EVALUATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL-QUALITY OF BUILDINGS TOWARDS A MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS DESIGN

Appropriate design and construction can reduce the environmental impac t of buildings over their entire life cycle. Such a prevention strateg y can be supported by an evaluation tool. Our approach consists of app lying life cycle analysis to the building sector. The use of computers is preferred for an easier comparison of alternative designs and to t est possible improvements of a project. We adopted an object oriented approach in order to link models with professional practice. A data st ructure has been defined, in which a building is decomposed into objec ts. The corresponding classes include both data (inventories of basic materials and processes) and methods (accounting for fabrication, recy cling, etc.). The result of such an evaluation is an environmental pro file, constituted from various indicators on natural resources used, e nvironmental effects and waste produced. First sensitivity analysis we re performed showing the importance of the utilisation phase with its associated energy, water and waste fluxes. The environmental performan ce of a building is a result of a sequence of decisions like the choic e of the building site, design choices, occupant's behaviour, etc. The potential applications of this research are to inform the various act ors about the consequences of their choices, to assess the environment al interest of innovative technologies (e.g. solar components) and to develop new tools for practitioners. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Scien ce Ltd.