Transitions Towards Sustainable Construction

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Among many challenges facing the construction industry, the largest is the need to transition to a low carbon future in the face of climate change. The objective of this research program is to drive this change in three construction-industry theme areas: 1) changing the way that we assess buildings' performance and contribution to climate change, 2) changing our design and project management practices to become more sustainability-centric, and 3) changing the way that we design and construct buildings so that they can better contribute to sustainable solutions by making them more adaptable. A major vehicle for this research will be the design and construction of two new buildings to house the new Civil Engineering program at the University of Victoria (the Adaptable Regenerative Center-ARC-for Building Research), which will serve as a living laboratory for this work. The first focus relates to changing the way that we measure and account for building's performance and sustainability impacts. At present, sustainability issues are mainly addressed within the building construction industry through certification systems such as LEED. These systems are predominately based on buildings' design, not their actual ongoing performance. When actual performance is measured, there is often a significant gap between planned performance and actual performance. The counterpoint to design-phase certification is Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE). We have collaborated with an organization called the International Initiative for Sustainable Built Environment, iiSBE, to develop and apply POE protocols. The proposed work will advance these POE protocols, develop an information systems platform for working with POE information, and pilot these new techniques on the ARC project and other buildings. The second focus centres on changing our management and design practices. This work examines the best practices of private and public organizations that are taking on ever-increasing responsibilities for making projects more sustainable. It will identify and formalize practices for sustainability-centred engineering design, and benchmark sustainable development management practices within the construction industry. The third focus looks at changing building technologies. This work seeks to advance a set of design and construction techniques (largely centred on adaptable, modular, wooden, net zero or better structures) that can help achieve the required high-performance, low carbon buildings. It will approach this topic through detailed case studies of the innovative ARC project and by establishing the foundations for a new adaptable modular construction laboratory. The work will impact codes and industry practices and will develop a broad range of understanding, skills, and expertise in a cohort of HQP that will be well-positioned to lead the industry through these challenging transitions towards a low-carbon future.