New Tool Performs Pre-Design Building Life-Cycle Assessments
Emily Pollock posted on October 01, 2018 |
An engineering student at MIT uses the BAIA program to design buildings. (Image courtesy of Randy Kirchain/MIT News.)
Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) of buildings are an important tool, but they generally occur after the design process is finished, when it’s too late to make significant changes. But a team of MIT researchers has developed a tool that lets architects perform LCAs easily as part of the design process, without significantly impacting creative freedom.
Life-cycle assessments look at the cost (financial and/or environmental) of a building through all the phases of its life, from construction all the way to dismantling or repurposing. These costs include the energy embodied in the materials used to make the building (i.e., carbon emissions from concrete production) and the power sources needed to heat and cool the building.
Usually, the life-cycle analysis is performed after the building is already designed, with architects making minor tweaks or adjustments to the building to lower its lifetime costs. The researchers who developed the Building Attribute to Impact Algorithm (BAIA) system wanted to change that. Their early-design, parametric LCA tool considers factors like location/climate, building dimensions and orientation and climate control, and helps architects select environmentally optimal solutions.
Initially, the researchers were…