The principal MEPchallenge here is catering for the air change requirements, which are clearly much higher in a laboratory than in an office.
The adoption of the above Passivhaus standard does not have a substantial impact on the embodied carbon compared to a standard residential building.The adoption of Passivhaus does not prevent the incorporation of additional strategies to reduce embodied carbon and all designs retain the potential to achieve low embodied carbon performance if it is part of the design intent.. Further potential benefits from Passivhaus arise from the compact shape and the use of timber, although full life cycle analysis is required to quantify this.
The compact shape is predicted to reduce the absolute quantity of materials whilst timber is a material with low embodied carbon which can be ultra-low depending on its end-of-life treatment..Timber shows its maximum potential if it can be continuously reused at the end of a buildings’ lifecycle.If it is burnt or sent to landfill it will release CO2 and methane to the atmosphere, losing its properties as a heat sink.
In order to enable timber to be continuously reused, the building should be designed for deconstruction.Most Passivhaus buildings have not been designed for deconstruction in part due the complexity of junctions and the need to achieve the required overlapping and airtightness.
This is however possible with the implementation of DfMA which can design assemblies that meet the stringent envelope performance requirements and can also be disassembled..
Passivhaus is a sustainable building certification standard that reduces operational energy and carbon emissions with minimum performance gap and achieves high levels of thermal comfort and air quality.. Bryden Wood’s P-DfMA approach to building design offers multiple synergies with Passivhaus since it is able to reduce construction programme, cost and design/construction complexity, and labour skills which are some of the inherent challenges of adopting Passivhaus.. Whilst the Passivhaus approach is focused on operational energy/carbon, there has been a keen interest in the industry to understand if this standard favours or penalises embodied carbon.New MMC innovations are developed all the time.. Design to Value: moving forward with DfMA.
As designers we at Bryden Wood believe strongly in the DfMA approach and have used it successfully on many projects to achieve considerable benefits.. We advocate for any designer of buildings to apply a DfMA approach by considering efficient construction methods to leverage the benefits of manufacturing and assembly, and design with them in mind from the earliest stage.. Getting started with DfMA is the hardest part and too big a topic to discuss in detail here but a great first step is to keep up to date with MMC innovations and think about how those innovations can be used to deliver better project outcomes.. Clients can support greater uptake of DfMA by demanding the best value project outcomes to ensure a benefit-driven approach to MMC adoption is applied on their projects.. As the MMC toolkit grows it becomes more and more powerful.It is great to see players across the whole construction industry developing new innovative approaches to construction that expand the MMC toolkit.. To help the industry move forward, governments also have a role to play by encouraging and rewarding innovation and providing streamlined (but still robust) regulatory approvals processes for MMC innovations.. With a strong and diverse MMC toolkit and growing DfMA experience in the design professions, the industry as a whole will be better positioned to seize the opportunity to deliver better performing buildings, with less resources, that deliver maximum value to clients.
These are the key aims of a Design to Value approach.. [1].https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/modern-methods-of-construction-working-group-developing-a-definition-frameworkLean construction for a smarter, more sustainable future.
(Editor: Stylish Shelves)