Potentials and Barriers for High Performance Buildings in Singapore

Abstract

The building sector is responsible for a great share of global energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Improvements in this area therefore bear the potential of having a strong positive impact on the world’s sustainable future. This thesis assesses the potentials and barriers of the 3for2 building design, a novel design concept for office buildings in tropical regions that presents a holistic approach to reaching higher energy, material and space use efficiency. It includes an air conditioning and ventilation system that uses passive chilled beams for sensible cooling and decentralized miniature air handling units for latent cooling and ventilation, ductwork integrated concrete slabs and a tilted, zig-zag shaped facade system. After attaining a technical proof of concept for the design in a first prototype implementation in 2015, this thesis assesses the economic and practical feasibility of the concept applied to a larger scale. Both a quantitative and a qualitative approach are used for this assessment. A life cycle evaluation over a 30 year period is performed to quantify the expected profitability of the 3for2 design compared to a conventional building design. The assessment of the costs reveals that the 3for2 design is approximately 2.0 times more expensive than the conventional design over the life cycle. Additional revenues due to more rentable space for the same gross floor area and higher rents for higher floor-to-ceiling heights, however, are expected to exceed the additional costs. The result of a Monte Carlo Simulation shows a 72% probability of increasing the investment’s profitability while reducing energy consumption by using the 3for2 concept. A SWOT-analysis of the design, assessing qualitative design characteristics, shows that the 3for2 design is superior to conventional designs in terms of space efficiency, operational reliability and energy consumption. Design challenges that are yet to be solved concern the accessibility of the decentralized ventilation units for maintenance and repair without disturbing the occupants, and the adaptability of the supply lines for ventilation and cooling in case of reconfiguration of the office space. This thesis presents a potential design alternative for each of these two issues, eliminating the current weaknesses while maintaining the underlying design intentions. Overall, this thesis shows that the 3for2 design is a promising new building design concept that tackles important issues in the heavily fragmented construction and building design sector and contributes to a development towards more sustainable buildings.