Decision Support Model with Life Cycle Assessment for Building in Design Phase

The building materials and structural form chosen in design phase not only affect the costs for construction, but also decide the costs for maintenance. However, the large amounts of maintenance costs are not easy to estimate. This article proposes a decision support model adopting life cycle assessment to assist the project owner and architect engineering for selecting an appropriate building structure type and materials is used in design phase via assessment the building’s total costs and CO2 emissions in the periods of build, maintenance, and disposal. The test results of cases show the model is feasible to help owners to decide a properly structural form.