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“IMPROVED CARBON IMPACT ANALYSIS THROUGH STAKEHOLDER-BASED METRICS AND VISUALIZATION OF CARBON DATA

Building scientists believe that buildings’ environmental impacts should be minimized, and that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an excellent way of doing so. The importance of evaluating potential improvements to a building’s embodied carbon impact during the early design stages is widely recognized; however, the application of carbon calculation during the design stage is limited due to the high level of uncertainty in design and material decisions at this stage. Project stakeholders such as principals, architects, structural consultants, designers, etc. all require access to targeted carbon data to be able to analyze and make impactful project decisions. The existing carbon calculation frameworks offer details that are not consumable by all decision-makers, hence limiting their access to carbon data and narrowing the impact of their contributions to reducing carbon footprint. This research introduces a process for aiding project stakeholders with stratified carbon data for making integrated design decisions, and phase-wise carbon impact visualization of construction scenarios. Knowing quick carbon impacts is especially helpful while iterating through building systems and corresponding products that are not yet finalized in the early design stages. The study identifies stakeholders and corresponding- most meaningful- carbon metrics and stratifies and visualizes this data for impactful early design decision-making. The product stage – modules A1, A2, A3 (including product selection and construction) are evaluated in terms of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and all stakeholders can understand the carbon impact- both micro and macro levels.

“CURRICULUM VITAE”

Twisha Raja is a Computational Designer in the research team at cove.tool. The focus of her design and research is trifold – Design Computation, Sustainability, and User Experience as they relate to the AEC industry. She strives to integrate smart workflows for designers by automating monotonous design workflows to make them more efficient and sustainable. She graduated with a master’s in advanced architectural design from Carnegie Mellon University. She is also a licensed architect in India. She believes that if every design decision is data-backed, designers will inherently work towards fighting climate change. Technology is the way forward!

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