Sustainable early design exploration of mid-rise office buildings with different subsystems using comparative life cycle assessment

Minimizing environmental impacts over a building's life cycle is critical to achieving sustainable communities. Early design the most step improve construction's sustainability, as majority of important decisions have not yet been made. However, implementation sustainability assessment in early data- and effort-intensive, resulting limited whole building assessments. Previous studies mainly focused either on single residential structures, included only subset components, or investigated parameters mostly associated with energy efficiency. Whereas, comparison alternative subsystems at received less attention. This study aims provide utilize benchmark data for life-cycle mid-rise office buildings, focusing impact subsystem selection exploration. Environmental were compared across six professionally-designed archetypes comprising compatible combinations foundation, floor, structural assemblies site Charleston, South Carolina. Detailed operational modeling was performed using EnergyPlus framework, where range code-compliant envelope systems are studied paired other assemblies. Lastly, sensitivity statistical analysis quantify uncertainty use such guidance. The results suggest that phase (such selection) dominates should be prioritized. Additionally, no governs all embodied different buildings. it consider large number alternatives stage, excluding combination might close pathways reaching more environmentally suitable during iterations/optimization.