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A dissertation submitted to The Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment University of Witwatersrand in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Building / The world population continues to grow resulting in continuous demand for development. The building and construction industry is the avenue by which a vast majority of human settlements are developed. With this in mind, it is an industry that can have a far reaching effect on human and ecological well-being across the globe and South Africa is no exception. This study posits the problem that the correct building procurement systems to enhance client satisfaction in Green Building practices are not being applied in South Africa and as a consequence the application and integration of Green Building is being curbed. The overall aim of the study was therefore to determine how to improve client satisfaction through the correct use of building procurement systems in order to increase Green Building implementation across South Africa. The relationship between building procurement systems, client satisfaction and Green Building implementation remained the focal point throughout the study. This relationship was broken down within the literature as well as through the analysis of a questionnaire submitted to South African Green Building professionals, including clients. This examination determined that the client is the key to whether a project is developed and how it is procured. Moreover, it established that the choice of procurement strategy is the defining factor in the successful outcome of a project and ultimately the outcome of client satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The results indicated a significant correlation of the views in practice with that in theory whereby it was determined that the most appropriate procurement systems for Green Building are collaborative systems , including Design and Manage as well as Design and Build. On the contrary the findings illustrated that the Traditional System is the least appropriate for Green Building as it is a segregated building procurement system. Furthermore, the respondents confirmed the hypothesis that incorrect building procurement systems are being applied on Green Building projects in South Africa as the Traditional System was found to be the most utilised system for Green Building across South Africa even though it is the least appropriate system. This is a noteworthy finding, as environmental progress will continually be curbed on account of low levels of client satisfaction from inadequate building procurement systems. This research gives clear solutions on which building procurement systems to use and which not to use for Green Building. By applying this knowledge client satisfaction will be enhanced and so too the Green Building environment of South Africa.

In the last few decades, there has been well documented evidence that the performance of the public building projects in local authorities in Indonesia does not fully meet the expectation of the stakeholders involved and demonstrates sustainable practices. This mediocre performance impacts on the competitiveness of building industry, and therefore would require the development of a strategic approach to address these fundamental structural and cultural issues. The strategic approach, which facilitates sustainable practices, to a large extent, depends on the local priorities, goals and success criteria, which are dynamic and influenced by the expectations of various stakeholders involved in the procurement of public buildings. This research aims to develop a conceptual framework that will help local authorities to enhance sustainable practices of public building management. The empirical research work adopted case study strategy involving interviews with 24 public building practitioners and investigation of building defects on 34 projects. This research proposes LACU model, which represents a triangular relationship between contractors, local authorities and building end-users to illustrate the interactions between parties when undertaking their tasks throughout the project lifecycle. A framework of Sustainable-Dynamic Capabilities was developed and applied to enhance understanding of sustainability provisions in public building development. Based on this framework and stakeholders’ mapping illustrated by LACU model, this research has enhanced understanding on strategies of local authority to implement sustainable practices on public building projects. A template analysis through interview transcripts has been adopted to identify strategic approaches of local authority to deliver successful project by determining the roles of stakeholder at three different levels, provincial, regency or city and special authority. This research provides a novel empirically-based guidance for the local authorities to undertake sustainable public building procurement throughout project life cycle by adopting strategic approaches, such as employing innovative construction method, appropriate policy intervention by local leader, and changing business orientation.

Leung Shi Sing. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2007-2008, design report." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62). / Chapter 01 --- BACKGROUND --- p.1-6 / Chapter 02 --- STUDIES OF SERVICE SPACES --- p.7-19 / Chapter 03 --- DESIGN DEVELOPMENT --- p.20-30 / Chapter 04 --- FINAL DESIGN --- p.31-61 / Chapter 04.1 --- TYPE 1 ´Ø UNIT --- p.32-34 / Chapter 04.2 --- TYPE 2 ´Ø GROUP --- p.35-42 / Chapter 04.3 --- TYPE 3 ´Ø COMMUNITY --- p.43-61 / Chapter 05 --- BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.62

As a major energy consumer and CO2 emitter, buildings have an undeniably important role to play in cutting carbon emissions and combating climate change. Over the recent decades, green buildings have gained increasing attention and popularity from various stakeholders in the construction industry. Green building design practice builds upon the conventional building design practice but adds the concerns of environmental impacts and occupants’ well-being in the design philosophy. Many researchers advocate utilizing optimization for green building design due to its capability in obtaining improved design solutions and providing building designers a better understanding of the design space. A comprehensive and in-depth review on previous relevant optimization models has revealed the following two limitations which might undermine their application in practice. Firstly, the focus of optimization in most of these models was on the reduction of cost and energy consumption while occupants’ comfort level in terms of indoor environmental quality was seldom considered. Secondly, for those models which have set comfort level of indoor environmental quality as a design objective, only thermal comfort was taken into account and thus they failed to address other essential factors governing indoor environmental quality such as visual comfort and indoor air quality. Aiming at addressing the limitations of previous related studies, this research has developed an improved optimization model for green building design with a more comprehensive set of design objectives, namely minimization of cost, minimization of energy consumption, and maximization of occupants’ comfort level in terms of indoor environmental quality. The importance of the three design objectives and the necessity for including them in the model were verified through a series of semi-structured interviews with respondents from different stakeholder groups in relation to green building design and construction. The three design objectives are evaluated in the developed model in terms of (i) cost according to life cycle cost; (ii) energy consumption analyzed by a widely-adopted building energy performance simulation program – EnergyPlus; and (iii) comfort level of indoor environmental quality by adopting an empirical-based multivariate-logistic regression model identified from literatures. Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II, a powerful multi-objective optimization technique, was selected as the optimization engine in the developed model. The developed model was then implemented into to a prototype tool in the MATLAB environment which can be utilized by building designers to determine the appropriate design solutions. Through a hypothetical office building design problem, the applicability of the model was demonstrated. Finally, the developed model was validated through demonstration and face-to-face discussion with experts. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Building industry is one of the most influential economic sectors, which accounts for 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) globally and 40% of the world energy consumption. To achieve the goal of sustainable development, it is necessary to understand the sustainability performance of building construction in the environmental, the economic and the social aspects. This study quantitatively evaluates impacts of building construction in the three aspects by using the recently developed life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methodology, in which environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA), environmental life cycle costing (ELCC), and social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) are integrated. The scope of this research covers ‘cradle-to-site’ life cycle stages, from raw material extraction to on-site construction. Three life-cycle models are developed, namely the Environmental Model of Construction (EMoC), the Cost Model of Construction (CMoC), and the Social-impact Model of Construction (SMoC). EMoC is a comprehensive ELCA model that evaluates environmental impacts of building construction by considering eighteen impact categories. CMoC is an ELCC model that provides analyses on construction costs and externalities. SMoC is an innovative S-LCA model being able to quantify social impacts of building construction in thirteen social impact categories. The three models are then integrated into a newly proposed LCSA framework. In order to select an appropriate LCIA method for EMoC, the differences among existing life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods are investigated. It is found that LCIA methods are consistent in global impact categories, while inconsistent in regional impact categories. ‘ReCiPe’ is selected as the LCIA method to be used in EMoC. Midpoint and endpoint approaches of ‘ReCiPe’ can lead to different interpretations. Endpoint approach emphasizes on certain impact categories and can only be used when midpoint results are provided. A life cycle inventory is established for ready mixed concrete and precast concrete based on site-specific data from concrete batching plant and precast yard. EMoC is employed to compare environmental performance of precast and cast-in-situ construction methods. It is found that adoption of precast concrete can significantly improve environmental performance of building construction. SMoC suggests that adoption of precast concrete can have both negative and positive impacts on local employment. A case study is conducted to test the model performance. It demonstrates that environmental impacts of ‘cradle-to-site’ construction activities are mostly attributed to the material stage. The external cost due to carbon emission is about 2% of the total construction cost. Environmental-friendly on-site construction practices can significantly improve social performance of building construction. The major findings of this study are verified through interviews with the local experts in Hong Kong. These validation interviews confirm that the proposed LCSA framework and the developed models contribute to the building industry in Hong Kong. In particular, this study can be used as a supplementary to the building assessment scheme, HK BEAM Plus. Results from this study can improve the understanding of building sustainability. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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