Sustainability in the building sector has become a major topic worldwide and multiple European countries are working on implementing regulations. This means that we must investigate new ways to assess a building's climate impact already from the early stages.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a detailed method for assessing a building's footprint and is still undergoing rapid development in line with increasing demand. However, it is a method that requires a large amount of data on included processes.
It is crucial to be able to consider the environmental impact in the initial phases of a project, so that you can continuously see how the geometry and choice of materials can affect the final result. For example, testing different material compositions on e.g. the load-bearing structure, facades, roof, etc. This saves both architects and engineers time, as it provides a better prerequisite for achieving the desired results in the final design LCA.
What is Design LCA?
System: Win / MAC
Language: EN / DA
Archicad version: 26
Price: Free
DesignLCA is a free add-on for Archicad that easily allows you to calculate LCA on your BIM project from early sketching. The best thing is that you don’t even have to be a LCA expert!
With this method designers can (fairly) easy get a reading of your projects CO2 footprint where both construction and operation is taken into consideration.