Victoria, M; Perera, S and Davies, A (2015) Developing an early design stage embodied carbon prediction model: A case study. In: Raiden, A and Aboagye-Nimo, E (eds.) Proceedings of 31st Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-9 September 2015, Lincoln, UK.
Abstract
The focus of carbon management has shifted from operational carbon towards Embodied Carbon (EC) as a result of zero carbon agenda. Even though effort is made to quantify EC in detail design stage and choose the best solution for design there is no such approaches in managing EC during early stages of the design. The reason for this is lack of sufficient design information to quantify EC at early design stages. Hence, this research intends to fill that gap by using a unique approach of predicting EC by capturing the relationship between design and morphological parameters (such as plan shape, storey height, no. of storeys, finishes quality, services quality, etc.) and EC. Some building elements can be considered as 'carbon hotspots' (carbon intensive). Since carbon and cost are known to be the currencies of sustainable construction projects, the aim of the study is to develop a decision support system to optimise design in terms of carbon and cost during early stages of design. The aim is to be achieved by developing a database of elemental (NRM compliant) EC and cost (using Hutchins UK Building Blackbook and other data sources) of sample office buildings in the UK and identifying the correlations of EC and cost with design parameters. Consequently, regression models will be derived as the key component for the DSS development. This paper presents a detailed literature review of EC and EC estimating tools, a detailed discussion of the proposed research method and exemplar case study of an office building and EC and capital cost analysis of the building. The paper concludes with the identification of the carbon hotspots for the building (mainly, substructure, frame, upper floor and external walls) and compares it with published case studies while exploring the implications of the case study for the DSS to be developed.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | carbon hotspots; early stage design; embodied carbon; office building |
| Index terms: | case study, capital cost, decision support, embodied carbon, regression model, carbon hotspot, database, prediction model, office building, design parameter, sustainable construction project, literature review, finishes, design stage, early design stage, estimating, operational carbon |
| Subjects: | prediction and forecasting, financial and cost management, data analysis and analytics, professional practice, building materials, climate science, environmental impact, construction type, data collection methods, statistical analysis, design constraints, decision analysis, data management, sustainable construction, design process, accounting and finance |
| Topics: | Cost Management, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Risk Management, Construction Technology, Sustainability, Design Practice, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here