Resource Management in the built environment: Research

The construction, use, retrofit and deconstruction of buildings and infrastructure still cause high impacts on the environment. Particularly, main impacts are caused by material consumption, debris/remnants and emissions of CO2 and other gases to cover the energy demand especially for heating and domestic hot water. Furthermore, the conversion of open space to settlement and traffic areas has attracted notice and its reduction topic has become part of the German sustainability strategy. Altogether, the life cycle of buildings and infrastructure is still far from being sustainable.

Therefore, there are huge challenges in transforming the construction sector and related industries to a more sustainable development, that are also influenced by other fields, e.g. mobility and energy/heat consumption. 

Partners

Main research fields:

  • "Energie- und Wärmewende", Energy transition and renewable energies
  • Air pollution and climate protection strategies
  • Strategies of sustainable construction
  • Sustainable urban development, communal land use management strategies
  • Environmental life cycle assessment and eco-design for buildings, design-for-deconstruction
  • Modeling of building stock, digitization of de-/construction and its processes
  • Material flow models, recovery and recycling of construction and deconstruction waste (selective demolition)
  • Dismantling of nuclear power plants
  • Supply chains of (recycled) construction materials

Main methods (selection):

  • Techno-economic analysis
  • Modelling of the building stock and households, modelling of the actors (simulation & system dynamics)
  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Life Cycle Costing (LCC)
  • Project management and optimization
  • Capacity planning and location modeling (Optimization), logistics networks and optimization
  • Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
  • Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
  • Indicator models
  • Scenario analysis

Models in the research group

Completed projects
Title Start End

06/2022

12/2023

03/2022

12/2023

01/2022

12/2022

06/2019

12/2022

06/2019

12/2022

04/2019

06/2022

07/2020

03/2022

01/2016

12/2018

2015

2018

04/2015

04/2018

10/2017

12/2017

01/2015

12/2017

01/2014

03/2017

10/2013 09/2016

04/2013

06/2016

02/2012

05/2014

10/2013

07/2014

02/2013

10/2014

11/2010

01/2014

01/2010

12/2013

05/2012

03/2013

03/2010

03/2013

06/2010

12/2011

01/2011

12/2011

01/2007

11/2010

10/2009

08/2010

2009

2010

02/2010

07/2010

2005

2007

2006

2006

2004

2005

2003

2004

2003

2004

2001

2002

2000

2000

1994

1996