Buildings Embodied Impacts over the Life Cycle: an Essential Assessment Framework for the Early Design Phase

The present thesis project revolves around recognition of the critical environmental footprint generated by constructions, from their conception to their disposal. The first part of the research therefore centered on the study of the environmental consequences arising from the construction industry through the analysis of the sustainability assessment protocols or green buildings rating systems (GBRSs), identifying a “set core” of representative categories and indicators of buildings’ sustainability. As a consequence of a number of evidences emerged from the analysis upon the “embodied impacts” (not related to buildings operation) this research centered on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, which emerged as an appropriate tool to measure such impacts. A second analysis of GBRS frameworks was conducted in order to identify the most distinctive aspects, providing a shared buildings LCA framework and underlining several discrepancies in how the method is applied within a wide context and regarding the interpretation of the results. The last part of the thesis, therefore, dealt with the development of a simplified approach capable of overcoming the drawbacks that emerged in order to facilitate the environmental evaluation, from both a methodological and operational point of view, during the early phases of the process which turned out to be particularly significant stages for describing the environmental profiles of buildings. With respect to the complexity of the LCA assessment for non-expert practitioners, implementation of the proposed framework within the Building Information Modelling (BIM) environment was investigated resulting in the development of a customizable and convenient LCA-BIM integration approach. The research concluded with an illustrative application to a case study in order to test the proposed LCA-BIM integration, intending to demonstrate the process and, at the same time, identify and discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of such a method with a view of future developments.