A BIM-based Life Cycle Assessment of Façade Cladding Materials: A Typical Office Building in Ankara

Building Information Modelling (BIM) based digital tools streamline the environmental performance assessments of buildings during the early design phase. This study investigates the potential of BIM-LCA integration through the whole life cycle assessment of a hypothetical office building in Ankara. Three alternative building models with different façade cladding materials are modeled in Revit Architecture. The operational energy use of the alternative models is estimated with Autodesk Insight and Green Building Studio (GBS). Nevertheless, the thermal performance of building components is calculated separately considering their thermal transmittance (U-value) since there is no sensitivity in these simulation tools regarding the thermal performance of different façade systems. After determining the operational energy use of the alternative models, their global warming potential (GWP) is measured with OneClick LCA. According to the results, the alternative model with the wooden façade cladding yields the minimum greenhouse gas emissions despite being transported from abroad, and the ceramic and aluminum cladding follows it. After identifying the optimum alternative in terms of GWP, shading elements are installed on the façade. Although increased material use due to the shading elements leads to higher GWP, the overall performance of the building dramatically improves since less energy is required for heating and cooling. The results showed that using energy simulation tools can significantly improve energy performance and reduce the GWP of buildings in the early-stage design