Bejder, Anne Kirkegaard

Brunsgaard, Camilla

Sustainability certification schemes experience grooving popularity. Few years ago, Denmark got its own sustainability certification scheme based on the German DGNB certification scheme run by Green Building Council Denmark. Investigations of the design processes underlying four Danish DGNB certified healthcare centers show that the architectural design has been taken too fare in the initial phases without analysing and documenting several DGNB criteria. It creates a “point of no return”, which means it is not possible to prioritise the assessment points in the certifications scheme when needed. Further, it confirms the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration, including the DGNB consultant, from the early design stages. The research suggests further investigations of challenges regarding design process and decision-making on a more common level to verify the findings on a more general level. The objective of the study presented in this paper, is to investigate the challenges related to the design process experienced by practice when designing sustainable buildings using the Danish DGNB certification scheme. Questionnaires are sent to all Danish DGNB consultant and auditors to be able to cover a wide variety of projects and level of experience with the DGNB scheme.The preliminary results show that DGNB projects require a large amount of documentation and the design process requires a large amount of manual data input in different tools handles by different stakeholders, e.g. tools for calculating life-cycle assessment, energy use and daylight etc. Furthermore, the study discovers a need for developing methodologies and tools to support the initial design phases securing an iterative design process and decision-making on sufficient level of knowledge.Sustainability certification schemes experience growing popularity. Denmark got its own sustainability certification scheme based on the German DGNB certification scheme. Previous work based on four case studies – DGNB certified healthcare centres, suggests further research on how to improve and support the iterative design process in the initial design phases. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to investigate the design process on a more common level experienced by Danish DGNB consultants when designing sustainable buildings using the Danish DGNB certification scheme and thereby possibly verify the findings of previous work, on a more general level. To be able to cover a wide variety of projects and levels of experience with the DGNB scheme, a questionnaire is distributed to Danish DGNB consultants. The survey shows that the design teams to a smaller degree use the DGNB consultant along the design process and particularly so in the early design stages. At the same time, it shows that especially LCA, LCC and acoustical comfort are hardly implemented before the final stages of the design, questioning the holistic nature of the design. The study shows a potential in developing methods and tools to support the initial design phases

Sustainable building design in practice – survey among Danish DGNB consultants

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

VBN