Designing For Less: Minimizing Embodied Emissions in Reinforced Concrete Residential Buildings

This research attempts to analyze the issue of embodied emissions in reinforced concrete residential buildings, especially in relation to the current climate crisis and housing crisis. This study begins with an extensive first-principles analysis and structural modeling study of 128 unique buildings. This first study establishes that building height does contribute to the embodied emissions of a building, but that slab thickness contributes almost twice as much. In fact, an analysis showed that a 25 mm reduction in slab thickness could save all of the embodied emissions of an additional eight storey height increase to the building. A later study conducted a nonlinear finite element analysis on the minimum slab

thickness that could be used under normal residential loading conditions. The results showed that slabs could be designed with a thickness of 120 mm with sufficient confidence. This offers the construction industry the potential to significantly reduce material use and embodied emissions. Overall, the research illustrates that the increase in greenhouse gases emitted from putting additional height to a building can be balanced with good design. This allows the construction of more housing units while conserving resources and reducing the negative impacts on the environment. The research encourages sustainable development of growing cities.

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