Active House and LCA 

Forth year project 

2020 


Group project

The dwelling is located in Italy, 60 km from Milan, on a hillside in Lecco. The brief requested a family home constructed out of wood and with low overall environmental impact. 

We let the International Active House alliance guidelines on “good and sustainable buildings for the people as well as for the environment” steer us. Comfort, energy and climate were therefore leading parameters in the design work. The Active House Radar tool was used to evaluate and examine the qualities of the building. Velux Daylight Visualizer and Velux energy and Indoor climate Visualizer gave us knowledge about the energy performance, indoor environment, and daylight values of the building. When choosing materials for the construction of the building we studied Environmental Product Declarations, EPDs in search for suitable materials. Finally, when it was time to perform a life cycle analysis, we followed the ISO 14040 standard  regarding how to carry out an LCA.