Wallhagen, M and Glaumann, M (2011) Design consequences of differences in building assessment tools: A case study. Building Research & Information, 39(1), pp. 16-33. ISSN 0961-3218
Abstract
Environmental assessment tools for buildings are emerging rapidly in many countries. Do different assessment tools influence the design process and also guide 'green' building projects in different directions? Three assessment tools, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction (LEED-NC), Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) and EcoEffect, were tested in a case study project in Sweden: a new multi-storey residential building called Gronskar. The content and results of the three assessment tools were compared in general, while issues in the three core common categories of Energy, Indoor Environment and Materials Waste were compared in more detail. The assessment results for the case study building varied with the three tools, and the design strategies and tactics to improve the overall rating of the building project differed for each tool. This confirms that the tools can influence sustainable building in different directions and illustrates insufficient consensus between assessment tools in terms of issues, criteria and weighting. The divergent results highlight the need for an appropriate structure of assessment tools that are both environmentally relevant and practically useful.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | assessment methods; assessment tool; building assessment; building design; code for sustainable homes; ecoeffect; environmental assessment; leadership in energy and environmental design; sustainable building |
| Index terms: | environmental design, design strategy, case study, building design, indoor environment, sustainable building, design process, environmental assessment, residential building, Sweden, building assessment |
| Subjects: | sustainable construction, design methods, sustainability and energy, construction type, Geography, architectural design, data collection methods, asset management, environmental impact, environmental science |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Research Practice, Sustainability, Construction Technology, Geographical Context, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
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