Sustainably Tall: Investment, Energy, Life Cycle

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to provide an interactive platform for clients and design teams to evaluate the consequences of shape, form, and briefing decisions on the energy use, embodied energy, and capital / life-cycle cost of a tall building early in the design process. The Tall Building Simulation (TBS) model is the result of a collaborative partnership between Aedas, Arup, Hilson Moran (HM), and Davis Langdon (DL). It is estimated that most decisions determining the sustainability of a project are made in the first 1 percent of a projectis program, whereas the majority of the information required for sustainability  assessment is not usually available or examined until after the concept stage. By this time, most solutions would need design or briefing changes that are too costly to implement. Using the TBS model, architects, engineers, and clients can simultaneously explore the impact of typical technical and design decisions on a tall buildingis energy footprint and its dynamic relationship to cost at the briefing stage.