Abstract
The location of temporary facilities in a construction project and the entire site layout plan directly affect project objectives such as time, labor cost, and material transportation and handling. The layout of construction sites also affects entrainment factors such as energy consumption, carbon footprints, and overall construction operation productivity. While site layout planning has been intensively investigated from a project objectives perspective, there have been very few studies of energy-efficiency-based planning, or of the sustainability performance of site layouts. This study developed a green performance evaluation system aimed at improving the sustainability of construction site layouts. The identified factors include six sustainable evaluation categories covering energy conservation and environmental protection, people-oriented principles, construction efficiency, intensity of economic growth, intensity of space use, and the overall control of process. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was adopted to determine the weight of each attribute and a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was established to carry out the evaluation. The 23 attributes adopted in this paper were identified in the literature; however, the major contribution of this paper is the development of a green performance evaluation system. This system integrates both qualitative and quantitative attributes and provides an overall evaluation of the environmental effectiveness of a construction site layout. The proposed evaluation system was validated with a commercial building project. The average utilization ratio of the case study site was calculated as 94%, and lessons learned are discussed in this paper. The case study analysis identified available site spaces around the building and examined how the arrangement of resources and facilities ensures effective connection between construction activities. The findings showed that the facility’s layout plays a crucial role in energy consumption and green performance. The proposed system will support construction project managers to create high-performance construction site layouts in more scientific and systematic ways.
Highlights
The construction industry has a significant environmental impact
Construction site layout plays an important role in improving energy efficiency during the construction phase
To explore sustainable development potential in construction site layouts, this study proposed a green performance evaluation system with six categories, including energy conservation and environmental protection, construction efficiency, economic intensity, space intensity, people-oriented principles, and total process control
Summary
The construction industry has a significant environmental impact. The industry consumes large amounts of resources and produces considerable amounts of waste [1,2,3]. There has been a lack of research into ways to minimize energy consumption through site layout planning and operational strategies. This type of research is significant, because the environmental impacts from the construction stage are estimated to be large on a national and global scale [4,5]. Chang and Ries [8] investigated energy and emission units of a common type of high-rise building in China, finding that resource and energy consumption in the building sector is high. Planning and operational phases of construction require attention and investment, since construction significantly affects energy consumption, carbon emissions, and climate adaptation and resilience
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