternative structural systems and materials use incomplete and inconsistent structural design methods related to imposed loads, façade loads and lateral loads, both static and dynamic in nature. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the influence of these structural design methods on the EGHGE of structural systems for tall buildings. The influence of structural design methods on the EGHGE of structural systems for tall buildings are evaluated using a total of 80 structural systems, parametrically designed using finite element modelling. A hybrid life cycle inventory analysis method is used to quantify the EGHGE of the structural systems. The paper demonstrates that structural design methods can significantly influence the values of EGHGE of structural systems for tall buildings, by up to 22%. The findings of this study confirm the need for clarity, consistency, transparency and comprehensiveness in structural design methods when conducting comparative LCA studies of structural systems for tall buildings.
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ItemA model for streamlining and automating path exchange hybrid life cycle assessment(Springer Verlag, 2019-02)Purpose: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is inherently complex and time consuming. atypically involves the collection of data for dozens to hundreds of individual processes. More comprehensive LCI methods, such as input-output analysis and hybrid analysis can include data for billions of individual transactions or transactions/processes, respectively. While these two methods are known to provide a much more comprehensive overview of a product’s supply chain and related environmental flows, they further compound the complex and time-consuming nature of an LCA. This has limited the uptake of more comprehensive LCI methods, potentially leading to ill-informed environmental decision-making. A more accessible approach for compiling a hybrid LCI is needed to facilitate its wider use. Methods: This study develops a model for streamlining a hybrid LCI by automating various components of the approach. The model is based on the path exchange hybrid analysis method and includes a series of inter-related modules developed using object-oriented programming in Python. Individual modules have been developed for each task involved in compiling a hybrid LCI, including data processing, structural path analysis and path exchange or hybridisation. Results and discussion: The production of plasterboard is used as a case study to demonstrate the application of the automated hybrid model. Australian process and input-output data are used to determine a hybrid embodied greenhouse gas emissions value. Full automation of the node correspondence process, where nodes relating to identical processes across process and input-output data are identified, remains a challenge. This is due to varied dataset coverage, different levels of disaggregation between data sources and lack of detail of activities and coverage for specific processes. However, by automating other aspects of the compilation of a hybrid LCI, the comprehensive supply chain coverage afforded by hybrid analysis is able to be made more accessible to the broader LCA community. Conclusions: This study shows that it is possible to automate various aspects of a hybrid LCI in order to address traditional barriers to its uptake. The object-oriented approach used enables the data or other aspects of the model to be easily updated to contextualise an analysis in order to calculate hybrid values for any environmental flow for any variety of products in any region of the world. This will improve environmental decision-making, critical for addressing the pressing global environmental issues of our time.