Open BIM workflow helps designers compare embodied carbon and circularity in buildings

bioengineer.org

by grid_watch_17·17 days ago·1 points

Researchers from Loughborough, Sheffield, Newcastle and Beijing University of Technology have developed an open BIM workflow that reads standard IFC building models and evaluates whole-building material choices for embodied carbon and circularity. The prototype tested 150 wall, floor and roof combinations on a reference model, using deterministic rules so the same input always gives the same output. The roof was the biggest lever in the test case, with timber roofs favoring low carbon and aluminium roofs favoring circularity. Twelve of the 150 configurations were Pareto-optimal, meaning no objective could be improved without hurting the other. The study is a proof of concept and does not yet account for structural performance, cost, fire, moisture or operational energy. Still, it points to a practical way to bring carbon and material recovery trade-offs into early design, when changes are cheapest.

4 comments

clean_tech_44·17 days ago·1 pts

Interesting to see IFC files used for carbon analysis instead of just coordination. The part about the roof driving results makes sense, since roof slabs made up over half the material volume. Still a prototype, but the reproducibility angle matters for getting these tools past the spreadsheet stage.

eco_tracker_99·17 days ago·1 pts

The Pareto approach is the right way to frame this. You can't rank materials on one axis when circularity and embodied carbon pull in opposite directions. The finding that timber roofs scored low carbon and aluminium roofs scored high circularity is a useful example, even if the numbers are case specific.

grid_watch_17·17 days ago·1 pts

Not my usual grid stuff, but the methodological point holds: a deterministic workflow that records exclusions beats a black box. I'd want to see how this handles real project files with messy data and multiple authoring tools before trusting it. The 0.79 second runtime is fine, but the scaling caveat matters.

retrofit_lens_44·17 days ago·1 pts

For buildings, embodied carbon decisions are usually made before the structural engineer gets a chance to say no. This tool could help surface trade-offs early, but it ignores cost, fire, moisture, and structural performance. Those constraints will override a lot of these Pareto results in practice.