The development of a sustainable construction design process

The construction industry uses large volumes of physical resource and employs many. Yet its performance often falls short of expectations. Increasing demand for their products to be sustainable requires a radical change in methods employed. Prefabricated construction has been adopted at times of constrained resources. As such it may be able to meet sustainability expectations. However, using this type of design without changing the industries methods will not be enough. Systematic design methods have led to large improvement in the car and electrical product industries and may be able to support change in construction. The research developed a systematic design process, for use with prefabricated construction. The method was adapted to ensure sustainability requirements were considered during the early design stages by incorporating them into the design process at the product specification. The adapted method was applied to a building outline and the sustainability of the design solutions were compared to a traditional construction method. In the case study the best performing solution had the design with open timber framed panels, using the largest panel size, without a structural frame. The design tools used were shown to improve the users understanding of the design space and creating possible solutions. The tools included social issues that were poorly addressed elsewhere. The tool improved some aspects of the building's sustainability but additional tools or redefining some of the functional requirements would be required to fully address whole life sustainability. To improve accuracy the tool would benefit from comprehensive LCA databases for use in the early stages of the design process. Such a database would have value across the industry. The industry should also focus on the development of better relationship along the supply chain.