Life cycle assessment of multi-family housing designed for flexibility -A study on the climate impact of flexibility and how to account for it in a life cycle assessment
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Industrial ecology (MPTSE), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Moberg, Sandra
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The Swedish society is facing a challenge of reaching important climate targets while dealing with a shortage of housing. The building sector therefore has an imperative role to play. LCA (life cycle assessment) is a valuable tool that can guide design towards sustainability. Simultaneously, housing that lasts over time and is used fully can reduce climate impacts, making design for flexibility an important strategy. However, there exists knowledge gaps on the environmental impact of flexibility along with lack of procedures to quantitatively assess architectural design strategies that are hard to measure. This thesis explores the environmental performance of design for flexibility in housing with a life cycle perspective and considers how LCA can be used to evaluate it. The process consists of; a literature review, a qualitative assessment and lastly a case study comprising an LCA of a multi-family residential building, where a flexible case enabling increased longevity and space efficiency is compared to a reference case.
The findings suggest that design for flexibility can provide essential meaning for sustainable building practice but that many benefits are scenario based. The case study reveals that a climate impact saving of 21-49 % is possible, depending on the methodological choices; functional unit, reference study period and scenarios. It is shown that commonly applied calculation methods need to be adapted to account for design for flexibility and results vary depending on it. A flexible building enables prolonging, ease of adaptations and using the long-lived parts of a building more, thus it can serve its purpose now and for a long unpredictable future.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Design for flexibility, multi-family housing, LCA, environmental assessment, climate impact, residential, sustainable architecture