TY - GEN
T1 - Ecology in multi-story residential buildings – Interdependency between ecology and costs of building materials
AU - Koppelhuber, Daniela
AU - Wall, Johannes
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - More than 95% of multi-story residential buildings in Austria are currently predominantly constructed with conventional mineral construction materials. This fact combined with the increasing demands for a healthy residential living atmosphere demonstrates the great potential for using ecological materials. Life cycle assessments provide information on the ecological performance of buildings, but the corresponding economical aspects are not considered. Nevertheless, the economic aspects of a certain draft are important to clients and designers. Therefore, simplified assessment-tools are needed that take into account the ecological impact as well as the building costs. This paper presents the results of an investigation supplemented by a case study of a multistory residential building, which was finished 2016 in Austria, illustrating the differences between the state-of-the-art material selection and ecologically optimized alternatives. The ecological impacts and the costs for the selected building-system were determined based on the case study. Subsequently, ecological optimization potentials were identified according to the environmental indicator OI3. Finally, the effects on component and construction costs were evaluated. The steps of this simplified process reveal the interdependency between ecological aspects and the costs of materials. This procedure represents a decision-making tool that can be used by clients as well as designers. The results of this research emphasize the large environmental impact improvements with little expenses when implementing sustainability in multi-story residential buildings as a crucial part of a green design.
AB - More than 95% of multi-story residential buildings in Austria are currently predominantly constructed with conventional mineral construction materials. This fact combined with the increasing demands for a healthy residential living atmosphere demonstrates the great potential for using ecological materials. Life cycle assessments provide information on the ecological performance of buildings, but the corresponding economical aspects are not considered. Nevertheless, the economic aspects of a certain draft are important to clients and designers. Therefore, simplified assessment-tools are needed that take into account the ecological impact as well as the building costs. This paper presents the results of an investigation supplemented by a case study of a multistory residential building, which was finished 2016 in Austria, illustrating the differences between the state-of-the-art material selection and ecologically optimized alternatives. The ecological impacts and the costs for the selected building-system were determined based on the case study. Subsequently, ecological optimization potentials were identified according to the environmental indicator OI3. Finally, the effects on component and construction costs were evaluated. The steps of this simplified process reveal the interdependency between ecological aspects and the costs of materials. This procedure represents a decision-making tool that can be used by clients as well as designers. The results of this research emphasize the large environmental impact improvements with little expenses when implementing sustainability in multi-story residential buildings as a crucial part of a green design.
KW - Construction materials
KW - Ecological performance
KW - Environmental indicator OI3
KW - Green design
KW - Life cycle assessments
KW - Sustainable development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070389983&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference paper
T3 - ISEC 2019 - 10th International Structural Engineering and Construction Conference
BT - ISEC 2019 - 10th International Structural Engineering and Construction Conference
A2 - Ozevin, Didem
A2 - Ataei, Hossein
A2 - Modares, Mehdi
A2 - Gurgun, Asli Pelin
A2 - Yazdani, Siamak
A2 - Singh, Amarjit
PB - ISEC Press
T2 - 10th International Structural Engineering and Construction Conference, ISEC 2019
Y2 - 20 May 2019 through 25 May 2019
ER -