Team to study impact of 'green' buildings
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Melissa Bilec of Pitt leads the study team.
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Over the last two decades, creating environmentally friendly "green" buildings has gone from a quirky fringe activity to mainstream.
Increasingly, everyone from new home builders to major companies like PNC Bank have embraced the green credo of buildings that are not only energy efficient but use environmentally sustainable products.
But exactly what environmental impact those buildings have over the life of their existence from construction to operation to demolition and disposal is not fully understood.
A team of Pittsburgh engineers and architects, led by University of Pittsburgh engineering professor Melissa Bilec, will try to get at that very notion -- known as "life cycle assessment" or LCA -- with a $2 million grant recently won from the National Science Foundation.
"Right now, once people understand life cycle assessment, they agree it's a good approach," said Dr. Bilec, "but the data to make it practical to use for most buildings is lacking."
It's that data, and a method of collecting and applying it to newly constructed buildings, that Dr. Bilec's team will try to provide.
Her research team is made up of three engineering professors from Pitt and two architecture professors from Carnegie Mellon University, but also involves collaboration with other organizations, including the Green Building Alliance here in Pittsburgh.
"We like this work because this project will try to fill that gap between the builders and academia," said Aurora Sharrard, the Green Building Alliance's director of innovation, who will work with the team.
To do that, the team will use a three-step process:
• First, the alliance will help them survey architects, engineers, construction companies and others in the field to figure out how they can make life cycle assessment more usable.
• Then the team will develop criteria that those in the field can use to determine the LCA of a building, as well as everything in the building.
• And, finally, they will create a digital platform that will estimate the environmental footprint of construction decisions, such as which type of building material to use, or which brand of linoleum, or what type of lighting to use.
"I see it as a huge opportunity for architects," said Steve Lee, the head of CMU's school of architecture and a member of Dr. Bilec's team. "It could help them make better buildings and better cities in the future."
Ultimately, what the team creates could be plugged into the building information modeling that is now used in the field to understand how a building is constructed and used.
First Published November 29, 2010 12:00 am
