Building Environmental Assessment Research Articles

Research Contents, Methods and Prospects of Emotional Architecture Based on a Systematic Literature Review

In recent years, research on building perception has increasingly become a hot topic. More and more scholars have explored the user perceptions of the built environment and guided the design through the perception results. The technical method of emotional engineering can quantify people’s emotions and facilitate the exploration of users’ perceptions in the built environment. However, most of the existing research is empirical, and there is no article to review the interdisciplinary direction of architecture and emotional engineering. This review uses the PRISMA method to conduct a systematic literature review of 147 studies on building environment assessment using emotional engineering methods, and discusses the relationship between the building environment and humans, especially in terms of emotions, cognition, behavior, and physiology. Through a systematic literature review, the theoretical basis of emotional architecture is put forward. It constructs the interactive mode and theoretical framework of emotional architecture and reveals that the combination of artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning may be the new direction of emotional architecture research in the future.

Green Building Techniques: Under The Umbrella of the Climate Framework Agreement

Various green building rating systems have been devised to assess the sustainability levels of buildings, offering a standardized approach to evaluate their environmental impact. However, adapting these existing methods to diverse regions requires addressing additional considerations, such as distinct climatic conditions and regional variations. This study delves into a comprehensive exploration of widely utilized environmental building assessment methodologies, including BREEAM, LEED, SB-Tool, CASBEE, GRIHA, and Eco-housing. A new building environmental assessment scheme tailored to the global landscape is needed due to limitations of existing assessment schemes. A framework based on principal component analysis is introduced to develop this new scheme. PCA applied to a dataset of many responses on building sustainability revealed nine key components, including site selection, environmental impact, building resources and re-use, building services and management, innovative construction techniques, environmental health and safety, mechanical systems, indoor air quality, and economic considerations. A framework for sustainable building development in world is proposed. The study provides insights for designers and developers in developing countries, offering a roadmap for achieving green development. The framework prioritizes key components for a nuanced evaluation of sustainability in building projects, contributing to the global discourse on environmentally responsible construction practices.

An open access online tool for LCA in building’s early design stage in the Latin American context. A screening LCA case study for a bioclimatic building

Several Life Cycle Assesmment (LCA) tools have been generated seeking to facilitate its application in buildings. However, most of them are focused on Europe or the US, leaving aside the Latin American region. This paper presents the EVAMED (Building Environmental Assessment tool) framework, a new tool developed mainly for Latin America, aimed at non-LCA expert users. It is analyzed how this software addresses the requirements established in the literature for LCA tools in early design phases. A screening LCA of a bioclimatic project is presented as a case study. A validation has been made by comparing the results obtained with those of a commercial software. The difference between both tools does not exceed an average of 40% considering various environmental impact categories. The results show EVAMED covers several of the requirements established for LCA tools for buildings early design stages, like the use of regional and international databases, the BIM (Building Information Modeling)-LCA integration and its versatility during project configuration and results visualization. Bioclimatic strategies achieve a 30% reduction in the carbon footprint of the case study. The use phase has improved its rating in the Mexican housing carbon footprint benchmark, going from E (78.8 kgCO2e/m2-year) to C (54.7 kgCO2e/m2-year).

Physical development control measures in Nigerian cities: an overview of contemporary issues in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State

Land is the platform upon which every activity of man takes place. Especially in urban areas, man’s activities are many and they struggle for the limited available space. To curtail the rate of chaos and ensure compatibility among the various uses that land is put to, the activation of control mechanism becomes necessary. This study was undertaken to identify the various issues that come with development control in urban areas using Uyo Capital City as a case study. Data for the study were obtained from the staff of Uyo Capital City Development Authority and some identified property developers. Findings revealed the major problems of the area as: flood, erosion menace and poor solid waste management. The study highlighted the benefits of development control to include orderliness, safety, beauty and convenience. From the study also, Zoning Regulation has been found out to be the major tool used in controlling physical development in the study area. Other tools used include building code, subdivision and Environmental Impact Assessment. Major challenges faced by Uyo Capital City Development Authority in its task of controlling and managing the area are; noncompliance by property developers with building regulations, corruption and lack of effective monitoring mechanism. The study recommends that developers should always obtain approval for every building project, that charges for approval should be brought to the barest minimum and that there should be effective monitoring mechanism in place to enforce compliance with the laws.

Comparison of Green Building Rating Systems from LCA Perspective

Buildings account for a considerable proportion of carbon emissions throughout their lifecycle. Therefore, Green Building Rating Systems (GBRSs) have been developed globally to evaluate building environmental performance and mitigate their impacts on climate change. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a science-based method has been recognised in the GBRSs to enhance the building environmental assessment. Regardless of the wide implementation of GBRSs, buildings carbon emissions have continued to rise by nearly 1% per year since 2010. Furthermore, no academic research has been conducted to compare GBRSs assessment criteria from the LCA perspective in respect of the recognition and weighting of (1) whole building LCA, (2) embodied carbon emissions and (3) operational carbon emissions. To this end, this research aims to evaluate the efficiency, validity and reliability of five international GBRSs (i.e., LEED, BREEAM, BEAM Plus, Green Star and Homestar) in terms of assessing and auditing the building total carbon emissions; embodied and operational emissions. Results show that conducting whole building LCA is an optional assessment criterion with negligible weighting. Moreover, the assessment of the operational carbon emissions make up the major portion of the total weighting in the existing GBRSs. By contrast, the assessment of building embodied carbon emissions is overlooked. Based on the results, shifting focus from operational carbon towards a full life cycle perspective is urgently needed to achieve the emissions reduction targets and so decarbonising the built environment.

Buildings LCA and digitalization: Designers’ toolbox based on a survey

In a context of digitalization and increasing quality requirements, the building sector is facing an increasing level of complexity regarding its design process. This results in a growing number of involved actors from different domains, a multitude of tasks to be completed and a higher degree of needed expertise. New buildings are also required to reach higher performances in terms of environmental quality. To that regard, the exploitation of the full potential of digital tools can facilitate the integration of environmental aspects in the planning process, limit productivity shortcomings and reduce environmental impacts, which can result from an unaware decision making. Building environmental assessment can be performed through several Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-based tools. “Pure calculation” tools quantify final buildings’ environmental potential, while “complex tools” additionally support decision making during the planning process. It is often difficult to choose the best suitable tool, which strongly depends on the user’s needs. Within the IEA EBC Annex 72, a survey was realized with the main objective of creating a comprehensive overview of the existing tools dedicated to buildings LCA. The questionnaire included the usability, functionality, compliance, data reliability and interoperability of the analysed tools. Lastly, based on the survey outcomes and their critical assessment, a procedure for the identification and selection of a tool has been proposed based on user’s needs. As a result, this work outlines main features of currently available building LCA tools, for which there is a harmonized status in terms of usability and overall applied LCA methodology. Despite the need for more automatized workflows, tools’ embedding is mostly not yet applicable in system chains or limited to a restricted number of tools.

A holistic perspective on the French building and construction GHG footprint

In order to deliver on the Paris agreement, the decarbonisation of the building sector is critical. An accurate assessment of its life cycle GHG emissions is essential to identify emissions hotspots and decarbonisation potentials in order to prepare future policies such as sectoral carbon budgets. However, today a lack of common GHG emissions accounting exists between climate policies and building environmental assessment. The first one relies on the production-based accounting system of national inventories, while the second one takes a life cycle approach, thus accounting for cross-sectoral emissions. As a result, at national level, there is no holistic assessment of the building and construction GHG footprint, which is detrimental to prepare decarbonisation pathways. This research aims to characterise the life cycle emissions of the sector, taking the French case as an example. A thorough analysis of operational direct and indirect emissions as well as embodied emissions allows the identification of emissions hotspots, both at sectoral and geographical levels. The methodology enables an integrated cross-sectoral perspective that is essential for national assessments and future policy interventions. Results show operational emissions represent 65% of the sector GHG footprint. Embodied emissions are mainly due to industry and energy upstream emissions, with roughly 60% imported from abroad. The results can help to identify main decarbonisation levers to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS: EVOLUTION BEYOND BUILDING ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT METHODS

ABSTRACT The publication of the Brundtland Commission Report, popularly known as Our Common Future, was the precursor for what was to follow in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development or the Earth Summit. Both these events played a fundamental role in the global initiatives towards sustainability. The adoption of Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainable development for the 21st century was a crucial agreement of the Rio Summit, which marked the beginning of an era where the term Sustainable Development came to be associated with all human interventions on planet earth. In this context, the building industry, which makes a significant impact on the social, environmental and economic well-being of the society, has a prime responsibility in meeting with sustainability requirements in all facets of the design, construction and operation of buildings. Currently efforts are being made by the building industry and the allied professions to adhere to sustainability norms by enhancing the current green building practices. The emergence of building environmental assessment (BEA) methods is such an attempt in addressing these issues, but is considered as insufficient to contend with the wider spectrum of sustainability. A technique to address complex attributes of sustainable performance of building projects has not been attempted before, owing to the dynamic nature of the concept of sustainability. This paper attempts to develop a framework to enhance current BEA methods, as the next stage of development towards meeting global sustainability initiatives. The main objective is to evolve a set of indicators that will assist in determining sustainability of a building. Three widely used BEA methods and Agenda 21, are analyzed, along with a focus group, to derive sustainability indicators. A total of 62 indicators under 10 categories are identified, some of which are common to BEA methods, while several new indicators are introduced to address sustainability issues not previously accounted for in BEA methods. The final outcome is a framework that can be used to determine the extent of sustainability of building projects. With the aid of the proposed framework of indicators, it is possible to develop a complete sustainability index by allocating values to each indicator, through a survey of professionals in the building industry. Such an index could be used as a tool in developing sustainable buildings, thus meeting with aspirations of building design teams and clientele who seek high quality sustainable solutions for their endeavours. This effort would also pave way for further research into the domain of building sustainability.

Comparative Study of Green Rating Systems in India

Indian construction industry is highest growth rate from last years, which is having a negative impact on the environment and natural resources available for construction. Following this problem of carbon imprint, concept of sustainable development in construction industry is the need of an hour. With increase in demand of sustainable buildings or green buildings demand of green rating and assessment tools is also increasing. Rating tools set benchmark for green building measurement, which are helpful in reducing negative impact on environment by promoting quality green building. India has two main building environment assessment tools i.e., Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) and Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA). The former is benchmarked with global standards while later is indigenously developed. This paper aims to focus on comparative study of IGBC (LEED India) and GRIHA rating system and compare both with regards to their certification-cost, influence and popularity, performance criteria and benchmarks 9rating score). Through this study, an attempt is made to make clear understanding of IGBC and GRIHA rating system assessment criteria that need to be considered before certification.

The impact of sustainability rating systems on health and safety in building projects

Sustainable construction has gained increasing popularity within the building sector with many sustainability rating systems (SRSs) available worldwide. However, most research has been focused on the environmental benefits of pursuing SRSs, with little attention paid to the health and safety (H&S) impact on construction workers. This study thus aims to investigate the impact of adopting SRSs on the H&S of construction workers in building projects. A systematic literature review was conducted, including 39 articles, to investigate the possible association between sustainability and H&S hazards. It resulted in 30 events and eight types of associated hazards, which are mostly related to the adoption of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (Leed) and Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method SRSs. The adoption of SRSs is likely to increase the exposure of workers to known H&S hazards with no new hazards introduced. In particular, ‘falling from height’ and ‘manual handling injuries’ caused by solar installation and retrieving recyclable waste, respectively, are the most representative sustainability-related hazards. While the evidence detected is mainly related to Leed, further research is needed to investigate whether findings are valid for other SRSs, such as the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method in the UK or Green Star in Australia, to address H&S concerns associated with sustainable building projects.

A Review of the Environmental Impact of Buildings with an Emphasis on Performance Assessment Tools and Their Incorporation of LCA

Background. The environmental performance of buildings has been a focus of interest over the years in the building sector. Numerous building environmental assessment tools (BEA) have evolved to follow the lead of sustainability by updating categories and criteria from a lifecycle perspective. Therefore, it is timely to review the existing methods that already integrated LCA in their processes. The purpose of this study unfolds in three ways: (1) to review the existing BEA methods and LCA studies in residential buildings, (2) to compare the most adopted BEA methods, and (3) to study the integration of LCA and sustainability aspects applied within each selected BEA method. Methods. Scopus and Web of Science databases were searched for articles published between August 2010 and August 2021 in English. To identify studies and to conduct this review, four keywords, namely “Building Assessment Tools,” “Residential Building,” “LCA,” and “Sustainability” (and their derivatives), were used. The articles were searched so that all four keywords or at least a derivative of each keyword would appear. Furthermore, the outcomes of the database search were categorized as LCA and BEA for the review. Moreover, the seven most adopted rating systems were selected for review and comparison based on (1) the scope of buildings assessed, (2) lifecycle phases assessed, (3) assessment criteria, and (4) the user of tools. Findings. Of the 42 articles that met the enclosure criteria, 20 articles covered the environmental impact and 22 articles covered LCA. The review reveals that most of the analyzed systems focus more on the operational stage than on the other stages. Each BEA method is diverse in terms of its users, criteria, and regions and creates a niche among assessment methods. Conclusions. The main conclusion of this study is that a great deal of work is required to achieve the goal of making the existing “environmental” building assessment tools more sustainable. At the same time, a focus on the better implementation of LCA functionalities at each stage and a complement by integrating socioeconomic-based LCA models were also required.

In search of sustainable construction: the role of building environmental assessment methods as policies enforcing green building

Over the past 20 years, building environmental assessment methods (BEAMs) have been promoted as a means to achieve more sustainable and environmentally friendly (green) buildings, as well as more sustainable practices in the building process at large. These schemes have come to be considered as effective mechanisms to transform building markets and are seen to play a significant role in the mainstreaming of green building practices. In many countries, BEAMs are now used as policy instruments and are increasingly being mandated across a variety of public, but also private, sector projects. In this paper, we examine BEAMs as policy instruments and explore their potential to affect change in construction. Drawing on the theory of strategic action fields, and using the case of HK-BEAM, we discuss the origins, development and application of BEAMs and the limited impact that their mandate has on construction practice. The paper concludes with reflections on the need to further our understanding of how the construction sector works and who has the power, and the will, to make changes in construction practice happen.

Strategies for green building rating in India: A comparison of LEED and GRIHA criteria

The establishment of a green grading system to evaluate buildings is becoming increasingly critical due to an increased focus on sustainable growth in the construction sector. The rating method established criteria for green measures in the construction and use of structures in order to create them more environmentally friendly and sustainable. In India, “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA)” are the most typical building environmental assessment schemes now in use. For the purpose of this article, LEED and GRIHA rating systems are compared and their scopes, performances requirements, and scales of energy efficiency are discussed. This research aims to clarify the LEED and GRIHA assessment criteria that need to be taken into account when comparing the two systems. This Comparative research may be used to compile a generic checklist for any small-scale green construction project's inspection and certification.

Stakeholders’ perspectives on BIM and LCA for green buildings

There is growing concern about the environmental impacts of buildings on climate change. In this regard, the concept of integrating building technologies and environmental assessment methods, namely Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), has arisen as an innovative approach to improve building environmental assessment at the design phase. Recent studies made attempts to develop theoretical frameworks for BIM and LCA integration focusing on the technical aspects and the challenges of this integration. However, the stakeholders' perspectives on this integration of BIM and LCA for building environmental assessment have been overlooked. Therefore, there is a pressing need to understand the stakeholders' perspectives on BIM and LCA and their value for improving green building design and assessment. This study contributes to the existing knowledge on the potential implementation of an integrated BIM-LCA framework for building environmental assessment. To this end, this study investigates (1) the current applications of BIM and LCA in green buildings from the stakeholders' perspectives and (2) the stakeholders' level of awareness and agreement on the significance of BIM and LCA for green building design and assessment. In order to achieve this goal, a national survey was conducted among multiple stakeholders in the New Zealand building industry. The results indicate that BIM and LCA applications for green buildings are still immature. A statistically significant correlation is observed between the importance of BIM and LCA applications for green buildings. The stakeholders perceive BIM and LCA potentials and their integration positively. However, the current practices and applications of BIM and LCA do not align with the stakeholders’ perceptions. Massive efforts are still required for a wide implementation of BIM and LCA and their potential integration for green buildings.

Framing Future of Work Considerations through Climate and Built Environment Assessment of Volunteer Work Practices in the United States Equine Assisted Services

The foundation of healthy workplace design is an understanding of work practices. Volunteers comprise the majority of the workforce in care centers using horses to address human health issues. Documentation is lacking on protections for worker well-being in equestrian microenvironments which are known to have the potential for dust exposures. Climate acts as a master variable in equestrian facility design and ventilation usage to address dust and temperature concerns. Using climate as an independent variable, our objective was to characterize space usage, safety, environmental control, and organizational practices through a national survey of equine assisted programs. We found that more fully enclosed indoor arena spaces were in cold/very cold and mixed-humid climates (p = 0.0114). Annually more volunteers (p = 0.0073) work in these two climate groups averaging 100 volunteers per location. A total of 34% of all facilities, regardless of climate, do not use mechanical ventilation systems (e.g., fans). As volunteer worker time in the arena increased, time in the barn microenvironment tended to decrease (p = 0.0538). We identified facility designs, ventilation usage, and worker arrangements to refine the scalability of future air contaminant monitoring and to provide frameworks for education, workplace design, and prevention of exposure to dust.

Global building environmental performance assessment systems and theirrole in environmental conservation: Developing an environmental performance assessment system for the Saudi environment

Global building environmental performance assessment systems and theirrole in environmental conservation: Developing an environmental performance assessment system for the Saudi environment

Global building environmental performance assessment systems and their role in environmental conservation: Developing an environmental performance assessment system for the Saudi environment

This paper discusses the principles of environmental performance for buildings and their direct effects on the depletion of environmental resources. The research is significant in proposing ways of reducing resource depletion and improving utilization by developing systems to assess buildings’ environmental performance and their feasibility for environmental, sustainable, and conservation development. The paper introduces an assessment system that can measure the environmental performance of buildings aiming to make them more efficient and address their impact. It starts with the theoretical approach, focusing on two areas. The first discusses the concept of the environment, defining its terms, identifying the environmental components and problems encountered and discussing the extent of the effect on the quality of human life. The second discusses buildings’ environmental performance, specifically their responsiveness and adaptation to the environment, studying the elements that influence the quality of buildings and their suitability given environmental and climatic conditions. The empirical analysis then examines and compares global environmental performance assessment systems—Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), and the Pearl Rating System (PRS)—and usage methodology. The paper concludes by proposing a new environmental assessment system adapted to the study area to assess buildings, thus making a contribution to knowledge.

Development of Building Information Modeling Template for Environmental Impact Assessment

Eco-friendly building designs that use building information modeling (BIM) have become popular, and a variety of eco-friendly building assessment technologies that take advantage of BIM are being developed. However, existing building environmental performance assessment technologies that use BIM are linked to external assessment tools, and there exist compatibility issues among programs; it requires a considerable amount of time to address these problems, owing to the lack of experts who can operate the programs. This study aims to develop eco-friendly templates for assessing the embodied environmental impact of buildings using BIM authoring tools as part of the development of BIM-based building life cycle assessment (LCA) technologies. Therefore, an embodied environmental impact unit database was developed, for major building materials during production and operating stages, to perform embodied environmental impact assessments. Moreover, a major structural element library that uses the database was developed and a function was created to produce building environmental performance assessment results tables, making it possible to review the eco-friendliness of buildings. A case study analysis was performed to review the feasibility of the environmental performance assessment technologies. The results showed a less than 5% effective error rate in the assessment results that were obtained using the technology developed in this study compared with the assessment results based on the actual calculation and operating stage energy consumption figures, which proves the reliability of the proposed approach.

The assessment of buildings and constructions sector of economy proposal: an environmental perspective.

Environmental impact assessment methods suffer from an applicability issue which could impede their use and development. The main subject of this article is to present a method to evaluate the applicability of building environmental assessment method in a given country. Here, when we say that a method is applicable in a given country, it means that it could be widely used and that it could produce the expected effects in terms of energy savings, environmental impact minimization, economic gain, etc. So, for this applicability evaluation purpose, the main criteria that affect the building environmental assessment method applicability were identified and were weighted by studying different scenarios. Then, the evaluation method was applied to the Tunisian case. Moreover, in order to contribute to a better understanding of the importance of building environmental assessment method implementation, stakes related thereto are reviewed. It was reported that building environmental assessment method would concur to improve building energy efficiency, enhance social capital, and contribute to environmental, social, and economic stability. In addition, it could be one of the major solutions for the collection of statistical data, which in turn would contribute to the success of projects undertaken as part of the green economy. Eventually, the building environmental assessment could be one of the major green marketing tools and should be taken into account by a company to improve profitability. The developed method and the presented stakes could be agood management and decision making tools and could help legislators and policy-makers for the best implementation of building environmental assessment method.

Environmental impacts cost assessment model of residential building using an artificial neural network

PurposeBuildings are major contributors to greenhouse gases (GHG) along the various stages of the building life cycle. A range of tools have been utilised for estimating building energy use and environmental impacts; these are time-consuming and require massive data that are not necessarily available during early design stages. Therefore, this study aimed to develop an Environmental Impacts Cost Assessment Model (EICAM) that quantifies both energy and environmental costs for residential buildings.Design/methodology/approachAn Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was employed to develop the EICAM. The model consists of six input parameters, including wall type, roof type, glazing type, window to wall ratio (WWR), shading device and building orientation. In addition, the model calculates four measures: annual energy cost, operational carbon over 20 years, envelope embodied carbon and total carbon per square metre. The ANN architecture is 6:13:4:4, where the conjugate gradient algorithm was applied to train the model and minimise the mean squared error (MSE). Furthermore, regression analysis for the ANN prediction for each output was performed.FindingsThe MSE was minimised to 0.016 while training the model. Also, the correlation between each ANN output and the actual output was very strong, with an R2 value for each output of almost 0.998. Moreover, validation was conducted for each output, with the error percentages calculated at 0.26%, 0.25%, 0.03% and 0.27% for the annual energy cost, operational carbon, envelope materials embodied carbon and total carbon per square metre, respectively. Accordingly, the EICAM contributes to enhancing design decision-making concerning energy consumption and carbon emissions in the early design stages.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides theoretical implications to the domain of building environmental impact assessment through illustrating a systematic approach for developing an energy-based prediction model that generates four environmental-oriented outputs, namely energy cost, operational energy carbon, envelope embodied carbon, and total carbon. The model developed has practical implications for the architectural/engineering (A/E) industries by providing a useful tool to easily predict environmental impact costs during the early design phase. This would enable designers in Saudi Arabia to make effective design decisions that would increase sustainability in the building life cycle.Originality/valueBy providing a holistic predictive model entitled EICAM, this study endeavours to bridge the gap between energy costs and environmental impacts in a predictive model for Saudi residential units. The novelty of this model is that it is an alternative tool that quantifies both energy cost, as well as building’s environmental impact, in one model by using a machine learning approach. Besides, EICAM predicts its outcomes more quickly than conventional tools such as DesignBuilder and is reliable for predicting accurate environmental impact costs during early design stages.