Davis, A., & Quintana, A. (2023, March). Rethinking housing as a kit-of-parts and shearing layers: An LCA approach. In Diaconu, A. (Ed.) Proceedings of the RE-DWELL Grenoble Conference (pp. 78-82). Pacte Social Sciences Research Centre, University Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.

There is growing interest to utilise Industrialised Construction (IC) in combination with Design for Disassembly (DfD) to provide sustainable and affordable housing based on circular economy principles. A circular approach to construction is a high priority in the EU and on a global scale, as highlighted by the Circular Economy Action Plan, the Europe-wide framework Level(s), and changes in leading Green Building assessments. These assessments are increasingly reliant on quantitative data and cradle-to-cradle Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) to measure resource and energy efficiency. However, applying a Whole Building LCA to industrialised housing designed for disassembly is an unresolved issue. Industry professionals apply different lifespans to conduct the assessment, which often do not take into account the varying lifespans of different building components.

It is important to use a reliable Whole Building LCA methodology that is aligned with sustainable construction practices, not only to appropriately measure and reduce the environmental impact of housing, but crucially to be able to define environmental targets at a policy level. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to improve the conventional Whole Building LCA methodology, for application to housing built using DfD in combination with IC. The long-term aim of the on-going research is to enable technical stakeholders to make better informed design decisions throughout all building stages and provide sustainable solutions based on more accurate information, within a less time-consuming process.

Within this paper, an adaptation of the ISO standards for LCA is proposed for large, prefabricated building components. This will be achieved by aggregating LCAs to form a cradle-to-cradle Whole Building LCA, which takes into consideration the different lifespans for building layers based on the Shearing Layers concept. To provide a more holistic overview of sustainability impacts, costing related to construction and maintenance and demolition will support the results. The methodology will be tested on research projects undertaken at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV).

The expected outcome of this project is an outline methodology to be used in industry, which will include a roadmap and recommendations to achieve this.