Development of an Optimisation Approach for the Energy Efficient Buildings

Sustainability and building operation cost are the main drivers in attempts to reduce building energy consumption. According to DEFRA (2004) the construction industry is one of the major contributors of CO2 emissions and carbon reduction becomes a global target and a goal has been set by the UK government to reduce carbon emission by 60% by year 2050. In this research, a decision making tool for outline design process called 3D-Environmental Assessment Trade-off Tool (3D-EATT) is creating for building facility managers and environmental consultants, and will be utilised as a platform to allow materials trade-off with the Environmental Impact Assessment, Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Cost Assessment to compare the cost benefit of both sustainable and ordinary materials over a normal building life cycle of 60 years. These assessments are currently fragmented and do not comply with the idea of holistic sustainable assessment as suggested in Agenda 21. The algorithm will be developed in this research for optimisation within the 3D-EATT tool. This paper will focus on the development of the trade-off algorithm of 3D-EATT and to demonstrate the trade-off process. An overview of how the 3D-EATT result to be delivered to the stakeholders via Building Information Modelling software will also be discussed.