Integration of Life Cycle Assessment within Building Information Modeling Environment

Abstract: Over the past several decades, increasing awareness of sustainable building has led to the development and maturity of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a method used to assess the environmental impacts and resources through buildings’ life cycle. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an intelligent process based on 3D model that enables architecture, engineering and construction designers to collaborate. Because of its advantages and the collaborative alternative, the integrations of BIM and LCA have been studied and developed in many ways. However, none of the integrating approaches have been widely used due to interoperability issues and accuracy problems. Detailed information of LCA and BIM are introduced in this thesis, and then innovated integration of BIM and LCA are proposed. This is done with the direct access to the LCA data in XML format from EPD database by using Dynamo that is a plug-in Revit application, LCA can be conducted within the BIM environment. The results of life cycle impact calculation can be instantly presented in diagram, and users can visualize the results by color coding different materials in BIM model. Future research could focus on how to widely use the integrating method in real project and connect this approach into environmental certification system in order to demonstrate the environmental performance of buildings and projects in a standardized manner.