This commitment to sustainability is not just a business strategy but a responsibility towards addressing global climate challenges.. 5.
Ideas could include:.Replacing Comflor with a less processed material which can act as formwork.
Adjusting the concrete mix to be flowing rather than self-levelling which would reduce the cement content.Exploring the use of low carbon concrete columns instead of steel ones.. Façade: Opportunities to improve the embodied carbon of facades, including finding alternatives to unitised and curtain walling systems, and their materiality.. Cladding: Elongating a material or components’ lifespan may increase the day one carbon but over the lifetime of the building the whole life carbon can be minimised, where replacement cycles are reduced.. Aluminium procurement: Minimising transport miles is important for materials.However, the country of origin is also important for materials and components which are heavily manufactured, such as curtain walling.
Sometimes the additional transport miles might offset the manufacturing emissions in counties with greener energy grids.. Substructure: Omitting basements should be the starting point of projects.. Raised floor: Reuse existing materials, both from demolition on site but also local existing buildings which are undergoing renovation or demolition.The industry needs to develop a material database to assist with this, but the more demand the quicker it will happen.. MEP: The LETI benchmarks are underestimated for high end offices.
To meet the LETI benchmarks this means every other element in the building needs to perform better to offset the impact of MEP.
MEP calculations are still in their infancy compared with the rest of the building, meaning more research and data collection is required to create robust calculations and benchmarks.Exploring the MMC toolkit: from offsite construction to PPVC and beyond.
MMC is the collective term for the innovative construction methods that can be deployed by the DfMA designer.MMC can be considered as the DfMA designer’s “toolkit”.
The DfMA designer finds the most suitable innovations in the MMC toolkit (or develops new innovations) to meet a project’s unique challenges..There are many construction innovations that can be considered MMC.