Sustainable Design Framework for the Anthropocene Preliminary research of integrating the urban data with building information Gyueun Lee 1 , Ji-hyun Lee 2 1,2 KAIST 1,2 {leege|jihyunlee}@kaist.ac.kr In terms of the efficiency and informatization in the architecture and construction industry, the Fourth Industrial Revolution presents positive aspects of technological development, but we need to discuss the expanded concept, the Anthropocene. The era of the human-made environment having a powerful influence on the global system is called Anthropocene. Since the 1950s, many indicators representing human activity and earth system have shown the `Great acceleration'. Currently, lots of urban data including building information, construction waste, and GHG emission ratio is indicating how much the urban area was contaminated with artifacts. So, the integrated planning and design approach are needed for sustainable design with data integration. This paper examines the GIS, LCA and BIM tools focusing on building information and environmental load. With the literature review, the computational system for sustainable design is demonstrated to integrate into one holistic framework for the Anthropocene. There were some limitations that data was simplified during the statistical processing, and the framework has limitations that must be demonstrated by actual data in the future. However, this could be an early approach to integrating geospatial and environmental analysis with the design framework. And it can be applied to another urban area for sustainable urban models for the Anthropocene Keywords: Anthropocene, Sustainable Design Framework, Urban Data Analysis, GIS, LCA, BIM INTRODUCTION In recent years, enormous environmental problems have occurred around the world. Rapid changes in temperature and excessive levels of fine dust are affecting human lives and their health. To ad- dress these issues, the United Nations passed the Paris Agreement in 2015 to reduce greenhouse-gas- emissions (GHG), which is being used as a key indi- cator of environmental issues. The agreement warns that a rise of more than 2 degrees to the average temperature before industrialization would pose a serious threat to mankind, and regulates that the Challenges - SUSTAINABILITY +CULTURAL HERITAGE - Volume 2 - eCAADe 37 / SIGraDi 23 | 561
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Sustainable Design Framework for the Anthropocene
Preliminary research of integrating the urban data with buildinginformation
In terms of the efficiency and informatization in the architecture and constructionindustry, the Fourth Industrial Revolution presents positive aspects oftechnological development, but we need to discuss the expanded concept, theAnthropocene. The era of the human-made environment having a powerfulinfluence on the global system is called Anthropocene. Since the 1950s, manyindicators representing human activity and earth system have shown the `Greatacceleration'. Currently, lots of urban data including building information,construction waste, and GHG emission ratio is indicating how much the urbanarea was contaminated with artifacts. So, the integrated planning and designapproach are needed for sustainable design with data integration. This paperexamines the GIS, LCA and BIM tools focusing on building information andenvironmental load. With the literature review, the computational system forsustainable design is demonstrated to integrate into one holistic framework forthe Anthropocene. There were some limitations that data was simplified duringthe statistical processing, and the framework has limitations that must bedemonstrated by actual data in the future. However, this could be an earlyapproach to integrating geospatial and environmental analysis with the designframework. And it can be applied to another urban area for sustainable urbanmodels for the Anthropocene
INTRODUCTIONIn recent years, enormous environmental problemshave occurred around the world. Rapid changesin temperature and excessive levels of fine dustare affecting human lives and their health. To ad-dress these issues, the United Nations passed the
Paris Agreement in 2015 to reduce greenhouse-gas-emissions (GHG), which is being used as a key indi-cator of environmental issues. The agreement warnsthat a rise of more than 2 degrees to the averagetemperature before industrialization would pose aserious threat to mankind, and regulates that the
countries should submit a greenhouse gas reductiontarget report. Also, the academic world producedevidence that these unexpected and uncontrollableevents of the Earth’s systemwere generated fromhu-man’s activity. For example, rapid industrializationand urbanization conducted by humans have had anegative impact on the environments. Paul Crutzen(Crutzen 2006; Steffen et al 2011; 2015), the NobelPrize-winning atmospheric chemist, claimed that anew epoch of human, ‘the Anthropocene’, has be-gun. At the same time, Will Steffen(Steffen 2011)put forward various indicators to provide a basis forAnthropocene, which is divided into human activ-ity and earth system. The indicators starting withthe Industrial Revolution represent a sharp rise sinceWorld War 2, called the Great Acceleration in 1950,and some scholars claimed this period as the start-ing point of the Anthropocene. To mitigate the risksand impact of this human-made epoch and to comeup with the alternative, many discussions are goingon in academia. Especially, in the architecture andconstruction field, we have been making efforts todevelop sustainable building and city that have littleimpact on environmental pollution while reducingthe carbon dioxide emission. These efforts led to thedevelopment of various computational tools suchas BIM or LCA. Many construction projects use BIM(Building Information Modeling) tools in the designphase and environmental simulation is conductedin this phase by calculating environmental impacts.LCA(Life Cycle Assessment) tools that can calculatean environmental load of materials in the construc-tion process also have been done for environmentalassessment. However, eachmethodology is not inte-grated as one and separated by the building designprocess. It means BIM tools are reducing construc-tion errors and improving economic efficiency with-out providing a solution to the environmental assess-ment. Also, the assessment fromLCA tools is not inte-grated into the design process. Also, the assessmentprocess is mainly focused on the early stages of thebuilding life cycle from the production of buildingmaterials to the completionof thebuilding. The envi-
ronmental loads from the constructionwaste are alsoconsidered in the process, but still, lack considerationof environmental load until they are completely ex-hausted. Therefore, this study proposes a frameworkfor the sustainable design of the entire process fromthe design stage of a new building to the process ofobsolescence and destruction in the Anthropocenepoint of view. To achieve the goal, we collected andanalyzed various urbanization data in South Koreabased on the assumption that this country whichhas achieved rapid industrialization since 1950 couldserve as an example of the Anthropocene. Especially,here we focused on the buildings and infrastructuresin urban areas and tried to analyze the correlationsof the indicators which can represent how much thearea is polluted. By defining the correlation betweenurban indicators and environmental data, we esti-mate and modeling the future urban area and visu-alize the data on the GIS-based map. We expect thaturban planners and policymakers can use this esti-mated urbanmodel for the decision-making process.It also can support the Anthropocene, beyond the4th industrial revolution.
RELATEDWORKIn this chapter, we will look through the tools re-lated to computational design for building and in-frastructure in the city. Those were developed inde-pendently and played individually, so it is needed tobe integrated into the sustainable design framework.
GIS tools and Open data for urban dataanalysis (city scale)Geographical Information System(GIS) is a systembased on geographical data to analyze the conditionof cities or country. It is including a polygon vectorwith attached attributes of city components. Cur-rently, a variety of government-initiated open datarelated to the country is easy to access, and free GISsoftware allows spatial and statistical data analysis.The system provides the opportunity to manage theinformationona larger scale, taking intoaccount spa-tial dimensions. Recently, it has been used for var-
ious predictive models. We looked through the re-lated research that introducing GIS-based case stud-ies which is using open data to analyze and estimatethe condition of the city. Many of the case stud-ies were focused on the distinct area and they areshown that GIS and LCA can be integrated for anenvironmental impact assessment on a large scale.Mastrucci(Mastrucci et al 2015, Mastrucci et al 2017)shown that geospatial data can be used for the lifecycle environmental impact assessment of buildingstocks at theurban scale. The aimofhis study is tode-velopageospatial datamodel for the life cycle assess-ment of environmental impacts of building stocks atthe urban scale. The methodology includes geospa-tial processing of building-related data to character-ize urban building stocks; a spatiotemporal databaseto store andmanage data; life cycle assessment to es-timate potential environmental impacts. We identi-fied the possibilities of integration in that research,and we collected the open data that the Korean Sta-tistical Institute provide, which is containing adminis-trative district data of the city, and building informa-tion including gross area, land area, year, andmateri-als. After collecting the data, we did statistical analy-sis by usingQGISwhich is free software for geospatialdata analysis.[1]
LCA tools for Environmental Analysis ofBuilding (Environmental, Constructionlevel)Life Cycle Assessment(LCA) is a tool for systematicallyanalyzing the environmental performance of a prod-uct or process over its entire life, including the ac-quisition of raw materials to be discarded. In thecase of a building, LCA tools are used to evaluate thelife cycle including production phase(e.g. extraction,production, transport, and construction), usage andmaintenance phase, and disposal phase(destructionand disposal). Now, LCA is considered one of themost suitable methodologies for assessing the envi-ronmental impact as a comprehensive approach toinvestigate the environmental impact of the buildingas a whole by quantifying and evaluating the mate-
rial and energy flowof the building system. But,mostof LCA tools were developed for the general appli-cation to all industrial products, not specialized forLCA of building materials. For this reason, the useof different LCA tools, even for the same purpose,may result in a lack of repeatability of the results andobjectivity. So, Kim(Kim and Tae 2016) developedan LCA system specialized for concrete in order forconcrete-related experts to easily assess the environ-mental loading of concrete and actively apply the re-sults to the green concrete industry. According to hisresearch, the results of LCA varied in accordancewithinput andoutput, andhence focus-based researchonconcrete was required. Also, most of the previousLCA models developed in South Korea consideredonly the GHGemissions generated from the combus-tion of energy sources used in the material manufac-turing, transportation, and construction phases(Taeet al 2011). Tae(Tae et al 2011) tried to develop a sim-ple CO2 assessment system that can assess the lifecycle CO2 of apartment buildings even without datapertaining to a quantity of constructionmaterial andthe results of energy simulation analysis of the opera-tion stage. But for the Anthropocene, we need moreintegrated environmental impact assessment in thelife cycle of a building. Due to the enormous envi-ronmental impact, Jang(Jang et al 2015) aims to de-velop a hybrid LCA model that can evaluate the in-herent environmental impact of buildingsmore com-prehensively. Out of the various environmental fac-tors, the results are classified and calculated into sixtypes of environmental impact categories(e.g. globalwarming, ozone depletion, nitrification, and acidifi-cation) For the framework of sustainable design, wechoose those six environmental impact categories.These indicators become transient connections of sixindicators, including GWP and ODP, which are usedas indicators of the Anthropocene. In the process ofLCA, a databasewhich is including the information ofmaterial and its coefficient is necessary. The KoreanMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport pro-vides the LCI DB for Korean industry and also glob-ally recognized ‘Ecoinvent’ tools that can be calcu-
lated and provided by Switzerland can be used. Afterthat LCA process can be done with equations belowdescribed in the methodology part (T. Ramesh et al2010; Jeong et al 2015)
BIM tools for Sustainable and Eco-designModelling(Building Scale)BIM serves as the most important tool for design-ing the entire process of design, which is the firststep in the building’s life cycle. Based on the field ofcomputer design, it is being used to automate archi-tectural design and to automate eco-friendly design.However, due to the variety of BIM tools, the lack ofcompatibility has led to the need for integratedman-agement. IFC, a file format created to enhance inter-operability amongBIM tools, has been introduced fordata exchange between different BIM applications.The BIM software provides the ability to exchangemodeled building information between the partiesby input andoutput in the formof an IFC file. Lee (Leeet al. 2012) conducted a preliminary survey that pro-vided clear ideas on how IFC should be used tomain-tain BIM data on the building’s lifecycle. And todayBIMnot only provides technical benefits to the devel-opment process but also provides an innovative andintegratedworking platform to improve productivityand sustainability throughout the project’s life cycle.(ElmualimandGilder 2014) and is nowmature and in-tegrated into interoperable data(Porwal andHewage2013)
From the related work review, we could find thatthe systems should be integrated into one holisticframework and there was some approach to inte-grate them. Therefore, we focused on Anthropoceneand developed an early study to develop a frame-work for sustainable design.
METHODOLOGYTo develop the sustainable design framework, we an-alyzed the building cycle from the stage of planningand to the stage of reconstruction including con-struction waste disposal process. The stages that af-fect the cycle of buildings were defined as follows.(1) Design, (2) Construction, (3) Usage/Maintenance,(4) Destruction, (5) Reconstruction. We draw the en-tire conceptual framework to integrate the systemsthat we reviewed in related work chapter. After that,to estimate the potential environmental effect of theurban situation, we list up the data and equationswhich are required for the sustainable framework.
Conceptual FrameworkWe draw the conceptual framework based on thedata utilized in each systemof building and city plan-ning. The data list was devised by considering theindicators of the Anthropocene(Figure 1). We havechecked the international organization for standard-ization of the system and found that IFC format iscorresponding with the ISO standard 16739 and thetechnical framework for life cycle assessment(LCA)was defined by ISOstandard 14042[2]. The flow ofsustainable design framework is that selection of im-pact categories, category indicators, andmodels andassigns the LCI results which are classification pro-cess. After that characterization process is done withthe calculation of category indicator results. At thefinal process, by doing normalization the values arebeing grouped and weighted for data analysis. Inthis research, we focused on an apartment which isthe typical resident of Korea for the analysis of An-thropocene evidence in Korea. And aswementionedin the related chapter, we used the equation of LCAfor simplified assessment of concrete. Using the col-lected data, we visualized the evidence of Anthro-pocene in Korea by using QGIS tools. (Figure2).
LCA equationsThe equations were used for the entire life cycle as-sessment of building in the sustainable frameworkfor the Anthropocene and were referenced from theresearch of Jeong (Jeong et al 2015).
QEk is the quantity of the consumed energy(k),CDj is the cost data of the construction material(j) in the bill of quantity, PICk,j is the productioninducement coefficient of the energy source (k) re-quired tomanufacture thematerial (j) andUPk is theunit price of the energy source (k).
Figure 2Distribution Map ofApartment Locationin South Korea(QGIS)
• Material Transportation and On-site Con-struction
QEk = 2∑m
·∑j
(QDj
Cmj
·TDm
j
SMmj
· FCmk
)(2)
QEk =∑n
·∑j
(QDj
Cmj
· FCmk
)(3)
QDj is the quantity data of material (j), Cmj is the
capacity of vehicle (m) that is Operation and mainte-nance phase used to transport material (j), TDm
j isthe transportation distance of the construction ma-terial (j) from the plant to the construction site usingvehicle (m),SMm
j is the standardmovement of vehi-cle (m) for an hour andFCm
k is the fuel (k) consump-tion per unit hour of vehicle (m), Cn
j is the capac-ity of work per unit hour of equipment (n) that wasused to construct the building materials (j) and FCnkis the fuel (k) consumption per unit hour of construc-tion equipment (n).
• Operation andMaintenance phase
QEk = QAEk · (ServiceY ear) (4)
QAEk is the quantity of annual energy consump-tion.
• Demolition and Disposal Phase
QEk = QWj ·QESj ,mk (5)
QWj is the quantity of waste material (j) generatedin each stage,QESj ,
mk is the quantity of the energy
source (k) that the equipment (m), which is used toprocess the waste material (j), uses during the pro-cessing of a unit amount of the waste material
• Calculation of the environmental impactsubstances from energy combustion
Ei =∑k
(QEk · EPi,k +QEk · ECi,k ) (6)
Ei is the emission of substance (i),QEk is the quan-tity ofconsumed energy (k), EPi,k is the emissionfactor of substance (i) thatwas emitted in theproduc-tion of one unit of energy source (k), and ECi,k isthe emission factor of substance (i) that was emittedin the combustion of one unit of the energy source(k).
Life Cycle Impact Assessment
CIl =∑i
(Ei · CFl,i ) (7)
QEk = QWj ·QESj ,mk (8)
CIl is the characterized impact of impact category(l); Ei is the emission of substance (i); CFl,i is thecharacterization factor of substance (i) to impact cat-egory (l).
Environmental Impact CategoriesSeveral impact categories and impact assessmentmethods were used in the Life Cycle Impact Assess-ment. Those six categories are mostly used cate-gories and recommended by the standard EN15643-2[4]. In the environmental impact assessment forthe concrete, concrete size of 1m3 was selected asthe functional unit. The classified indicators wentthrough the process of characterization and normal-ization and lastlyweighted for integrated life cycle as-sessment. (Kim et al 2016)
DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONThis study was for a preliminary study of the entirelife cycle framework for sustainable design from cityto building. Many computational tools were devel-oped for a specific purpose. With a holistic pointof view, these tools need to be integrated. We col-lected open data which can be related to Anthro-pocene in Korea where rapid urbanization was con-ducted[3]. We analyzed the completion year of theapartment with a quantity of construction waste andGHG emissions. Figure3 shows that the completionyear of the apartment(unit= household) picked at1995 with 429,898. The life cycle of an apartmentbuilding in Korea is 25 years to 50 years. We com-pared the quantity of construction waste is pickedin 2016 with a total 199,444 ton and most of thosecomponents are concrete and asphalt concrete. Wereached the conclusion that we researched and an-alyzed the relationship between construction wasteoccurred from urban artifacts. With the GHG emis-sion rate from 1990 shown in figure4, we found thatthe conceptual framework should be more devel-oped in advance for sustainable design. So, the spa-tial analysis integrated with environmental impactswould play an important role in the sustainable de-sign framework for Anthropocene and can be a ba-sis for decisionmaking for city planning in the future.This research is meaningful in the development of apreliminary sustainable designmethodologyby inte-grating the life cycle of a building and spatial data.This framework tried to propose a methodology toenable designer or decisionmaker can recognize theenvironmental impact of it. We would research theresults that to design artifacts for sustainable cities,the forecasting process of the potential environmen-tal impact of cities (N years later) should take placein the design or planning phase. And the next stepis to apply the framework developed in this study tothe actual construction process so that realistic datacan be demonstrated. And we expect that this sus-tainable design methodologies adapted to climatechange can be used in international sustainable de-sign guidelines.
Figure 3Completion year ofApartment in Korea(Household)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTThis work was supported by the National ResearchFoundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Koreagovernment (MSIT) (NRF-2018R1A5A7025409)
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