Advancing design criteria for energy and environmental performance of buildings

Abstract

Globally, buildings are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 40% of energy consumption. The European Union’s climate and energy policy framework for 2020 and 2030 requires reducing GHG emissions by 40%, increasing the level of energy savings by 25%, and increasing the share of renewable energy by at least 30% relative to 1990.

The environmental and energy performance criteria for buildings will continually evolve to meet the aforementioned decarbonisation goals. Consequently, buildings will have an increased number of variables and alternatives that are to be evaluated for their performance, indicating increased complexity for building designers. The prospect of evaluating multiple building performance criteria necessitates integrated designing and planning tools, such as the use of Building Information Model (BIM), Building Performance Simulations (BPS), and methodologies for comparing and optimizing alternative design options.

This dissertation presents new insights on advancing the design criteria for the energy and environmental performance of commercial and residential buildings. Specially, the four associated journal publications demonstrate how building designers and the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry can integrate embodied GHG analysis, comprehensive BIM tools in conjunction with BPS analyses, and stochastic assessment of public perceptions to work towards buildings that are more energy-efficient, generate energy on-site, and have a smaller carbon footprint. Through comprehensive literature reviews, this dissertation outlines future research directions for BIM-based, iterative multi-criteria assessment for energy and environmental performance of buildings.