DEVELOPMENT OF A HOLISTIC PARAMETRIC FRAMEWORK FOR MULTI-PERFORMANCE LIFE-CYCLE EVALUATION OF POST-TENSIONED TIMBER BUILDINGS

Catastrophic events and climate change represent major challenges for modern society, which calls for new solutions able to provide acceptable performances with low carbon footprint. The environmental impact of buildings, already accounting for 39% of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions in the European Union (EU), becomes much more important in seismic prone areas, where buildings are vulnerable to extensive damage, significantly influencing the sustainability as well as the resilience of the entire community. The low-damage post-tensioned engineered timber structural system, also known as Pres-Lam (Prestressed Laminated timber), meets the need for a shift towards a damage-control approach while using sustainable materials. Beside the material choice, the design phase has a strong influence over the environmental impact along the life cycle of buildings. Hence, decision-making process has to take into account multiple aspects related to the proposed solution, that have to be combined into a comprehensive framework. This paper proposes a holistic parametric approach able to evaluate simultaneously the seismic performance and the environmental impact of three different Pres-Lam case studies, developing an integrated model within Rhino-Grasshopper platform using independently developed packages. The seismic response is assessed through a probabilistic approach, whereas the carbon footprint is estimated through the Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) procedure using the extensive database of the Grasshopper plugin One Click LCA. Given the parametric nature of the framework, a wide range of solutions can be analysed to make the optimal choice, with the possibility to include also energy simulations and combine all the results within a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to guide the decisional process.