Within this work,life cycle assessment modeling is used to determine top design priorities and quantitatively inform sustainable design decision-making for a prefabricated modular building.A case-study life-cycle asse...Within this work,life cycle assessment modeling is used to determine top design priorities and quantitatively inform sustainable design decision-making for a prefabricated modular building.A case-study life-cycle assessment was performed for a 5,000 ft2 prefabricated commercial building constructed in San Francisco,California,and scenario analysis was run examining the life cycle environmental impacts of various energy and material design substitutions,and a structural design change.Results show that even for a highly energy-efficient modular building,the top design priority is still minimizing operational energy impacts,since this strongly dominates the building life cycle’s environmental impacts.However,as an energy-efficient building approaches net zero energy,manufacturing-phase impacts are dominant,and a new set of design priorities emerges.Transportation and end-of-life disposal impacts were of low to negligible importance in both cases.展开更多
Ecological payback time was calculated for demolishing an existing commercial building with average energy performance and replacing it with an energy-efficient,prefabricated building.A life-cycle assessment was perfo...Ecological payback time was calculated for demolishing an existing commercial building with average energy performance and replacing it with an energy-efficient,prefabricated building.A life-cycle assessment was performed for a 5,000 ft2 commercial building designed by Project Frog and prefabricated in San Francisco,California,and compared to the impacts of annual energy consumption and continued status quo operation of a comparable average commercial building.Scenarios were run both with and without rooftop solar panels intended to make the prefabricated building net zero energy.The analysis considers the materials and manufacturing,transportation,annual energy use of the new building,and disposal of the existing building,compared to continued annual energy use of the existing building.The carbon payback of a new building with no solar against operation of an existing commercial building was found to be roughly eleven years,and a building with enough rooftop solar to be net zero energy was roughly 6.5 years.The full EcoIndicator99 environmental impact payback for a new efficient building with no solar was found to be twenty years,and a solar net-zero building was roughly eleven years against operation of an existing commercial building.展开更多
基金the Stanford University Terman Faculty Fellowship,and the staff of Project Frog,for their generous support.
文摘Within this work,life cycle assessment modeling is used to determine top design priorities and quantitatively inform sustainable design decision-making for a prefabricated modular building.A case-study life-cycle assessment was performed for a 5,000 ft2 prefabricated commercial building constructed in San Francisco,California,and scenario analysis was run examining the life cycle environmental impacts of various energy and material design substitutions,and a structural design change.Results show that even for a highly energy-efficient modular building,the top design priority is still minimizing operational energy impacts,since this strongly dominates the building life cycle’s environmental impacts.However,as an energy-efficient building approaches net zero energy,manufacturing-phase impacts are dominant,and a new set of design priorities emerges.Transportation and end-of-life disposal impacts were of low to negligible importance in both cases.
文摘Ecological payback time was calculated for demolishing an existing commercial building with average energy performance and replacing it with an energy-efficient,prefabricated building.A life-cycle assessment was performed for a 5,000 ft2 commercial building designed by Project Frog and prefabricated in San Francisco,California,and compared to the impacts of annual energy consumption and continued status quo operation of a comparable average commercial building.Scenarios were run both with and without rooftop solar panels intended to make the prefabricated building net zero energy.The analysis considers the materials and manufacturing,transportation,annual energy use of the new building,and disposal of the existing building,compared to continued annual energy use of the existing building.The carbon payback of a new building with no solar against operation of an existing commercial building was found to be roughly eleven years,and a building with enough rooftop solar to be net zero energy was roughly 6.5 years.The full EcoIndicator99 environmental impact payback for a new efficient building with no solar was found to be twenty years,and a solar net-zero building was roughly eleven years against operation of an existing commercial building.