Sustainability Assessment and Development of Guidelines for Digital Fabrication in Construction
Open access
Autor(in)
Datum
2018-10Typ
- Doctoral Thesis
ETH Bibliographie
yes
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Abstract
In the era of technological innovation and digital revolution, inadequate working
conditions and high resource consumption are still common practice in the construction
sector, a sector that requires a deep transformation to keep up with other industries in
terms of environmental impacts and productivity. As a potential solution, the adoption of
Industry 4.0 technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) in construction, promise
to enhance the sustainability of the sector, resulting from improved productivity,
efficiency, safety, collaboration, etc. In particular, the combination of computer-aided
design and automated fabrication techniques for additive construction demonstrates the
ability to produce complex architecture with optimized geometries and integrated multifunctionality.
However, the contribution of digital fabrication processes to the
improvement of sustainability in construction is not well covered by current research.
The aim of this doctoral thesis is to identify the sustainability risks and opportunities
associated with the implementation of digital fabrication in construction. Given this
objective, the research focuses on the assessment of building elements constructed with
additive digital fabrication techniques to identify under which conditions digital
fabrication provides a sustainability advantage or disadvantage over conventional
construction. The main assessment method applied is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
framework to characterize environmental impacts. Furthermore, the CYCLONE (CYClic
Operations NEtwork) simulation model is employed to evaluate the productivity (i.e. costs
and time). The analyses indicate that the relative sustainability of the evaluated projects
depends primarily on the manufacturing of building materials and the impact of digital
fabrication processes is negligible. Moreover, the results demonstrate that digital
fabrication becomes a feasible construction technique for non-standard building elements.
Specifically, the study highlights the opportunities of structural optimization and multifunctionality
in complex structural elements to reduce environmental and economic
impacts.
The goal of the case study evaluations is to identify the design parameters that influence
the sustainable performance of digitally fabricated architecture. Based on the identified
parameters, sustainable criteria to guide the design of digitally fabricated building
elements are formulated. These guidelines aim to provide designers the basic knowledge
to implement the design strategies that are successful to improve the sustainability of
digitally fabricated architecture. Finally, a LCA-based method is developed to consider
sustainable criteria during the design of digitally fabricated architecture. Specifically, the
simplified method is integrated in parametric design software to support decision-making
from early design stages. The results provide the embodied impact of the digitally
fabricated building element compared to a benchmark set by conventional construction.
Based on the comparison, a color-based visualization allows non-LCA experts to efficiently
optimize the design based on sustainable criteria.
Finally, future research paths regarding the socio-economic implications associated with
the implementation of digital fabrication in the construction sector are discussed. As the
level of digitalization in construction projects increases, the concern about the future of
jobs will rise. While digital fabrication has the potential to improve productivity in the
building industry, it will not necessarily reduce employment in the long run. It is expected
that existing roles will evolve, mainly related to the human-robot interaction, and new
roles requiring digital skills will be created. Moreover, the digitalization suggests an
evolution of the conventional construction organization towards a platform-based
integration of planning and construction phases. Mehr anzeigen
Persistenter Link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000297793Publikationsstatus
publishedExterne Links
Printexemplar via ETH-Bibliothek suchen
Verlag
ETH ZurichThema
Digital fabrication; LCA; Construction; Sustainability; ProductivityOrganisationseinheit
03972 - Habert, Guillaume / Habert, Guillaume
02284 - NFS Digitale Fabrikation / NCCR Digital Fabrication
02655 - Netzwerk Stadt u. Landschaft ARCH u BAUG / Network City and Landscape ARCH and BAUG
ETH Bibliographie
yes
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