Abstracts – Browse Results
Click on the titles below to expand the information about each abstract.
Viewing 29 results ...
Adedigba, A A (2022) Towards integrated sustainable solid waste management in Nigerian cities, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Aggiag, M A A (2005) The impact of client attributes on project success: a study of UK public construction projects, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Alhiddi, A M (2022) Building better together: the relationship between organisational culture and stakeholder critical success factors in construction projects, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Alnasseri, N (2015) Managing and controlling airport construction projects: a strategic management framework for operators, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Alqarni, M (2017) Developing a framework to improve the implementation of geospatial technology in the planning and delivery of infrastructure for residential areas in Saudi Arabia: a case study of Riyadh city, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Ayman Anwar, R (2022) Enhancing the integration of sustainability assessment within dynamic BIM enabled design projects, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Babatunde, S (2015) Developing public private partnership strategy for infrastructure delivery in Nigeria, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Bouazza, T (2019) The design of healthcare facilities: knowledge, methods and effectiveness, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Chen, X (2019) Developing a third party investment partnership framework to encourage low carbon building projects in China, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Chiponde, D B (2023) Learning from project-related failures in UK construction project based organisations: an examination of actor approaches, intentions and behaviours, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Doherty, M M (2022) Exploring the expansion of planners' engagement capabilities via accessing the data from a building information model for public consultation, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Gledson, B J (2017) Innovation diffusion within the UK construction sector: a study of the adoption of 4D BIM, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Faculty of Engineering and Envionment, Northumbria University.
Guo, S (2012) Pedagogical design in built environment distance education: A critical appraisal of students' learning strategies at postgraduate level, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Hope, A (2011) Greener homes for the future?: sustainability in PFI local authority social housing, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Li, J J (2023) A socio-technical framework to guide implementation and value realisation of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) in the construction sector, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Maduka, N S (2017) The role of knowledge management in assisting key stakeholders in making informed decisions in delivering sustainable retrofitted building projects, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Ojiako, U (2005) Project failures: a comparative study of information and communication technologies (ICT)and construction projects, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Onalaja, A A (2023) Improving costing in infrastructure projects to accommodate uncertainties, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Osborne, A N (2005) Social conflict in construction-related inter-organizational collectives: A comparative analysis and structural equation model, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Parry, A (2015) The improvement of delay analysis in the UK construction industry, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the t Environment, Northumbria University.
Pearson, J (2014) Effective employer engagement in full time construction-related foundation degrees, with particular emphasis on workplace learning, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Ponton, H (2021) Social interactions in construction design team meetings, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Rodrigo, V (2016) Development of an e-business capability maturity model for construction organisations, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Ruan, X (2007) Inter-organizational Knowledge Integration on Construction Projects: a Social Network Approach, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Sharma, M (2014) Architectural design quality in local authority private finance initiative sheltered housing projects: the development of an evaluation tool, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment , Northumbria University.
Vasenin, M (2022) A data-driven approach to green investments: environmental performance, mispricing, and momentum, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
Victoria, M (2017) Developing decision support models for early stage embodied carbon management in buildings, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.
- Type: Thesis
- Keywords: construction project; building design; estimating; decision support; design economics; efficiency; optimisation; simulation; validation; energy efficiency; heuristic; regression analysis
- ISBN/ISSN:
- URL: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/36182/
- Abstract:
The regulatory requirement for improving operational energy efficiency in buildings make the unregulated Embodied Carbon (EC) of buildings relatively significant. The reduction potential of EC is high during the early stages of design while estimating EC during the early stage is challenging due to the unavailability of detailed design information. Similar to building costs, EC is also influenced by morphological and quality parameters of buildings. However, there is little evidence in the literature concerning the relationship between EC and design variables. Further, the increasing significance of the dual currency of construction projects emphasises the need for optimisation of cost and carbon of building designs. However, it is not easy to attain the best combination of cost and carbon without the adequate knowledge and expertise supported by decision support tools. Therefore, the research reported in this thesis addresses this knowledge gap by firstly identifying the relationship of the dual currency (cost and carbon) with building morphological and quality related parameters (referred to as ‘design variables’). Later, developing Capital Cost (CC) and EC prediction models to assist in the dual currency estimating during the early stages of designs. The research findings are however, applicable to office buildings of low to medium-rise within a cradle-to-gate system boundary due to data constraints. The approach involves the development and validation of a heuristic model of cost and carbon, using the statistical simulation of relevant morphological and quality parameters of buildings achieved through regression analysis. Historical project data from primary and secondary sources were collected and processed to develop a complete dataset of 41 buildings. The model variables were identified from a literature review and verified using the hotspot analysis. Finishes and services indices were developed to transform the qualitative variables into quantitative variables for an effective model building. The ‘Finishes Quality Index’ was developed through a Delphi based expert forum, while the ‘Services Quality Index’ was developed using price books. The developed EC model had ‘Wall to Floor Ratio’ and ‘Number of Basements’ as predictor variables while ‘Circulation Space Ratio’ and ‘Building Height’ were the predictor variables of the CC Model. In contrary to the literature findings, finishes and services quality were found to be statistically insignificant in the study, suggesting that finishes and services quality does not hugely influence the prediction of the dual currency of concept designs. However, Services were identified as carbon and cost significant in most of the buildings, while Finishes were identified as carbon and cost significant in some of the buildings of the sample. The findings of the research have a number of contributions to theory and practice. The contribution to the design economics theory is the addition of the carbon dimension. The relationships analysed between EC and CC at building and element level add new insights to the EC literature. In addition, the methodology adopted for this thesis can form an exemplar for future research in different contexts. The key contribution to practice is the developed dual currency models (EC and CC models) which can be used to predict EC and CC of office buildings during early stages of design. Findings on carbon-critical elements (or carbon hotspots) of office buildings unveil building elements with high EC reduction potential that should be given the most attention during the design.
Wu, S (2010) The impact of collaborative working on construction project performance, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University.
Zhao, J (2022) Rethinking value for money in Public Private Partnerships: a critique, analysis and model for transport infrastructure projects, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , Northumbria University.