Life-cycle Assessment of Resiliency and Sustainability of Buildings

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A typical building must be in use for decades before the energy expended in its daily operations surpasses the energy embodied within its initial construction. Thus, how a sustainable building is constructed is as important as how it is operated over its lifetime. Unfortunately, the environmental impact of building construction has only recently been considered by design consultants, quantified by the energy expended in the manufacture of the materials employed. By considering only the materials' 'cradle' and not the 'cradle-to-grave' environmental impact, these evaluations fail to quantify the true impact of US building construction practices. In addition, each building has specific vulnerabilities, whose implications for sustainability has not been previously considered, despite the significant environmental impact of repairs after a disaster. This project will develop an integrated life-cycle analysis that responds to the complex relationship between sustainability and resilience. This research will help the US building industry realize designs with truly optimal performance. Doing so will advance the global mandate to reduce environmental impact and better steward of natural resources. Moreover, this project's adoption of established modeling environments, real world case studies, and private sector partnerships will aid in the effective translation to US design practice. The project's educational crossover opportunities will ensure that future design professionals are well equipped to further this legacy by using the outcomes of this research to enhance resilience and sustainability of our built environment. This project will develop an integrated life-cycle assessment capturing the dependencies between multi-hazard resilience and sustainability, across the multiple contributing dimensions of environmental impact. The computationally efficient assessment will take advantage of (i) simulation-driven approaches, (ii) sample-based tools, (iii) soft-computing techniques, and (iv) new environmental impact toolsets that will mine publically available data to quantify the building's operational and embodied energy. Through sensitivity analyses on actual buildings, the framework will reveal which design aspects truly drive environmental impact and how this is affected by the consideration of lifetime exposure. The transfer of this newfound understanding is further facilitated by engaging practicing engineers and architects directly in the research effort.