ABSTRACT
Globalization of the building process, as this book proposes, appears at first glance to be at cross purposes with sustainability. Using Life Cycle Assessment to establish objective and verifiable green metrics, this chapter places the environmental impacts of long-distance transportation in a broader context. Aspects of sustainability that are addressed include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, embodied energy, transportation energy, and operating energy; the cradle-to-grave and cradle-to-cradle life cycles; and neighborhood disruption during construction. Of the greatest importance, however, is the need for sensible land use policies that encourage dense urban development and that discourage sprawl, policies for which intermodal modular architecture can be an effective tool. This leads to Principle #9: Location Efficiency Matters. Local Sourcing Does Not.
Other concepts discussed include “embodied intelligence”, which makes the case for volumetric modular over flat pack construction; “design for disassembly”, the inherent property of buildings constructed with VUCs to be deconstructed and for the same VUCs to be reused; and the “real-time design dashboard”, in which environmental data and other metrics are updated in real time as the design progresses.
