Environmental Impacts of Multi-Storey Buildings Using Different ...

- 15 -designers and a shortage of building design practitioners who are trained and experienced inthe use of wood as a construction material for large buildings.The information gap noted above is there because few have seen the need for this informationuntil now, there are few examples and very few advocates.Further impetus for this research was provided by the introduction of the New Zealand GreenBuilding Council (NZGBC) Green Star Office rating tool (v1.0) which does not consider thefull LCA of building materials; it does not consider embodied energy, nor give fairconsideration to the displacement of more energy intensive building materials by wood, norprovide recognition of the ability to use wood waste to generate energy. Current research wasneeded to demonstrate the perceived shortcomings of the NZGBC rating tool and offeralternatives.The initial research contract had three programme objectives:Objective 1 To design three comparable buildings with the following structuralmaterials; conventional reinforced concrete, conventional steel andinnovative pre-stressed timber. MAF RFP POR/7811 providedmethodology and design guides for the building.Objective 2 To investigate both the embodied energy in the structural and nonstructuralmaterials and the whole-of-life operational energy of eachbuilding design, together with lifetime GWP emissions.Objective 3 To demonstrate and highlight any differences between the total whole-oflifeenergy of each building, together with lifetime GWP emissions.The research was extended in December 2007 to;• Design a fourth structure, the TimberPlus building. This design was to go well beyondsubstituting the mainly structural components of the building to redesign the wholearchitecture, both internal and external. (For instance, the TimberPlus buildingmaximises the use of wood through timber external cladding and internal partitions, andincorporates timber framed windows, doors and stairs). The TimberPlus option needed tomaximise the use of wood but not beyond what would be a reasonable expectation botharchitecturally and aesthetically, whilst still offering a realistic maintenance schedule andwithin a similar budget to the Concrete and Steel options.• Undertake additional work on the Steel building to allow the Steel building to be broughtup to a more comparable level of design and research, similar to that for the Concrete andTimber options, and thus allow a more rigorous comparison of the four alternativedesigns.• Extend the work on the schedule of materials for each building undertaken by theQuantity Surveyor to include the following categories; glass, aluminium, paint andfinishes, particleboard/fibreboard and insulation.• Undertake additional investigation by the Quantity Surveyor to provide a betterunderstanding of where environmental impacts are greatest.• Include the effects of building maintenance and refurbishment in the life cycleassessment.• Expand the LCA work to include a sensitivity analysis on the environmental impacts ofthe transport distances of wood and other materials used in the buildings• Expand the end-of-life aspect of the original LCA modelling work to investigate andreport on the effects of landfilling of demolition waste and the possibilities for both the