Multi-criteria assessment of buildings in context of sustainable building

Abstract

The vision of the thesis is that sustainable building becomes business as usual, integral part of the design process of architects and designers as well as the construction and operation of buildings. Mission of the work was to provide tools enabling faster implementation of sustainable building measures into the daily practice of architects, designers, investors and developers. The text describes the findings of the work sub-tasks: review of related standards, projects and activities; existing sets of core indicators for assessment of sustainability of buildings; review and analysis of existing building sustainability certification schemes and tools for preliminary assessment of building sustainability; review and analysis of sustainable building design guides and checklists for architects; review of existing databases of environmental impacts of building products; understanding needs of stakeholders in sustainable building; understanding building design process and specific needs of architects and designers and analysis of main success factors of building sustainability assessment tools. The text presents an implementation of the gained knowledge into products supporting sustainability of the building stock in the Czech Republic: SBToolCORE (analytic tool that enabled optimization of buildings with help of various assessment methodologies); SBToolCZ for residential and office buildings (national building sustainability certification system) and proposal of its simplified version for family houses; Envimat.cz (national database of environmental impacts of production of buildings materials); and proposal of PROCY (a complex expert system enabling architects and designers to better understand links between design process of buildings and their resulting level of sustainability).

The vision of the thesis is that sustainable building becomes business as usual, integral part of the design process of architects and designers as well as the construction and operation of buildings. Mission of the work was to provide tools enabling faster implementation of sustainable building measures into the daily practice of architects, designers, investors and developers. The text describes the findings of the work sub-tasks: review of related standards, projects and activities; existing sets of core indicators for assessment of sustainability of buildings; review and analysis of existing building sustainability certification schemes and tools for preliminary assessment of building sustainability; review and analysis of sustainable building design guides and checklists for architects; review of existing databases of environmental impacts of building products; understanding needs of stakeholders in sustainable building; understanding building design process and specific needs of architects and designers and analysis of main success factors of building sustainability assessment tools. The text presents an implementation of the gained knowledge into products supporting sustainability of the building stock in the Czech Republic: SBToolCORE (analytic tool that enabled optimization of buildings with help of various assessment methodologies); SBToolCZ for residential and office buildings (national building sustainability certification system) and proposal of its simplified version for family houses; Envimat.cz (national database of environmental impacts of production of buildings materials); and proposal of PROCY (a complex expert system enabling architects and designers to better understand links between design process of buildings and their resulting level of sustainability).