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3.5 Conclusions & Outlook
Advanced Building Skins
The demand on buildings, which allow the enhancement of the principles of a sustainable
development, will gain more and more importance in the private as well as the public sector. This
trend is based not only on marketing demands but also due to the need of better life cycle performance.
One of the instruments in proofing the performance is building certification, which includes aspects as
e.g. LCA and LCCA as well as user comfort (as part of the functional performance) or technical
aspects.
For the design of façades this results in increased requirements. This means not only the development
of “innovative” building products or elements but also in the “active” provision of adequate product
information i.e. EPDs (Environmental Products Declarations) as well as the optimization of processes
through out the value chain. Major trend is the assessment of the whole building where every part /
component must ensure its contribution to the overall building performance.
For the MPPF project it could be shown that the design of the Façade has a big influence on building
certification results. Additionally the upcoming requirements i.e. sustainable use of natural ressources
by the CPR or the assessment critrion “ease of dismantling and recycling” can only be fulfilled by a
design process, which considers all these aspects and by façade systems, which integrate building
engineering functions as well as solar energy technologies. Prefabrication technology makes it feasible
to predict the performance of the façade.
Due to the fact that the façade influences many of the assessment criteria, at least in the case of
ÖGNI/DGNB, it is crucial to take a closer look on the assessment criteria and the required
performance to gain a better (predictable) result for the whole building, when it is completed (and
certified). This means the optimization of the energy performance as well as the optimization of the
material choice in the construction (e.g. in terms of LCA or risks to the local environment), functional
or technical assessment criteria.
One should bear in mind that the improvement of building performance is a non-linear approach as
different assessment criteria influence each other (i.e. an interdependency of criteria) [36, 44]. Only by
ensuring that already the design options are based on a holistic life cycle performance assessment, the
demanding challenge of a holistic improvement of building performance can be reached in future[36].
Using a systematic approach could be one way in coping with the complexity of different
requirements.
4 Acknowledgements
The research project “Multifunctional Plug & Play Façade” (Project-Nr: 815075) is supported by
funds of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), by the federal states of Styria, Carinthia and
Lower Austria, as well as by a consortium of scientific institutions and companies, guided by the
“Hans Höllwart – Forschungszentrum für integrales Bauwesen AG” (CEO, Mario J. Müller).
The analysis described in chapter 3.1 is part of the PhD research of H. Kreiner [44] at Graz University
of Technology with the working title Interdependency between LCCA and LCA in the assessment of
buildings, supervised by P. Maydl and A. Passer, which is not yet appropriated.
5 References
[1] Wallbaum H and Meins E (2009): No sustainable planning, constructing and operating – (still) common
praxis in the building industry for a good reason?, Bauingenieur, Band 84, Juli / August 2009: 291-303
[2] Maydl P, Structural Sustaillability - the Fourth Dimension? Structural Engineering International 3/2006:
268-269
[3] Mateus R. and Bragançaa L., Sustainability assessment and rating of buildings: Developing the
methodology SBToolPT-H, Building and Environment, Volume 46, Issue 10, October 2011, Pages 1962-
1971, ISSN 0360-1323, DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2011.04.023.
[4] Bribian I. Z., Uson A. A., Scarpellini S., Life cycle assessment in buildings: State-of-the-art and simplified
LCA methodology as a complement for building certification, Building and Environment, Volume 44,
Issue 12, December 2009, Pages 2510-2520, ISSN 0360-1323, DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2009.05.001.
[5] Passer A, Assessment of the environmental performance of buildings, PhD-Thesis, TU Graz, 2010;
https://online.tugraz.at/tug_online/wbAbs.showThesis?pThesisNr=22305&pOrgNr=2265&pAutorNr=2270
2&pFassungNr=2&pPersNr=
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