Comparative assessment of shape related cross-laminated timber building typologies focusing on environmental performance

Abstract

Consideration of environmental impacts caused by buildings with the aim of reducing environmental loads has become a high priority for the construction sector. Since the geometry and the size of buildings, two of the multiple design factors, are assumed to affect the building environmental profile, the current paper discusses the influence of the building shape on the building environmental performance. Thus, a life-cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted for five simplified reference building models with identical thermal envelope and structural properties, which were used to represent smaller residential timber building typologies such as detached (DH), semi-detached (SDH), terraced (TH), two-storey (2SH) and three-storey houses (3SH). The numerical analysis was performed with the “Baubook eco2soft” tool indicating the environmental performance of the building through the global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP) and non-renewable primary energy content (PENRT) for the lifespans of 50 (50y) and 100 (100y) years. The results show a clear linear correlation between the building shape and environmental performance allowing for the use of linear interpolation and extrapolation as a simple tool to predict an approximate building environmental profile with respect to the building shape. Additionally, the findings offer suggestions towards the improvement of certain building design parameters, which presents a valuable support to building design processes.