The Differences in how we build: Material use and intensity in small multi-units’ Buildings in Brazil, Canada, Greece, Nigeria and Switzerland

Building attribute, Carbon Emissions, Climate, CSBE news

Full article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344925004252?via%3DihubPre-print: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5247212 The growing global population is increasing the demand for housing at the same time as the ecological limits requires much more...

The climate limits of construction in over 1,000 cities

CSBE news, Urban sustainability

Pre-print (pre–peer review) version of the manuscript, available online: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5251970Rapid growth of urban construction threatens global climate targets. Cities have a lot of influence over what gets built and the associated greenhouse gas (GHG)...

Leveraging building permit data for large-scale embodied carbon and circularity assessment of residential building construction

CSBE news, Embodied GHG, Urban sustainability

Pre-print: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5248436 Most research on the environmental impact of buildings focuses on new construction, but growing interest in the circular economy has shown that renovating existing buildings can also be a valuable...

2025 Student Design Competition: Small housing for sustainability

CSBE news

Canada is simultaneously facing two disruptive 21st Century challenges 1) in light of a growing population, there is an increasing need for housing and supportive infrastructure and 2) the need to reduce consumption to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in line...

Just one more storey? The embodied greenhouse gas impacts of adding height, slab thickness, building code and design tranches

Building form, CSBE news, Urban form

Pre-print (pre–peer review) version of the manuscript, available online as open access: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6001700/v1 Societies across the globe are simultaneously trying to build significantly more housing to meet the needs of a growing...

Image-based prediction of residential building attributes with deep learning

Building attribute, Building form, CSBE news, Machine learning, Urban sustainability

This study estimates building attributes—floor area and age—using image-based machine learning. Building age and floor area are key inputs to the studies of urban metabolism, material stocks and flows, and embodied greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the built environment....

Embodied GHG Symposium

CSBE news

On March 13th 2024, over 200 delegates gathered at the University of Toronto to discuss embodied GHG, total GHG budgets for the architecture, engineering and construction sector and pathways to build more with less. The symposium focused on: How can Canada meet the...

2024 Student Design Competition: Small housing for sustainability

CSBE news

Canada is simultaneously facing two disruptive 21st Century challenges 1) in light of a growing population, there is an increasing need for housing and supportive infrastructure and 2) the need to reduce consumption to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in...

Embodied GHG of missing middle

Building form, CSBE news, Urban form

Residential building form and strategies for more efficient housing In this paper, we quantify the impact of residential form on embodied emissions. Specifically, we look at the reduction potential of missing middle (low-rise multi-unit) housing, compare missing...

Future Infrastructure Growth Model

Building form, CSBE news, GHG budgeting, Optimization, Structural design, Urban form

Rising social and economic pressures to build more housing and infrastructure are in tension with the need to rapidly reduce GHG emissions from resource extraction and use. This paper presents the Future Infrastructure Growth (FIG) model: an open data, bottom-up,...