Chapter 13 - BIM-Enabled Sustainable Housing Refurbishment—LCA Case Study

Abstract

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is recommended to determine the most environmentally responsible housing refurbishment solution among various design and material alternatives. Despite of proven capability and usefulness of LCA, it is limitedly adopted and used in the construction industry due to a lack of proper LCA datasets and a tool to effectively utilise LCA method. This research conducts the LCA studies for whole-house fabric refurbishment based on different energy standards using building information modelling (BIM) as a tool to formulate LCA and refurbishment alternatives through a case study with BIM simulation. This research reveals the trade-off relationship between LCA and life-cycle cost (LCC) and identifies that BIM is a feasible information management platform for housing refurbishment. Yet, the data exchanges and unstandardized specification for construction materials in a BIM object are recognized as the major challenges for BIM adoption. This research will contribute to enable researchers and practitioners to fully understand the implication of the LCA and LCC for housing refurbishment. Also, this research will provide insight to researchers regarding the implication of BIM adoption for housing refurbishment.