Research Brief: Optimizing Building Life Cycle Environmental Impact and Cost

Abstract

Existing building life cycle assessment tools rely on detailed building models that make it difficult to explore the environmental implications of design strategies in the earliest design phases. Most of these tools are separate from architectural design software tools, which hinders the exploration of a wide range of design solutions and therefore limits opportunities to optimize designs for environmental impacts. We seek to address this gap by developing a plug-in for the design software Rhino that optimizes life cycle environmental impact and cost for early design stage conceptual geometries when only the building shape is specified.