Tool Measures Building Materials’ Environmental Impact

Tally screenshot

by | Nov 15, 2013

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Tally screenshotArchitecture firm KieranTimberlake has launched a software application that allows designers to measure the environmental impact of building materials directly in a Revit model.

The new tool, Tally, provides life cycle assessment (LCA) on demand, backed by GaBi data from PE International. Autodesk, the maker of Revit modeling software, supported development and testing for the application.

Tally combines material attributes, assembly details and engineering and architectural specifications with environmental impact data to produce reports designers can use to analyze material selections, the firm says. It allows users to track the environmental impact of materials across a range of categories, such as embodied energy and global warming potential.

Typically, conducting LCAs for buildings and construction has been time and labor intensive, and most LCAs are performed after construction is already complete. Tally puts LCA information in the hands of the design team, enabling life cycle-based product decisions at the same pace and within the same working environment as building designs are generated, the firm says. With Tally, designers don’t need to make a separate model for analysis, says Frances Yang, a structures and materials sustainability specialist at Arup who beta-tested Tally in the global firm’s San Francisco office.

New green building standards, such as the United States Green Building Council’s LEED v4, reward project teams that utilize whole building LCA via a new materials and resources credit.

Tally will be initially available as a free public beta, with previews at Greenbuild 2013 in Philadelphia from Nov. 19-22. LEED v4 will also officially launch at Greenbuild.

In other green building news, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), has awarded the Co-operative Group’s new head office in Manchester a score of 95.16 percent — the highest ever awarded — making the One Angel Square building the most environmentally-friendly building in the world, the UK supermarket chain owner says.

 

 

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