The benefits of a Platform approach to design and construction: time, cost, quality.
As such, embodied carbon is increasingly playing a much bigger role in our day-to-day focus on sustainability as architects and designers..Embodied carbon varies based on the building typology.
For example, in residential architecture, we might see a ratio of one third embodied carbon to two thirds operational carbon across a building’s lifespan.On the other hand, with a building like a data centre, where the operational energy of the building is very high, operational carbon will always be a larger portion of the total, whole-life carbon of the building..The good news is that our data is improving all the time, and the industry is gaining momentum around the issue of sustainability with respect to embodied carbon.
Within the next couple of years, we’re going to see an amazing increase in knowledge.Project life cycle assessments (LCA) are becoming standard practice.
Five years ago, that simply wasn’t the case for most consultancies.
There’s also a lot more guidance around now, for example, from bodies like the Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE)..Plus, with choices in the assembly, architectural outcomes can still be recognisably different and tailored..
At Bryden Wood, starting with productivity-led value drivers, we developed a hybrid steel and concrete mid span platform (Platform II).We then proved the concept on the design and delivery of The Forge, a commercial building for Landsec, the first ‘platform’ building..
There are bound to be other mid span options: using other value drivers as a start point will no doubt give rise to other types of mid span platform e.g.a timber based or light gauge steel..
(Editor: Budget Canopies)