Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemAssessing embodied greenhouse gas emissions in the built environment(Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)This chapter aims to increase awareness related to the assessment of embodied greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) of the built environment in Australia—a critical step to achieve meaningful emissions reduction. A summary of existing methods, data, tools, guidance and gaps in quantifying embodied GHGE in the Australian built environment is provided. A quick evaluation of embodied GHGE is an important aid for the design decision-making process within the architecture, engineering and construction industries. The newly developed Embodied Carbon Explorer (ECE) online tool is introduced to rapidly assess embodied GHGE for built environment projects with National Carbon Offset Standard-performance objectives. A case study using the ECE tool is described that quantifies the total carbon footprint of Australia’s construction industry and identifies the main contributors of embodied GHGE.
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ItemEmbodied emissions analysis of emerging construction technologies for mass housing in India(The University of Melbourne, 2019)The construction and use of buildings is responsible for a significant proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions. With global population growth continuing unabated, alongside increasing living standards in developing regions, this is predicted to continue. While global efforts to reduce the emissions associated with buildings have achieved significant operational efficiencies and emissions savings, buildings still represent a considerable opportunity for achieving the deep cuts in emissions that are needed to avoid the predicted catastrophic consequences of climate change. With the embodied emissions of buildings accounting for an increasingly significant proportion of a building’s life cycle emissions, and this being of little focus to date, this is one area in which some of these emissions cuts could be achieved. The Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) of India have developed a list of potential building construction technologies aimed at improving the performance of housing in India. While these are assessed across a number of parameters, their embodied emissions are often not considered. This study assesses the embodied emissions of these technologies with the aim of determining whether they offer a potential solution for reducing building embodied emissions compared to more traditional housing construction. It was found that the proposed emerging technologies may increase the embodied emissions associated with housing by up to 400% when compared to more conventional forms of construction.
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ItemTowards a design framework for the structural systems of tall buildings that considers embodied greenhouse gas emissions(CRC Press, 2019-07-29)During the 1960s, the Bangladeshi-American structural engineer and architect Fazlur Rahman Khan proposed an influential design framework for the structural systems of tall buildings titled premium-for-height. Khan argued that the challenge of a structural engineer is to design structural systems that minimise the increase in structural material weight per gross floor area with increasing building height. However, in meeting the challenges of climate change and urbanisation, minimising the embodied environmental flows of tall buildings must also be a priority in structural design frameworks. This paper proposes to expand the premium-for-height framework for tall buildings by considering the embodied greenhouse gas emissions of structural systems using a hybrid life cycle inventory analysis method. Advanced structural analysis and a comprehensive consideration of building parameters are also proposed. To demonstrate the use and potential of the framework, embodied greenhouse gas emissions of six case study tall buildings are analysed. The results arediscussed and recommendations are made to improve the reliability of the more comprehensive framework.
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ItemA comprehensive database of environmental flow coefficients for construction materials: closing the loop in environmental design(The Architectural Science Association, 2019)Life cycle assessment is increasingly used to quantify and reduce the environmental effects of buildings. Embodied environmental effects, resulting from material production and replacement as well as construction, are typically quantified using coefficients from readily available databases. However, most existing databases of embodied environmental coefficients for construction materials suffer from limitations, such as inconsistency in the life cycle inventory method used or system boundary incompleteness. This paper introduces a new database of hybrid environmental flow coefficients for construction materials, covering flows of energy, water and greenhouse gas emissions for over 100 common construction materials. The hybrid approach used combines bottom-up industrial process data and top-down macroeconomic input-output data, making it more comprehensive than process analysis and more accurate and specific than input-output analysis alone. A case study building is used to demonstrate the importance of using hybrid coefficients for improving environmental performance. This study shows that the use of process coefficients can lead to a significant underestimation of the total environmental effects associated with the construction of a building, by up to 64%. This has considerable implications for decision-making relating to building design, including the focus of improvement efforts. This database of coefficients will enable building professionals to more effectively analyse and improve the environmental performance of buildings. This will also help inform the focus of environmental policy and improve the implementation of life cycle thinking in environmental design.
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ItemEnvironmental Performance in Construction (EPiC) Database: a database of embodied environmental flow coefficients(The University of Melbourne, 2019)The EPiC Database contains environmental flow coefficients for over 250 common construction materials and products. Developed using complete, transparent and consistent methods, the EPiC coefficients can be used to assess the embodied energy, water and greenhouse gas emissions of construction projects, assisting with design, construction and whole of life decision-making. The EPiC database is the result of a four-year multi-institutional research project, led by internationally recognised experts in modelling embodied environmental flows. Their combined 30+ years of experience in the field is testimony to their commitment to improving the environmental performance of construction.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableLow Energy Building Assembly Selector(The University of Melbourne, 2019)The Low Energy Building Assembly Selector was developed in collaboration between The University of Melbourne and Williams Boag Architects and supported by the Australian Research Council under project LP120200306. The tool provides a means for building designers and other construction industry professionals to make informed decisions regarding the selection of construction assemblies for optimising a building’s life cycle energy demand.
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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.