Another Canberra House: Assessing the Historical Environmental Impact and Future Performance Possibilities of Existing Housing Stock Via Retrofit
Researcher
Iain Maxwell
Published
10 May 2021
Funding
Alastair Swayn Research Grant
This study identifies and environmentally profiles performance-based retrofit options for a typical Canberra ‘ex-Govie’ house against the criteria of energy efficiency, embodied energy and cost. The modelling shows that via simple enhancements the subject case study could not only meet, but easily exceed current building standards.
Further, by establishing a snapshot of the case study’s overall environmental impact, the study suggests that via retrofit, we are in a position capitalise on the embodied energy already invested in our homes and avoid knocking-them-down simply to make way for newer, larger and only marginally better performing homes. This illustrative study is supported by the development of a custom parametric modelling workflow that couples a CAD model to the real-time calculation of embodied energy allowing designers to interactively explore the implications of key design decisions and material specification.