All Outputs (19)

Demolition or retention of buildings: Drivers at the masterplan scale (2023)
Journal Article

Current adaptation theory tends to consider individual buildings or the city level, which cannot address decisions related to masterplan developments on large brownfield sites. This paper investigates the drivers for building demolition or retention... Read More about Demolition or retention of buildings: Drivers at the masterplan scale.

Demands, default options and definitions: How artefacts mediate sustainability in public housing projects in Sweden and Cyprus (2022)
Journal Article

Sustainable building design practices are influenced by requirements, guidelines, criteria for green procurement and certification, assessment tools such as life cycle assessment, etc. This study investigates how such artefacts support or define aspi... Read More about Demands, default options and definitions: How artefacts mediate sustainability in public housing projects in Sweden and Cyprus.

Embodied carbon, embodied energy and renewable energy: A review of Environmental Product Declarations (2022)
Journal Article

Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) to EN 15804 provide information about embodied carbon of construction products - their life cycle greenhouse gas emissions - alongside reporting use of renewable and non-renewable primary energy and secondary... Read More about Embodied carbon, embodied energy and renewable energy: A review of Environmental Product Declarations.

Embodied carbon of concrete in buildings, Part 2: Are the messages accurate? (2022)
Journal Article

This paper is the second output of a project that examines the embodied greenhouse gas emissions (‘embodied carbon’) from the use of concrete in buildings. In the current absence of either regulation or widespread industry practice in quantified carb... Read More about Embodied carbon of concrete in buildings, Part 2: Are the messages accurate?.

Trading disaster: Containers and container thinking in the production of climate precarity (2022)
Journal Article

This paper examines how global trade shapes and intensifies disasters. Juxtaposing three basic, everyday consumer goods – a t-shirt, a brick, and a tea bag – with disasters manifesting in their respective global supply chains, it highlights how clima... Read More about Trading disaster: Containers and container thinking in the production of climate precarity.

Modelling future trends of annual embodied energy of urban residential building stock in China (2022)
Journal Article

China is the largest driver of growth in the global building sector. The longstanding construction boom across China has generated a massive flow of materials with significant associated embodied energy consumption and carbon emissions. Despite the s... Read More about Modelling future trends of annual embodied energy of urban residential building stock in China.

Retention not demolition: How heritage thinking can inform carbon reduction (2021)
Journal Article

Two key benefits of building retention and adaptation, over demolition and new build are identified in the academic literature as: the conservation of heritage, and reductions in embodied greenhouse gas emissions from construction materials. A four-y... Read More about Retention not demolition: How heritage thinking can inform carbon reduction.

Developing a generic System Dynamics model for building stock transformation towards energy efficiency and low-carbon development (2020)
Journal Article

Promoting the decarbonisation of buildings requires effective policy measures. An integral part of policy design is ex-ante evaluation of possible policy options and effects. System Dynamics, one of a range of potential modelling paradigms, emphasise... Read More about Developing a generic System Dynamics model for building stock transformation towards energy efficiency and low-carbon development.

Forecasting urban residential stock turnover dynamics using system dynamics and Bayesian model averaging (2020)
Journal Article

Knowing the size of building stock is perhaps the most basic determinant in assessing energy use in buildings. However, official statistics on urban residential stock for many countries are piecemeal at best. Previous studies estimating stock size an... Read More about Forecasting urban residential stock turnover dynamics using system dynamics and Bayesian model averaging.

Embodied carbon of concrete in buildings, Part 1: Analysis of published EPD (2020)
Journal Article

Cement is responsible for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is predicted to grow with increasing development. The majority is used in concrete, globally the most common material in buildings. Reducing emissions from the use of cement and con... Read More about Embodied carbon of concrete in buildings, Part 1: Analysis of published EPD.

Estimating lifetimes and stock turnover dynamics of urban residential buildings in China (2019)
Journal Article

Building lifetime and stock turnover are both key determinants in modelling building energy and carbon. However in China, aside from anecdotal claims that urban residential buildings are generally short-lived, there are no recent official statistics,... Read More about Estimating lifetimes and stock turnover dynamics of urban residential buildings in China.

Widening understanding of low embodied impact buildings: Results and recommendations from 80 multi-national quantitative and qualitative case studies (2019)
Journal Article

This paper publishes the results from a major five year International Energy Agency research project which investigated the reduction of embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions over the whole life (‘cradle to grave’) of buildings. Annex 57 colla... Read More about Widening understanding of low embodied impact buildings: Results and recommendations from 80 multi-national quantitative and qualitative case studies.

Editorial: Gender and Intersectionality in Engineering (2019)
Journal Article

This Special Issue of the ?International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology? focuses on the issue of gender, and of how gender intersects with other aspects of diversity, in engineering. Published in 2019 in celebration of the 100th anniversar... Read More about Editorial: Gender and Intersectionality in Engineering.

BS 8001 and the built environment: A review and critique (2019)
Journal Article

The British Standards Institute has recently published the world?s first standard on the circular economy. The standard is intentionally broad and inclusive to suit all types of organisations and products. However, when it comes to complex products s... Read More about BS 8001 and the built environment: A review and critique.

Why method matters: Temporal, spatial and physical variations in LCA and their impact on choice of structural system (2018)
Journal Article

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used as an early-stage design-decision tool to support choices of structural system. However LCA modellers must first make numerous methodological decisions, and the resultant wide variations in approach ar... Read More about Why method matters: Temporal, spatial and physical variations in LCA and their impact on choice of structural system.

Analysing methodological choices in calculations of embodied energy and GHG emissions from buildings (2017)
Journal Article

The importance of embodied energy and embodied greenhouse gas emissions (EEG) from buildings is gaining increased interest within building sector initiatives and on a regulatory level. In spite of recent harmonisation efforts, reported results of EEG... Read More about Analysing methodological choices in calculations of embodied energy and GHG emissions from buildings.

Decision-making for the demolition or adaptation of buildings (2017)
Journal Article

This paper considers why the decision may be made either to demolish or adapt existing buildings on brownfield sites and compares real-life decisions to those produced by theoretical design-support tools. Five case studies, including three individual... Read More about Decision-making for the demolition or adaptation of buildings.

Measuring embodied carbon dioxide equivalent of buildings: A review and critique of current industry practice (2017)
Journal Article

Lowering the embodied carbon dioxide equivalent (embodied CO2e) of buildings is an essential response to national and global targets for carbon reduction. Globally, construction industry is developing tools, databases and practices for measuring embo... Read More about Measuring embodied carbon dioxide equivalent of buildings: A review and critique of current industry practice.

Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework (2016)
Journal Article

The built environment puts major pressure on the natural environment; its role in transitioning to a circular economy (CE) is therefore fundamental. However, current CE research tends to focus either on the macro-scale, such as eco-parks, or the micr... Read More about Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework.