This paper argues that: a) construction and operation of buildings is internationally a major cause of resource depletion and environmental pollution, b) traditional criteria of construction cost and energy use estimation are insufficient in view of a comprehensive environmental impact analysis of buildings, c LCA (life-cycle analysis), "eco-bookkeeping", and "eco-balance" approaches could be advantageously utilized in concurrence with more traditional engineering, cost estimation, and energy simulation to obtain a broader building design evaluation scheme, d) appropriate IT-based computational tools could facilitate environmentally informed, integrative decision- making throughout the building design, construction, operation, and decommissioning phases. Toward this end, this paper specifically introduces the prototypical realization of a computational tool for the integration of environmental impact modeling approaches within an object-oriented space-based CAD environment.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £75 +P&P)