LCA and BIM: Integrated Assessment and Visualization of Building Elements' Embodied Impacts for Design Guidance in Early Stages

The importance of evaluation and improvement of life cycle performance of buildings in early design stages is widely acknowledged, the wide application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) however, is restrained by big uncertainty in design and material decisions at this stage. The approach presented in this paper aims to provide a proof-of-concept for an integrated assessment of the environmental impact of building construction using Building Information Modeling (BIM). To support decision-making in the critical early design stages, we propose a workflow of using conceptual BIM models and visual scripting to test a wide variety of possible construction options. The overall effects on the building's total impact are calculated for the various options to identify design specific hotspots. Different aspects of the results can be visualized to support intuitive design guidance.