Copenhagen
Living Places: DfD Building Services

Description 

A key issue when designing for future adaptability to prolong a buildings lifetime is the building services (i.e. technical installations). There is common consensus within the research field of adaptable building design that solving integration of building services is a key DfD. Services provide (and potentially block) key functions, they tend to be directly integrated with, or entangled in, building parts, and tend to have a shorter expected lifespan than most other building parts and materials.

 

Therefore a more circular approach for addressing the above challenges is ensuring that services remain separable from other building layers to facilitate modifications and replacements without effecting other building layers.

 

These principles have been tested by CIRCuIT partners Enemærke & Petersen and GXN on another industry research project ‘Living Places’. Living Places is a 1:1 showcase by EFFEKT, Moe and Velux. It provides a building compass for a regenerative built environment which aim to highlight the possibility to reduce emissions up to 75% with existing technology.

 

With Living Places Copenhagen as a case study, the demonstrator has investigated DfD potential for heating systems which are generally integrated in the concrete floor slabs of residential buildings in Denmark. Two alternatives to this approach with higher level of DfD have been proposed to save material, carbon and cost over time. 

​

Demonstrated Innovation

Three heating installations and related construction have been assessed for this demonstrator:

• A BAU case consisting of underfloor heating integrated in a concrete slab.

• A DfD timber floor system with underfloor heating

• A DfD timber floor system with heating through wall mounted radiators.

Both of the demonstrated alternatives are based on the Living Places structural system.

 

It has been found that the two alternative systems with higher independence between the heating systems and the structure results in lower carbon, lower material usage and lower cost over multiple replacement cycles.

​

Activities done

• Scenario scope development

• BIM modelling for comparative study of the effect of the different constructions

• LCA Analysis

• LCC Analysis

 

Demonstrated impacts

It was shown that solution B – Wall Mounted Radiator (see below) performed better than both BAU and solution C – Underfloor Heating in all categories. The three concepts were assessed over 120-year period of the building to capture the impact from multiple replacements of the service systems.

 

In the demonstrated cases (B &C) the walls and floors were assumed to be designed for disassembly (in line with Living Places proposal), whilst not in the BAU case. Operational energy use was assumed not be impacted by the different heating systems.

 

It was found that heating using radiators had the lowest impact on carbon, cost and material use over the lifetime of the building. The reason being that the solution is less material intensive, and replacements are less destructive than replacements of underfloor heating systems.

 

The radiator system had 48% lower up front embodied carbon compared to BAU. The % of materials impacted by replacement cycles was 7,3% compared to 15,7% for BAU, and only 6,2kg of materials/m2 compared to 62,7kg/m2 for BAU.  The cost for the radiator system was 21,5% higher upfront compared to BAU, however already after the first replacement there was 10,6% cost savings, and after the second replacement 27,3% cost savings.

​

​

​