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Sustainability assessment of eight transitional shelters Shelter Meeting 13b, Genève, October 29-30, 2013 . MSc. D-Arch Edwin Zea Prof . Dr. Guillaume Habert. Outline. Background Methodologies Results Conclusions Perspectives Questions. Background. Edwin Zea Escamilla
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Sustainability assessment of eight transitional shelters Shelter Meeting 13b, Genève, October 29-30, 2013 MSc. D-Arch Edwin Zea Prof. Dr. Guillaume Habert
Outline Background Methodologies Results Conclusions Perspectives Questions
Background Edwin Zea Escamilla Born in Colombia 1978 Diploma in Architecture 2004 Full Scholarship for Master studies in NL 2006 MSc. Urban Environmental Management 2009 Chair of Sustainable constructions ETHZ 2010 PhD candidate 2012
Background • Chair of Sustainable Construction – ETH Zürich • The Chair of Sustainable Construction focuses on the promotion of sustainable use of building materials throughout the life cycle of buildings and infrastructures.
Background The need of sustainable buildings and construction materials with: • Life cycle wide low embodied energy • Minimized primary resource consumption • Reduced green house gas emissions • On an affordable price basis • A purpose specific high performance
Background • 2011 FAST meeting in Lausanne Sustainability assessment of affordable housing technologies • 2012 Sustainability assessment of affordable housing technologies Life cycle assessment for alternative building technologies. Construction methods for low income inhabitants in the Philippines • 2013 BSc. Project at ETH Zürich 20 Civil and Environmental Engineering students (~100 hours per student) Understand the challenges associated with LCA Learn the implication of the use of assumptions on LCA Learn about transitional shelters
Methodologies Sustainability Assessment What is sustainability? It is not Sustainable Development(SD), Sustainability is a goal while SD is a way/method to reach sustainability. Our definition Sustainability is an state in which the processes associated to a human activity are balanced in a way that allows the activity to be perpetuated in the time.
Methodologies Sustainability Assessment • Three categories were defined: • Environmental Impact: Effects on the natural environment from the production, transportation, use and disposal of construction materials; and shelters • Cost: Associated to purchase and transport of construction materials, and erection of shelters • Technical: Related to the risk zones in which the communities live and the mechanical performance of shelters in case of an event (earthquake, winds, and flooding)
Methodologies Sustainability Assessment A functional unit was defined for each category. For environmental impact the shelter’s covered area and life span were used as denominators. For the Technical category a ratio between risk/performance was developed. Source: Authors
Methodologies Life Cycle The life cycle of a Product consist of four interconnected steps: -Extraction: the raw material is extracted from the environment and/or recycled -Production: the raw materials are processed into finished materials and/or products (e.g. buildings) -Use: represents the service life of a product -Disposal: The product is disposed (land fill, burn, compost) into the natural environment or recycled/re-used Source: Authors
Methodologies Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) LCA is a method developed to quantify the material use, energy use, and environmental impact associated with specific products, services, and technologies. LCA is described and standardized in ISO1440 and consists of four steps: definition of goal and scope; development of life cycle inventories; impact assessment; and interpretation. This is an iterative process where the goal and scope is constantly adjusted depending on the limitations found on the data collection and the insights provided by the impact assessment. Source: Authors
Methodologies • LCA Theoretical modeling • LCA of 8 shelters were modeled at their specific location • Country specific dataset for materials were developed INDONESIA BAMBOO INDONESIA TIMBER PAKISTAN TIMBER PERU TIMBER PERU TIMBER VIETNAM STEEL HAITI STEEL INDONESIA STEEL Source: IFRC
Methodologies • LCA Theoretical modeling • Local and international transport of construction materials was included • Local materials = locally produced not locally available Source: IFRC
Methodologies LCA Theoretical modeling LCA model – Peru, timber Source: Authors
Methodologies • Cost Assessment • Approximate project cost per shelter (CHF) • (no disaggregation of cost, due to lack of information) • Shelter’s life span (months) • Shelter’s covered area (m2) • CA = Cost / Life span / Area
Methodologies Technical Assessment Risk classification Source: IFRC Performance classification Source: IFRC
Methodologies Technical Assessment • Scores were defined for each hazard level and Performance of structures • The best score is obtained when the structure performs adequately (green) on the «high» level of hazard • The scores were calculated for earth quake, wind, and flood. • An average of these scores was calculated for the final assessment Source: Authors
Results Environmental Assessment • There is no direct correlation between type of material and environmental impact • Appropriated design plays a more important role than the type of material • The use of local materials reduces significantly the environmental impact Source: Authors
Results Environmental Assessment - Process contribution • In general, the main contribution to the environmental impact comes from the materials used in the shelter’s structure • The environmental Impacts from the shelters can be improved by a combination of appropriated design and appropriated material selection • The road transport of heavy construction materials like concrete can significantly influence the environmental impact Source: Authors
Results Cost Assessment Source: Authors
Results Technical Assessment Source: Authors
Results Sustainability Assessment @ Location B1 INDONESIA BAMBOO B2 INDONESIA TIMBER B3 PAKISTAN TIMBER B4 PERU TIMBER PERU B5 PERU TIMBER B6 HAITI STEEL B7 INDONESIA STEEL B8 VIETNAM STEEL Source: Authors
Results Sustainability Assessment @ Location • The studied shelters present very similar performances on the three categories, with exception of B6 Haiti • Shelters with high technical performance can be achieved under low price/low environmental impact per functional unit conditions • It might be more cost effective to try to improve the technical performance from shelters like B1, B3, and B7 than to reduce the cost and impacts from B6 • Main attention shall be paid to the improvement of earthquake and wind resistance, which will increase the overall shelter’s technical performance • Floodings are highly unpredictable and very difficult to design against
Conclusions • The use of locally produced construction materials reduces both cost and environmental impacts of the shelters • Bio based constructive systems provide the best compromise between environmental impact and cost but their technical performance needs to be improved • The studied shelters provide a balance between Environmental, Economic and Performance factors, with exception of shelter B6 Haiti • It would be more efficient to try to improve the technical performance of the shelters than to try to reduce their cost or environmental impact • An improvement on the technical performance of shelters will rebound on an increase of their environmental impact and cost • Appropriated design and material selection play a significant role on the shelter’s performance
Perspective • To develop structural models to be able to evaluate the technical performance • To develop global LCA datasets able to represent the diversity of production practices of construction materials • To develop a detailed life cycle cost analysis, in order to better understand how the cost is distributed and geographically located • To further study the effects of transport on both cost and environmental impacts
Acknowledgements The authors will like to thank The students that took part of the BSc Project spring 2013: Lea, Viktor, Barthélémy, Andy, Sebastian, Selina, Nina, Dominic, Michael, Alessandro, Mariano, Samaria, Hannes, Aurea, Hannah, Katharina, Marvin, Umeyr, Leïla, and Uzeyr. And to HILTI AG for their support in the development of the present research project.
Questions? Thank you for your attention