Peter Maydl

Assessment of the environmental performance of buildings: A critical evaluation of the influence of technical building equipment on residential buildings

PurposeSustainability assessments of buildings using the life cycle approach have become more and more common. This includes the assessment of the environmental performance of buildings. However, the influence of the construction products used for the fabric, the finishing, and the technical building equipment of buildings has hardly been described in literature. For this reason, we evaluated the influence of the technical building equipment and its impact on the environment for different residential buildings.Materials and methodsFive residential buildings were evaluated by applying the methodology of life cycle assessment (LCA) (ISO14040) expressed using quantitative assessment categories according to prEN15978.Results and discussionResults show that the optimization of energy performance has already reached a high level in Austria, so that the overall potential for possible improvements is quite low. Especially in low-energy and passive–house-standard residential buildings, the limits for energy optimization in the use phase have mostly been achieved. In contrast to this, the integrated LCA (iLCA) findings attribute a high optimization potential to the construction products used for the technical building equipment as well as to the building fabric and finishing. Additionally, the passive house shows the lowest contribution of the technical building equipment on the overall LCA results.ConclusionsThe iLCA findings suggest that it is recommended to include the technical building equipment for future assessments of the environmental performance of buildings. It is also suggested to use a broad number of environmental indicators for building LCA.

Sustainable buildings, construction products and technologies: linking research and construction practice

In the last two decades and especially since the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1985 and the Rio Declaration in 1992(SchubertandLang2005; Klopffer2003;WECD1987), the issue of sustainability and sustainable development has increasingly received general recognition from the public as key topic. Legislators and other political decision-makers at all levels of government are now aware of the importance of promoting measures for environmental protection and social justice while still pursuing economic growth and economic stability. The environmental aspects of sustainability are treated by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006). Transferring the principles of sustainable development into the construction sector requires a change of paradigm. But, this transfer is challenged by the fact that there is no universally accepted definition of, and no unique solution for, sustainable buildings. The perception of what comprises a sustainable building is changing over time and depends on one’s location. It istimely to push this paradigm changefrom theory into practice, and this was actualized by organizing a conference to make a significant contribution to the development of sustainable building in Central Europe by targeting policymakers, investors, practitioners, users, researchers and students.

Sustainable engineering: State-of-the-art and prospects

Since the 1985 Brundtland Report and the 1992 Rio Declaration were published, sustainable development has become a well-known global political paradigm. However, sustainability has been applied to forestry for centuries in Europe. The historic development of the issue of sustainability is briefly described as well as the possibilities of how sustainability can be transferred into the construction sector. This sector is the most important contributor of the industry in resource consumption and waste production. Architects and engineers need to consider the entire lifetime of buildings “from cradle to grave” and the ecological, economic and socio-cultural aspects. This refers to an assessment of the environmental impact of construction activities such as the consumption of materials, energy and land, and human- and eco-toxicity of emissions as well as optimizing life cycle costs. In addition, some principles of planning actual developments in the international standardization by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and the Committee for European Codes (CEN) are shown. The interest of investors in the performance of buildings is growing and is influencing project development and planning. Construction materials and components have been developed under new conditions which will lead to new levels of global competition. Universities need to understand sustainable engineering in a new approach to the education of civil engineers in fulfilling their responsibility for the built environment.

Structural Sustainability – the Fourth Dimension?

Apart from the usual requirements of functionality and structural stability, for example, future constructions will have to fulfill additional ones, such as keeping to a minimum the release of emissions, the consumption of resources in the construction of building products, in transport, installation and maintenance during their service life as well as in their removal at the end of their life cycle. This also includes the requirement of closed loop recycling management, e.g. the ability of structural parts to be dismantled or of separating construction materials if they pass into different channels of reuse.

Towards "Sustainable" Engineers

Today building has grown to be much more complex: the functional life of buildings is decreasing, the consumption of materials and energy is continually growing as is the accumulation of construction waste. Therefore we need to consider life cycle aspects in planning more and more. With the IABSE Symposium in Shanghai, 2004, we are attuned to the Chinese structural engineers and their great construction challenges. We can imagine the effects of a large and growing economy that needs much in materials and energy just by observing the development on the global steel market. What will happen when the economic development in China goes the same way as the industrialized countries have since the second half of the 20th century? But surely they will not repeat our mistakes by ignoring sustainability.

Werkstoff und Konstruktion - die vernachlässigte Schnittstelle

Waren Architekt und Bauingenieur ebenso wie Werkstoff und Konstruktion lange Zeit eine Einheit, haben sich diese im Laufe der Zeit mit steigenden Anspruchen und technischen Moglichkeiten auseinanderentwickelt. Fur die Konstruktionsplanung existieren Werkstoffe im Bauwesen primar als Rechenkennwerte. In jungster Zeit sind Anforderungen an Gebaude und Bauteile bzw. Bauprodukte sprunghaft angestiegen, weshalb den Wechselwirkungen von Werkstoff und Konstruktion vermehrt Beachtung zu schenken ist. Die Grunde dafur sind nicht zuletzt in der kunftig erforderlichen ganzheitlichen, lebenszyklusorientierten Planung zu suchen. Dieser ganzheitliche Ansatz muss kunftig auch verstarkt in die Lehre Eingang finden, wenn die Universitaten ihrer Verantwortung gerecht werden wollen.