Carbon - A Field Manual for Building Designers

Matti Kuittinen is an architect and professor of resource-efficient construction at Aalto University, Finland. As a policymaker, he has been developing whole life carbon assessment methods in Finland and the EU. Alan Organschi is a design principal and a partner at Gray Organschi Architecture, in New Haven, CT and a senior member of the design and technology faculty of the Yale School of Architecture. He currently serves as the Director of the Innovation Lab of the global initiative Bauhaus Earth in Berlin, Germany. Andrew Ruff is the Research Coordinator of the Timber City Research Initiative, a Design Director at Gray Organschi Architecture, and a Visiting Critic at the Yale School of Architecture.

Preface 2 Chapter 1. Carbon? 10 Our Carbon Challenge 11 Building Elements 12 King Carbon 13 A Global Carbon Budget 14 The Carbon Cycle in Building History 16 Carbon Flows in Building 17 Stanching the Flow 19 Time Management in Carbon Mitigation 21 Re-balancing the planet: agency and opportunity 23 About this book 25 Visualizing carbon flows 26 Chapter 2: MEASURING CARBON FLOWS 28 Life cycle assessment - whats in it for building designers? 29 An opportunity 29 Carbon measurement for carbon management 30 The fundamental concepts 31 The approach 31 Lifecycle boundaries, scales, and periods 32 Operational and embodied impacts 35 The stages of the building life-cycle 37 Assessment methods 40 Standards 41 The process of life cycle assessment 43 Defining the goal and scope of assessment 43 Setting the system boundaries: What to include? 44 Life cycle scenarios 49 Sensitivity analysis 51 Cut off rules 52 The production stage 53 Materials make a difference 53 Calculating the carbon flows in the production phase 54 Inventory of materials 55 Data for material-related emissions 57 Reducing the carbon footprint in the production stage 61 The construction stage 62 From material components and products to the building system 62 Construction method 65 The use stage 69 Embodied and operational impacts 69 Emissions from the use of energy and water 70 Service life 74 Other emissions (and potential removals) during the use phase 79 End-of-life stage 81 End-of-life scenarios 81 Deconstruction 82 Transport 83 Landfilling and decomposition 83 End-of-waste 84 Closing the loop 85 Results, interpretation and comparison 86 Describing the dominance of life cycle phases 86 Sensitivity analysis 87 Comparing impact estimates 88 Limits of a Lifecycle Approach 89 The streamlined life cycle assessment for buildings 90 Chapter 3: Case Studies in Decarbonization 95 Notes from the field 95 How were the calculations performed? 97 Material inventories 97 Carbon footprints 97 Biogenic carbon neutrality of wood 98 Carbonation of concrete 98 Accumulation of carbon into plants and soil 98 Mitigation potential 99 Common Ground High School 100 Summary of total carbon emissions, storages and circulation potential 105 Common Ground High School: Key figures 107 Materials 109 Site and ground works 110 Foundations and ground floor 112 Structural frame 113 Facades and external decks 115 Roofs 116 Internal dividers 118 Space surfaces 119 Internal fixtures 121 Building system installations 123 Mitigation potential from materials and systems 125 Energy-related emissions 126 Puukuokka Housing Block 130 Puukuokka One apartment building 130 Summary of total carbon emissions, storages and circulation potential 135 Puukuokka One: Key figures 137 Materials 139 Site and ground works 139 Foundations and ground floor 141 Modular units 143 Hallway 145 Facades 147 Roofs 148 Building service installations 150 Mitigation potential from materials and systems 151 Energy 152 Comparison of the case studies 154 What causes the differences? 154 Buildingtypology 157 Physical features and structural solutions 157 Location and weather 158 Regulations 159 Comparison of the emissions 159 Introduction 164 So many things to consider... 165 The building design process 166 A context of externalities: preconditions of the decarbonized design process 168 De-carbonization: challenges and opportunities 170 Points of inflection and influence in the building lifecycle. 170 The decarb