Testing Life Cycle Assessments as a tool for design

Image by DunnHillam

Life Cycle Assessment for upfront carbon is an important design tool and despite this not being a requirement for most of our projects (yet!!) we’ve been getting deep into analysing current and past projects to see what we can learn.

The Desert House, completed in 2014, was designed as a super-insulated courtyard house that was protected by a fly-roof. The fly roof reduced the heat load on the volume of the house and the courtyard was engineered to put cool air from underneath the building into it, creating a cooler external zone for living. We are now testing the building to understand the balance between these passive design strategies and the upfront carbon of the construction.

By modelling our buildings for life cycle assessments we are able to make informed decisions about material and design choices with our current and future projects.

Read more about the Desert House here.