Background
The building industry is one of the world's largest polluters, accounting for around 37% of global CO2 emissions (1, 2). Next to drastically reducing operative emissions, we need to tackle grey emissions occurring during construction. To do so, we must fundamentally rethink the way we build today. Here, timber and other renewable materials play a vital role. Biogenic building materials store carbon during their growth and retain it for as long as they stay in use. With urban timber construction, we are able to mitigate carbon, while reducing CO2 emissions from conventional production methods significantly through substitution.
Who are you?
City Maker
You want to help the progression towards climate neutrality and wonder how cities can leverage clean building to reduce their carbon footprint?
Planning a new timber development and wonder how to anchor sustainability in your concept tender?
Developer or Planner
Impact assessment appears confusing and certificates complex?
Wonder how design decisions and material choices can contribute to climate mitigation?
General Public
Why is building houses contributing so much to global emissions?
How are carbon cycles and building materials connected?
How Timber Computer can help
Sustainable building is not an easy task. Relevant know-how is difficult to access and a qualified consideration of sustainability criteria during the design phase is highly complex. Timber Computer conveys crucial knowledge on two levels: the interactive web tool lets users calculate the CO₂ footprint of selected construction methods and components based on a configurable model house (compute) and tangibly explains the underlying principles and mechanisms of sustainable construction (learn).
- Measure
- Compare
- Apply
- Scale
1) Measure
There are two aspects which should be considered regarding a building’s impact. There is the global warming potential (GWP) that constitutes how many emissions are made during production, transport, construction and utilisation, combining the operative and the grey energy a building comprises. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is the method of choice to benchmark each building’s impact regarding the various phases along the whole life-cycle. And there is the share of renewable resources. It indirectly indicates the carbon that is stored in renewable building materials.
2) Compare
Timber Computer benchmarks various materials and the respective constructions by taking into account the GWP and the share of renewable materials of a generic model building which tries to represent an average project development. By comparing conventional mineral constructions with timber and hybrid constructions the computer depicts the impact of each construction method on the basis of the building components: structure, facade and interior. This creates framework conditions and decision-making aids for the user’s own projects.
3) Apply
Timber Computer helps to understand what compositions of materials foster sustainability throughout the design and can be used to make trade-offs regarding materials, construction, costs and impact at a very early stage of designing.
4) Scale
Often the largest share of renewables does not automatically mean the smallest footprint. The computer helps to develop minimum criteria or targets for tender procedures to be undertaken for the development of entire timber quarters.
The global warming potential (GWP, measured in CO2e) describes the relative contribution of a chemical compound to global warming. It indicates how much a certain amount of a greenhouse gas contributes to the greenhouse effect over a period of one hundred years compared to the same amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). Emissions weighted by it are given as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
Functionality
Timber Computer functions as a tool for approximation and orientation in the early design phase. It is based on a model building and calculates with concrete proportions, emissions and characteristic values derived from specific building components. The model building is a market-representative multi-family building that can be realised in mineral or timber construction. Timber Computer examines three construction criteria: Supporting structure, envelope and fitting and their respective sub-criteria, which stand for the different building components such as ceilings and walls etc.
The evaluation is based on the global warming potential (GWP) of the designated building components and their construction method (mineral, hybrid, timber construction). CO2-intensive building components and building components that are used in large quantities are weighted higher to reflect the influence of the building component on the overall sustainability of the building. The influence of the building component is strongly dependent on building-specific parameters such as cubature, area-volume ratio, storey height, floor plan design and use. However, in addition to the essential structural and exterior components, Timber Computer does not take into account interior components such as installation, interior design and lighting.