Ecological Potential of Building Components in Multi-Storey Residential Construction: A Comparative Case Study between an Existing Concrete and a Timber Building in Austria

Henriette Fischer (), Martin Aichholzer and Azra Korjenic
Additional contact information
Henriette Fischer: Research Unit of Ecological Building Technologies, Institute of Material Technology, Building Physics and Building Ecology, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vienna University of Technology, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Martin Aichholzer: Department Building and Design, University of Applied Sciences Vienna, A-1100 Vienna, Austria
Azra Korjenic: Research Unit of Ecological Building Technologies, Institute of Material Technology, Building Physics and Building Ecology, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vienna University of Technology, A-1040 Vienna, Austria

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-18

Abstract: With the introduction of energy-efficient buildings, the importance of embodied energy in new buildings has become increasingly relevant to minimising the impact of climate change. This study compares two existing four-storey residential buildings: one building has a reinforced concrete (RC) structure and the other has a timber structure. The study’s aim is to find out which building components are responsible for the largest embodied impacts and whether there are differences between the two construction methods. The specificity of the wooden building is the combined use of solid and lightweight timber elements. The methodology consists of a general life cycle assessment (LCA) and a more detailed analysis of the product stage using the eco2soft software. The heating and cooling energy demand was calculated using the WUFI Plus software with recent regional climate data sets. The results show that for both types of construction in multi-storey buildings, it is not only the superstructure that needs to be considered, but also the floor structures, which have a major influence on the embodied impact. The timber building requires less energy to maintain the indoor climate within the set temperatures. As climate change has progressed rapidly in Austria in recent years, it is recommended that the standards for climate models be updated more quickly to allow realistic prediction of thermal comfort at the design stage.

Keywords: comparative LCA; timber construction; building components; embodied impacts; energy demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6349/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6349/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:8:p:6349-:d:1118114

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().