Abstract

This thesis presents an optimization model to minimize total life cycle cost of sustainable office building, subject to a set of environmental impact constraints with emphasis on relationship between reducing environmental impacts and minimizing total life cycle cost of office buildings due to sustainable building design strategies.

The concepts of green design, sustainability, life cycle assessment and life cycle costing have been reviewed and presented in this thesis. Three green assessment tools which are used for buildings are also described. The role of life cycle costing and life cycle assessment in previous studies on office buildings, and related previous studies on optimization of environmental performance of buildings are also reviewed in this study.

The methodology of this research was tested through a case study of an eight-story office building to demonstrate the capability of the proposed optimization model. Two of the structural components (walls and floors) and one of the envelope component (windows) were compared on the basis of six environmental indicators. The indicators used were primary energy, solid waste generated, water pollution index, air pollution index, global warming potential and weighted raw resource use. Also, the life cycle costing of each alternative was compared. The results of LCC and LCA have been used in the optimization model to find the optimum solution.

The result of the case study has shown that the optimum alternative of tilt-up building was the most cost effective and with lower environmental impacts. In a conclusion, the proposed optimization model can be used as a decision support tool in the preliminary stages of building design.