Building sustainability evaluation in the building process: the construction phase

A building is the outcome of a process that starts with the decision to build and continues throughout the production/maintenance/utilisation stages up to demolition and recycling. Such factors as the relatively long life of most constructions, including those referred to as “ephemeral” (compared to other industrial products), and the significance and values that become associated with a building in the course of time enhance the importance of the utilisation and maintenance stages. Over time, a building interacts with the user/buyer/dweller and with its surroundings through a mechanism of “self-adjustment”, consisting of maintenance and adaptation works. For these reasons, and in view of the quantities of pollutants released into the air, the water and the soil from most buildings during their serviceability stage, the building “product” should be analysed as a process whose goal is to supply appropriate living conditions during its life cycle, and which entails a huge commitment in terms of resources and the production of considerable quantities of emissions. In buildings, the stages of serviceability, maintenance and adaptation to changing needs account for most of the resources used up and the pollutants emitted. However, this does not amount to saying that the stage of production - of the materials & components and the building as a whole - should be rated as a negligible variable. Moreover, it is at the building stage, and, in particular, at the design stage, that decisions affecting the future impact of a building on the environment are made. Hence, it is important to design and construct buildings that are able to make an efficient use of resources throughout their life cycle. nota: Il contributo è presente nel sito del Fraunhofer Institute irbnet.de/date/iconda/CIB2512.pdf.