scholarly journals Toward LCA-lite: A Simplified Tool to Easily Apply LCA Logic at the Early Design Stage of Building in Australia

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toktam B. Tabrizi ◽  
Arianna Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Effective Parameters ◽  
Early Design ◽  
Early Design Stage ◽  
Knowledge Based

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), developed over 30 years ago, has been helpful in addressing a growing concern about the direct and indirect environmental impact of buildings over their lifetime. However, lack of reliable, available, comparable and consistent information on the life cycle environmental performance of buildings makes it very difficult for architects and engineers to apply this method in the early stages of building design when the most important decisions in relation to a building’s environmental impact are made. The LCA quantification method with need of employing complex tools and an enormous amount of data is unfeasible for small or individual building projects. This study discusses the possibility of the development of a tool that allows building designers to more easily apply the logic of LCA at the early design stage. Minimising data requirements and identifying the most effective parameters that promise to make the most difference, are the key points of simplification method. The conventional LCA framework and knowledge-based system are employed through the simplification process. Results of previous LCA studies in Australia are used as the specific knowledge that enable the system to generate outputs based on the user’s inputs.Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), early design stage, most effective parameters, life cycle environmental performance

scholarly journals Application of life-cycle assessment to the eco-design of LED lighting products

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuyi Wang ◽  
Daizhong Su ◽  
You Wu ◽  
Zijian Chai
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
New Product ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Design Specification ◽  
Led Lighting ◽  
Lca Results

Abstract An approach for integrating life-cycle assessment (LCA) into the eco-design of lighting products was developed, and LCAs of five lighting products that are currently on the market were then carried out using this approach. Based on the results of these LCAs, the sustainability requests for lighting products were derived and embedded into the product design specification (PDS), thus ensuring that any product developed according to the PDS would have the desired eco-design features. A new sustainable lighting product was then designed according to the PDS and manufactured, after which the new product underwent LCA. Upon comparing the results of the LCA of the new product with the LCA results for the existing lighting products, the newly designed product was found to provide better environmental performance than the existing products (a 27–58% reduction in environmental impact).

An Evaluation of Measuring the Publicness Level of Interiors in Public Building Design

2021 ◽  
pp. 276-303
Author(s):  
Pelin Aykutlar ◽  
Seçkin Kutucu ◽  
Işın Can-Traunmüller
Keyword(s):  
Building Design ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Public Buildings ◽  
Public Building ◽  
Early Design ◽  
Early Design Stage ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interior Spaces ◽  
Floor Plans ◽  
Architectural Competitions

This study examines the publicness level of the interior spaces of public buildings. As a method, VGA (visual graph analysis) is used for analyzing the early design phases of selected municipal service buildings. In this study, the authors utilized from VGA for quantifying the publicness level of the two selected architectural competitions of municipality buildings. The method allows us analyzing the floor plans of each project in obtaining an eventual assessment of permeability and accessibility which give an idea of the levels of publicness comparatively. Subsequently, representation parameters are compared under two main criteria: connectivity and integration. The aim of the study is to understand the level of publicness and efficiency of spatial settings for the users circulating in the public buildings, which have dissimilar plan schemes. This method would be used by the designers for early design stage and provide useful feedback for understanding the level of accessibility and permeability of the structures and adjust their schemes accordingly.

Defining Key Environmental Performance Factors (KEPF) for Gas Turbines Eco-Design and Production Through Life Cycle Assessment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Musacchio ◽  
Andrea Corona ◽  
Luca Cencioni ◽  
Angela Serra ◽  
Pietro Bartocci ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Material Selection ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Performance Factors ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Design And Production

Abstract Nowadays environmental impact assessment of a new product is necessary to meet rising sustainability requirements also in the Oil & Gas and Power Generation markets, especially for industrial gas turbines. From the conceptual phase to the detailed design, engineer’s work is supported by a wide range of tools aimed to define and evaluate typical parameters such as performances, life and costs, etc. However, considering environmental impact aspects from the early stages of product development may not be easy if the involved engineers are not provided by a specific Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) knowledge. Scope of this paper is to introduce and explain the development of a methodology aimed to define and evaluate the Key Environmental Performance Factors (KEPF) during the whole design process. The proposed methodology enables easy and fast eco-design evaluations and supports sustainable design assessments. Preliminary analysis of the entire processes involved in gas turbine (GT) design and production as well as testing and commissioning phases were performed to evaluate which factors affect mostly the Carbon Footprint of each process, referred to their specific functional unit. Extrapolating the KEPF from Cradle-to-Gate LCA they can be combined with case-specific qualitative and quantitative information such as material selection, manufacturing processes, mass quantity, presence of coatings etc. to provide environmental assessments. A case study of LCA applied to a heavy-duty GT is presented to outline the relative weight of each KEPF.

Impact of Supply Chain Solutions on Environmental Performance of Biomass Use – LCA-based Research Case

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66
Author(s):  
Tomasz Nitkiewicz ◽  
Agnieszka Ociepa-Kubicka
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Steam Boiler ◽  
Production Facility ◽  
Perform Sensitivity Analysis

Abstract The article presents the activities of selected company - biomass manufacturer and user - with regard to environmental impact of biomass supply chain solutions. The biomass production facility of Biomass User Company is one of the most modern plant in Central Europe. It uses wooden and agricultural biomass to produce heat in biomass-fired steam boiler. The objective of the paper is to investigate the environmental impact with the use of life cycle assessment method. In our study, we define different scenarios for biomass transportation, concerning its supply as well as distribution. Life cycle assessment method is used to estimate environmental impact and to perform sensitivity analysis on transport modes, fuel mix structure and destination of self-cropped biomass. LCA ReCiPe endpoint indicator is used to measure environmental performance. As the results show, transport efforts are not significant factor while environmental impacts are concerned but are rather impact intensive type of activity and should be addressed with company environmental policies.

An intelligent system for estimating full product Life Cycle Cost at the early design stage

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haifeng Liu ◽  
Vivekanand Gopalkrishnan ◽  
Wee Keong Ng ◽  
Bin Song ◽  
Xiang Li
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Intelligent System ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Product Life ◽  
Early Design ◽  
Early Design Stage

scholarly journals Analysis and Assessment of the Building Life Cycle. Indicators and Tools for the Early Design Stage

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6467
Author(s):  
Roberto Giordano ◽  
Federica Gallina ◽  
Benedetta Quaglio
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Energy Content ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Early Design Stage ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Co2

Construction is a crucial sector in terms of worldwide environmental impacts. Building material production along with transport and demolition are no exception, because in the last decades, they have constantly increased their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Actions and initiatives are therefore important to tackle the relationship between buildings and climate change. Particularly, it is necessary to develop Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools useful to calculate the environmental impact of buildings and to make them accessible to designers and stakeholders acting in the building sector. The article aims to contribute to the international debate about environmental assessment indicators for buildings and the simplified LCA based tools. The Embodied Energy (EE) and the Embodied Carbon (EC) have been investigated. The former, related to primary energy content; the latter, associated with the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions. EE and EC have been used as indicators for the development of a calculation tool named EURECA, for assessing the environmental impact of the building over its life cycle, as defined by the EN 15978:2011 standard. The Solar Decathlon Latin America and Caribbean’s house designed and built by an international academic team has been an opportunity to check the indicators and the tool’s effectiveness.

scholarly journals Facade Style Mixing using Artificial Intelligence for Urban Infill

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
AHMED KHAIRADEEN ALI ◽  
One Jae Lee
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Digital Design ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Generative Adversarial Network ◽  
Early Design ◽  
Early Design Stage ◽  
Early Stage Design

Artificial Intelligence and especially machine learning have noticed rapid advancement on image processing operations. However, its involvement in the architectural design is still in its initial stages compared to other disciplines. Therefore, this paper addresses the issues of developing an integrated bottom up digital design approach and details a research framework for the incorporation of Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) for early stage design exploration and generation of intricate and complex alternative facade designs for urban infill. This paper proposes a novel building facade design by merging two neighboring building’s architecture style, size, scale, openings, as reference to create a new building design in the same neighborhood for urban infill. This newly produced building contains the outline, style and shape of the parent buildings. A 2D urban infill building design is generated as a picture where 1) neighboring buildings are imported as a reference using mobile phone and 2)iFACADE decode their spatial adjacency. It is depicted the iFACADE will be useful for designers in the early design stage to generate new façades depending on existing buildings in a short time that will save time and energy. Besides, building owners can use iFACADE to show their architects their preferred architecture facade by mixing two building styles and generating a new building. Therefore, it is depicted that iFACADE can become a communication platform in the early design stages between architects and owners. Initial results properly define a heuristic function for generating abstract design facade elements and sufficiently illustrate the desired functionality of our developed prototype.

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