This capability would be enormously powerful for Platforms, helping clients and designers see the effect of decisions in real time, in terms of cost but also potentially carbon, social and other value criteria..
Comparison of embodied carbon (A-C) between a baseline residential building based on LETI Band C and same building with Passivhaus characteristics.The adoption of the above Passivhaus standard does not have a substantial impact on the embodied carbon compared to a standard residential building.
The adoption of Passivhaus does not prevent the incorporation of additional strategies to reduce embodied carbon and all designs retain the potential to achieve low embodied carbon performance if it is part of the design intent.. Further potential benefits from Passivhaus arise from the compact shape and the use of timber, although full life cycle analysis is required to quantify this.The compact shape is predicted to reduce the absolute quantity of materials whilst timber is a material with low embodied carbon which can be ultra-low depending on its end-of-life treatment..Timber shows its maximum potential if it can be continuously reused at the end of a buildings’ lifecycle.
If it is burnt or sent to landfill it will release CO2 and methane to the atmosphere, losing its properties as a heat sink.In order to enable timber to be continuously reused, the building should be designed for deconstruction.
Most Passivhaus buildings have not been designed for deconstruction in part due the complexity of junctions and the need to achieve the required overlapping and airtightness.
This is however possible with the implementation of DfMA which can design assemblies that meet the stringent envelope performance requirements and can also be disassembled..The future of construction: not just components.
The MHCLG categorisation of MMC is comprehensive and includes the application of digital tools to drive productivity improvements both on site and in factories.The use of digital tools is an important part of DfMA which relies on capturing knowledge about how a building will be delivered from the earliest stages..
The rapid pace of change in digitisation has created a great opportunity to integrate DfMA into projects in ways not previously possible.Data contained within digital objects can be used to explore, test and validate construction methods from the earliest project stages..