case study sustainable construction

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What is Sustainable Construction?

By Andrew Biro July 17, 2023

Shildan Group worked with Massey, Fabbrica, Breakthrough Properties, Tishman Speyer, Bellco Capital JV, Payette, Consigli Construction Co., and Front on 105 W. First St. in Boston.

Story at a glance:

• Sustainable construction projects have a low environmental impact and prioritize the use of renewable building materials.
• On average, completed sustainable construction projects have lower operating costs and are more energy-efficient than traditional buildings.
• Common sustainable construction techniques include passive design strategies, life cycle assessments, water conservation, xeriscaping, and more.

Sustainable construction aims to drastically reduce a building’s energy consumption and environmental impact throughout all phases of the construction process. In practice this is achieved by carefully considering site factors, implementing passive design strategies, installing energy-efficient appliances, utilizing sustainable materials, and managing waste effectively.

This in-depth look at sustainable construction explores the importance behind the sustainable design philosophy, its environmental, economic, and social benefits, guiding principles, methods of implementation, and a few practical case studies of sustainable construction in the field.

History of Sustainable Construction

The 5 MLK Boulevard project has been certified for LEED Gold, Salmon Safe, and is the first mixed-use building in the US with a Fitwel certification, according to GREC Architects. Photo by Quanta Collectiv

The basics defining sustainable construction have been around for thousands of years, but sustainable construction is a relatively modern innovation when it comes to being a staunch architectural concept and design philosophy.

The energy crises of the 1970s—which stemmed from oil shortages following the Iraq War—are cited as the impetus behind modern sustainable construction. At the time world leaders were being forced to rethink their countries’ dependency on oil, leading to an increased interest in renewable energy.

Towards the end of the 1980s the idea of sustainable construction was brought back into the spotlight when architect Bob Berkebile petitioned the AIA to adopt more stringent environmentally-conscious measures.

In the early 2000s concerns regarding global warming and greenhouse gas emissions resulted in renewed attempts at transitioning buildings over to clean energy and reducing the amount of carbon produced during the construction and operation of built structures—sentiments that have carried over into our contemporary world.

The Importance of Sustainable Construction

HGA designed the Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota to be zero energy. Photo by Pete Sieger

The built environment produces approximately 40% of the world’s carbon emissions, while the construction industry as a whole is responsible for nearly 50% of global resource extraction and produces 30% of the world’s waste, according to a 2019 report issued by the International Energy Agency. 

Increased carbon emissions and the destruction of natural resources are two of the most prominent factors contributing to anthropogenic climate change. Because sustainable construction projects seek to achieve low- or no-carbon status and prioritize ethical resource harvesting, they are considered crucial in mitigating the most harmful effects of changing climatic patterns.

Benefits of Sustainable Construction

CraneBoard Solid Core Insulated Siding has added insulation to reduce energy consumption and its overall carbon footprint. Photo courtesy of Royal Building Products

Predictably, the most important benefits of sustainable construction have to do with the reduced environmental impact of green building projects compared to their conventional counterparts. These aren’t, however, the only advantages, as sustainable construction also boasts a number of economic and social benefits as well.

Environmental Benefits

To start, let’s take a look at a few of the more obvious benefits of sustainable construction—that is to say, the environmental benefits.

Reduced Carbon Footprint

Compared to traditional construction projects, sustainable buildings have a much lower carbon footprint. This is achieved in large part through the implementation of passive design strategies that help naturally regulate temperature, the installation of energy-efficient appliances, and the use of building materials with low embodied carbon.

Conservation of Resources

Whenever possible, sustainable construction projects seek to avoid utilizing our world’s dwindling non-renewable resources by replacing them with ethically sourced renewable alternatives. In the larger sense, however, sustainable construction attempts to conserve resources—be they renewable or non-renewable—by using fewer resources in the first place.

Reduced Waste

Sustainable construction projects often practice source reduction and incorporate recycled or salvaged materials from other buildings, thereby reducing the amount of demolition waste sent off to landfills. Energy-saving features help reduce energy waste and water conservation measures—such as greywater recycling systems—aid in decreasing wastewater production.

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health

Lastly, sustainable construction promotes and encourages the stewardship of biodiverse ecosystems through the inclusion of native plant species. Green roofs and living walls seeded with indigenous plants can help provide sanctuaries for crucial insects like bees and other pollinators, whereas xeriscaping—that is, the practice of planting native plants on site—can help recreate and reinvigorate damaged ecosystems.

Economic Benefits

Sustainable construction projects also have their fair share of economic benefits, three of which are outlined below.

Lower Operating Costs

Becase sustainable building projects are typically designed with energy efficiency in mind, they tend to have significantly lower operating costs than traditionally designed buildings. This is especially true if the finished project incorporates some form of on-site renewable energy generation.

Higher Property Values

As a general rule, real estate ventures that boast sustainable features or certifications have higher property values than those without. Sustainable buildings sell for an average of 2.7% higher than their non-sustainable counterparts—and they typically sell faster, too, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. 

Social and Health Benefits

Sustainable construction projects offer a few social and health benefits, too including:

Improved Occupant Health and Comfort

Generally speaking sustainably designed buildings produce fewer volatile organic compounds (VOCs) than traditional construction projects, thereby reducing the likelihood of occupants developing certain respiratory illnesses and cancers over time.

Sustainable buildings are typically more comfortable than their non-sustainable counterparts due to the fact that they regulate interior temperatures better and emphasize proper ventilation.

Community Benefits

When implemented correctly sustainable construction projects have a beneficial impact on the communities they’re built in. Ideally these projects help improve air quality by producing fewer carbon emissions, reduce soil and water pollution by limiting the amount of toxic materials and waste produced throughout the building’s life cycle, and foster a greater connection between humans and nature through the inclusion of green spaces.

Education and Awareness

As sustainable construction projects become more commonplace, it becomes easier to spread awareness and educate people on why sustainable design is crucial in mitigating the negative effects of  climate change . As awareness grows it becomes easier to secure funding for future construction projects and can even make it easier to approve sustainable construction projects in the first place.

Core Principles of Sustainable Construction

The Candela villa rises up in a pyramidal formation to minimize the jungle footprint and follow strict building and construction practices. The project also follows set limits for the distance of freighted materials. Water treatment facilities and strict waste management protocols are also in place. Photo by César Bejar

Sustainable design manifests in many ways; there is no one standardized approach to building green structures. That being said, these are a few core principles that underlay the basic philosophy of sustainable construction, as outlined below.

Energy Efficiency

First and foremost, sustainable construction strives for energy efficiency wherever possible, as this helps to reduce a building’s overall carbon footprint, lowers operating costs, and helps decrease air pollution. Energy efficiency is often realized in the form of low-energy appliances and systems but also through the application of passive design strategies that reduce the need for mechanical heating, cooling, ventilation, etc. in the first place.

Water Efficiency

Similarly, sustainable architectural projects are often designed to minimize water usage and wastewater production. This is achieved in part by installing water-efficient taps and fixtures but often includes additional measures like rainwater collection, greywater recycling, blackwater treatment, and so on.

Use of Sustainable Resources and Materials

Tantimber is great for cladding, decking, flooring, beams, and more. Photo courtesy of G Wood Products

Predictably, sustainable construction projects also emphasize the use of sustainable resources and materials wherever possible. Ethically sourced renewable resources (timber, bamboo, stone, etc.) with low embodied carbon are favored over materials like concrete and steel. In situations where the use of concrete is necessary, sustainable construction projects typically use a green or low-carbon variety that incorporates construction waste byproducts like fly-ash.

Recycled and reclaimed materials—particularly lumber and steel from demolished structures—are also used in sustainable building design whenever possible to mitigate waste production and curtail further resource extraction.

Ensuring Healthy Living Conditions

As previously mentioned, a healthy indoor environment is another integral component of sustainable construction projects, especially when it comes to the occupant’s exposure to toxic chemicals. A healthy indoor space goes hand-in-hand with the use of eco-friendly materials, which typically produce lower levels of VOCs than traditional building materials.

Waste Reduction and Management

Finally, sustainable construction projects seek to reduce waste wherever possible and develop efficient management plans for the waste that is produced. This helps keep construction waste out of landfills, encourages recycling, and reduces the likelihood of soil and water pollution.

Techniques and Methods for Sustainable Construction

Now that we’ve explored the key principles of sustainable construction, let’s take a look at the techniques and methods used to implement them.

Green Building Certifications

Gensler designed the Department of Homeland Security offices in Omaha—a design/build with Harwood Development that achieved LEED Gold. Photo courtesy of Kessler

When it comes to designing for sustainability, green building certification programs—such as LEED in the United States and BREEAM in Europe—can help provide a guiding framework.

LEED, for example, has specific guidelines for various types of construction projects (healthcare, data centers, school, warehouses, etc.) and offers a variety of credits that projects can earn based on certain sustainability features.

In order for a project to become LEED certified, it must earn at least 40 credits.

Passive Design

One of the most important techniques used in sustainable construction is that of passive design . Passive design strategies are heavily informed by a project site’s immediate climatic and geographic conditions and help keep a building’s interior comfortable without excessive use of mechanical systems.

The Thunderbird Global Headquarters , designed by Jones Studio and Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners, for example, makes use of a high-efficiency building envelope, solar shading, trees, and windows that allow sunlight while blocking solar heat to passively regulate temperatures in the Arizona desert.

In an effort to make the structure’s outdoor spaces more comfortable, Thunderbird features rain gardens and strategically placed shades to passively cool select spaces. “Those rain gardens are creating cooler spaces underneath deeply shaded, outdoor patio spaces,” Shawn Swisher, an architect at Jones Studio, previously told gb&d .

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

A life cycle assessment (LCA) is a scientific tool used by architects to determine a building’s environmental impact and energy use throughout all stages of its life cycle, including the procurement of building materials, construction, operation, and eventual demolition.

This is an invaluable tool when designing sustainable construction projects that aim to achieve carbon-neutral or net-zero carbon status and conducting a LCA is crucial to obtaining LEED or BREEAM certification.

Energy Techniques

Solar arrays and other alternative energy systems helped the Cope Environmental Center achieve net positive energy usage, producing more energy than it consumes. Photo courtesy of HEAPY

Generally speaking sustainable architectural projects seek to be as energy-efficient as possible, both during the initial construction phase and throughout the completed project’s operational lifespan.

Renewable Energy Sources

While not necessarily a requirement for sustainable construction, renewable energy sources are typically integrated into a project’s design from the very beginning. Of these renewable energies, solar is the most popular, but geothermal, wind, and hydropower are also viable alternatives.

Sustainable construction projects also look to source building materials from companies who utilize renewable energy to manufacture their products, as this helps reduce a building’s overall carbon footprint.

Energy-Efficient Appliances and Systems

E nergy-efficient appliances and systems play an important role in sustainable construction projects. In our contemporary world energy-efficient alternatives exist for just about any major appliance imaginable, from refrigerators and dishwashers to washing machines and light fixtures.

In the US any appliance with an ENERGY STAR label is considered energy-efficient according to standards set by the US Department of Energy and the EPA.

Water and Waste Management Techniques

Sustainable construction projects also seek to manage water use and waste as efficiently as possible.

Water Conservation

The most sustainable building projects reduce their water consumption through a variety of techniques. Water-efficient fixtures and plumbing systems are the simplest methods, but many projects take water conservation to the next level by installing rainwater catchment systems—which can be used to supply water to irrigation lines or appliances—and on-site greywater recycling systems.

Waste Management

In order to effectively manage the waste that is produced throughout a building’s life-cycle, sustainable construction projects typically practice source reduction, or the practice of eliminating waste before it’s even created. This is achieved through effective planning, modeling, and ethical resource procurement.

Of course, even the most sustainable construction projects will still produce waste, which is why green building design focuses heavily on using natural, renewable materials that can either be recycled or composted after reaching the end of their operational lifespan.

Land and Ecosystem Conservation Techniques

South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verde Peninsula, California. Photo courtesy of Greenscreen

Finally, sustainable construction projects employ a number of strategies to promote land and ecosystem conservation. This helps reduce the structure’s impact on the local flora and fauna to ensure a healthy, functioning ecological community.

Site Selection and Development

In order to make the most efficient use of available land and lessen a project’s overall environmental impact, architects must conduct a thorough site assessment. This gives better insight into how to design in collaboration with existing ecological features rather than against them, reducing the severity of any habitat disruption the completed structure may cause.

Sustainable construction projects also practice ecosystem conservation by limiting the size of development sites. This is often achieved by building upwards or by adapting existing buildings rather than clearing a new site.

Landscaping with Native and Drought-Resistant Plants

Landscape design creates a comfortable public space in the arid downtown of Phoenix at the Thunderbird Global Headquarters , designed by Jones Studio and Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners. Photo by Inessa Binenbaum

In order to preserve a site’s natural biodiversity, sustainable construction projects utilize indigenous plant species wherever possible in landscaping. In most cases native species form deeper, stronger root networks than the traditional grasses used in landscaping—two characteristics that help mitigate topsoil erosion and promote a healthy soil microbiome.

Similarly, drought-resistant plants are often employed in regions that receive little rainfall. This helps reduce water usage and encourages sustainable water conservation practices.

Common Sustainable Construction Materials

As green architecture becomes more and more popular—and necessary—the amount of sustainable construction materials continues to grow. Some of the most common materials include:

The Green School in Bali, sometimes referred to as the bamboo school, is a private, international school that teaches pre-K through high school. The campus highlights the natural environment and teaches sustainable practices. Photo by Tommaso Riva

Unlike timber, bamboo has an extremely quick regeneration rate. Bamboo culms may be harvested once every five to seven years, as opposed to the 20 years required for hardwoods and softwoods.

Bamboo also absorbs twice as much carbon, requires less water, and requires no fertilizer to grow. Traditionally, whole, halved, or split bamboo poles have been used in construction, but bamboo can also be shredded into fibrous strands and woven back together to form strong planks for flooring or panels.

Straw Bales

In the United States—and particularly in the Midwest—straw bales have been used in construction since the late 1800s in one of two ways. In most cases straw bales are stacked atop one another between a wooden framework and utilized as insulation, as compacted straw has a very high R-value.

Similarly, straw bales can be used to form the walls of a house themselves, in which case they act as both insulation and structural framework. In these instances the bales are covered with a layer of plaster after they are stacked to protect them from the elements.

Straw—which is typically either dried oats, wheat, rice, or rye—is a natural material. It sequesters carbon and grows rapidly, having a low environmental impact.

Lustrous flooring made largely of cork creates a cozy feeling. The cork is not only a more sustainable option; it is a natural sound insulator. Photo by Ivo Tavares Studio

Unlike wood or bamboo, cork does not require that the entire plant be harvested—rather, only the bark of cork oak trees is used to create building materials. When collected sustainably cork oak bark can be harvested without harming the tree and using very little energy. Once harvested cork bark sufficiently regrows within a nine-year timespan, meaning a single cork tree can be harvested multiple times throughout its natural life cycle.

After it is collected cork bark is shredded, compressed into sheets, and baked in a kiln to form planks or sheets—of which are then used to create flooring or insulation panels.

As a naturally renewable resource—one that sequesters carbon throughout its growth cycle—wood is one of the most common environmentally friendly building materials used in sustainable construction.

Not all wood, however, is considered to be sustainable, as certain forestry practices—particularly those used to harvest exotic hardwoods—can actually have an extremely detrimental impact on the local ecosystem. To ensure the wood you’re using is sustainable and ethically harvested, verify that it has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Recycled Steel

Despite the fact that steel production is responsible for a not-insignificant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, existing steel is still considered to be sustainable because it can be recycle almost infinitely. Depending on the project recycled steel may be used as is or melted down and reformed into some other building component—the latter of which still produces fewer emissions than manufacturing new steel altogether.

Reclaimed Wood or Brick

Raw and unfinished authentic reclaimed barn wood planks. Photo courtesy of Woodstock Architectural Products

Similar to recycled steel, reclaimed wood and bricks are sustainable in that they prevent construction waste and do not require further emissions be produced before they can be used.

On average reclaimed wood is usually stronger than fresh lumber and is less resistant to warping due to having a lower moisture content. Reclaimed bricks, on the other hand, can be used as is, chipped for landscape use, or even crushed to form aggregate for new bricks.

Recycled Plastic

It’s estimated that, on average, the US produces roughly 40 million tons of plastic waste each year. Approximately 85% of that waste ends up in landfills, where it then sits for years without breaking down. Fortunately a large portion of that plastic can be recycled and used for construction purposes: It can be formed into shingles, mixed into concrete, incorporated into roads in place of asphalt, molded into bricks or tiles, and even used to make recycled-fiber carpets.

Rammed Earth

Created by gradually pouring and tamping down layers of a damp aggregate mixture (usually sand, silt, gravel, clay, and dirt) in between wooden panels or in a flooring mold, rammed earth is an incredibly durable material with a high thermal mass, high compression strength, and an extremely long lifespan.

Due to its widespread availability, ease of procurement, and inherent renewability/recyclability, rammed earth is one of the most sustainable building materials there is.

As a more sustainable alternative to traditional concrete, hempcrete is created by mixing hemp with lime, pozzolans, or sand. Like any plant, hemp absorbs carbon throughout its natural growth cycle and then continues to store said carbon once it has been processed into hempcrete, making it an extremely environmentally-friendly product. Unlike concrete, hempcrete is fairly lightweight and has high thermal insulation capabilities, making it an excellent material for constructing non-load-bearing walls.

Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT)

A type of engineered wood , CLT is formed by gluing together at least three layers of solid-sawn lumber and is often used as an alternative to concrete.

Due to the perpendicular orientation of the layers, CLT has improved structural rigidity compared to traditional timber and is similar in strength to reinforced concrete despite weighing far less. As long as the wood used to create CLT panels is sourced from ethically-managed forests—such as those certified by the FSC—it is considered to be a sustainable material.

Insulating Concrete Forms (ICFs)

In 2016 the ICFMA commissioned an independent scientific study comparing a wood-framed cavity wall to a standard six-inch core ICF wall. Photo courtesy of IFCMA

Quick to manufacture, durable and easy to install, insulated concrete forms are manufactured by pouring concrete into insulated polystyrene foam blocks. After the concrete cures the polystyrene blocks are left in place instead of removed—ultimately, this gives the wall improved insulating properties compared to traditional timber-frame walls.

ICFs are incredibly strong are expected to last over 100 years, provided they are properly maintained—they also have no trouble withstanding strong winds, which makes them extremely useful in areas where tornadoes or hurricanes are common.

Low-E Windows

According to the Department of Energy , the average building loses 25 to 30% of the energy it utilizes through poorly installed, leaky, or just plain inefficient windows. To combat this low-energy windows may be installed.

These windows typically feature special glazes or coatings to help block solar heat from entering while still allowing natural light to filter through.

Innovative Technologies in Sustainable Construction

Emerging technologies like integrated cloud monitoring, 3D printing, and preconstruction software make achieving sustainable construction goals easier. Photo courtesy of Sage

As the sustainable construction sector continues to grow, emerging technologies like 3D printing, preconstruction software, and integrated cloud solutions can aid architects and designers throughout every phase of the building process.

3D printing, for example, can help reduce material waste by creating extremely precise building components, either off- or on-site. Preconstruction software, on the other hand, gives architects the ability to develop 3D building models that provide accurate estimates of waste production, energy use, and water consumption.

Integrated cloud technologies—such as those offered by Sage —provide an easy way to manage project data in one place, reducing the possibility of errors or miscommunication. Other integrated cloud solutions can even use automated systems to track a project’s energy consumption (amongst other metrics) in real time, making it easier to adjust conditions to meet sustainability goals.

“Advances in preconstruction, cloud, and emerging technologies have opened up a new world of possibilities when it comes to increasing efficiencies and reducing project waste and rework,” Dustin Stephens , vice president of Sage’s construction and real estate practice, previously wrote for gb&dPRO . “As technology continues to advance we will see even more opportunities to optimize the project lifecycle and further minimize construction’s environmental impact.”

Case Studies and Examples of Successful Sustainable Construction

Now that we’ve familiarized ourselves with the basics of sustainable construction, let’s take a look at a few of the most inspiring examples.

Rain Harvest Home

Outside the Rain Harvest Home. Photo by Jaime Navarro

The Rain Harvest Home is an inspiring example of sustainable construction in action. Located in Temascaltepec, Mexico, this beautiful house was designed by Robert Hutchison Architecture (RHA) and Javier Sanchez Arquitectos (JSA).

Rather than build with masonry or concrete, RHA and JSA elected to build the entire Rain Harvest Home out of sustainably sourced wood. “This choice was made with the intention of building as light on the ground as possible and to reduce the carbon footprint of the project,” Robert Hutchison, founder and lead architect of RHA, previously told gb&d .

As the name implies, the three-structure Rain Harvest Home features a gravity fed rainwater-catchment and treatment system that supplies the main residence, studio, and bathhouse with water. A green roof further serves to absorb rainwater and helps regulate interior temperatures.

Westwood Hills Nature Center

Designed by HGA, the Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota factors sustainability into every element of its design.

“The building is oriented in plan to take advantage of solar angles and prevailing winds; its roof form opens the building up to views and maximizes daylight to reduce energy use,” Glenn Waguespack, senior project designer at HGA, previously told gb&d . “From a systems standpoint, the biggest contributor to energy reduction is the geothermal wellfield, which uses the earth as a heat source for our radiant and forced air systems; heating loads are dominant in a cold climate like ours.”

In order to reduce the building’s environmental impact even further, HGA planned from the very beginning to make the Westwood Hills Nature Center a zero-energy facility—that is, a building that generates as much power as it uses annually.

Key Challenges and Barriers in Sustainable Construction

Of course, sustainable construction isn’t without its challenges. Some of the most common barriers include:

• Higher upfront costs . Due to limited availability of industry professionals and high competition for sustainable materials, most sustainable construction projects have higher upfront costs than their non-sustainable counterparts.
• Zoning limitations . Use-based zoning regulations can hinder the development of mixed- or multi-use sustainable construction projects.
• Lack of expertise . Despite the growing popularity of sustainable construction, few architects, builders, and contractors have experience with its design principles.
• Lack of awareness and understanding . Within the construction sector as a whole, there is very little awareness as to the benefits of sustainable construction—and to make matters worse, there is very little incentive to learn about them.
• Building codes and regulations . As it stands, there exist very few building codes and regulations for sustainable construction projects, which can make the planning and permit processes difficult.

Role of Government and Policy in Sustainable Construction

There are a few ways in which the government and policymakers can encourage the widespread adoption of sustainable construction practices, such as providing financial incentives, revising national design standards, and requiring that all new construction projects meet LEED (or an equivalent organization’s) standards.

The European Union, for example, is requiring that all public buildings be renovated for improved energy efficiency in order to meet Europe’s long-term net-zero carbon goals. India and the United States, amongst other countries, currently offer tax incentives for buildings that meet LEED certification requirements. The US also provides financial assistance in the form of loans and grants for certain projects that seek to implement renewable energy sources.

Sustainable Construction and the Future of Urban Planning

Historically urban planning has been at odds with sustainability, largely due to cities being designed around automobiles and single-use zoning standards. Sustainable urban planning requires that cities and towns do the following:

• Prioritize pedestrian infrastructure . In order to reduce carbon emissions and urban air pollution, new development projects must be designed with walkability in mind.
• Offer multiple public transit options . Similarly, interconnected public transit networks reduce dependency on private vehicles and drastically reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
• Preserve green spaces . Green spaces like parks, hiking trails, and the like help regulate temperature, absorb carbon, and improve people’s mental health.
• Encourage mixed-use projects . Making it easier to approve and construct mixed-use buildings helps limit urban sprawl and makes adaptive reuse projects more feasible.
• Transition to renewable energy . By requiring that new development projects implement renewable energy, urban centers can reduce their carbon emissions and conserve resources.
• Incentivize energy efficiency . Cities and towns can further encourage sustainable construction practices by incentivizing energy efficiency and providing financial assistance for energy-efficient upgrades to existing buildings.

The Road Ahead for Sustainable Construction

Due to an increased understanding of how the built environment contributes to anthropogenic climate change, the adoption of sustainable construction practices has become increasingly necessary. Governed by five key principles—energy efficiency, water efficiency, use of sustainable materials, healthy living conditions, and waste management—sustainable construction offers a variety of environmental, economic, and social benefits.

Moving forward world governments, policymakers, and urban planners have an important role to play in removing the barriers around sustainable construction so that green building projects are easier to realize on a large scale. Emerging technological innovations such as preconstruction software and cloud data management can also help to simplify the sustainable construction process.

All in all, sustainable construction is an important component in mitigating the worst effects of climate change and helps create a healthier world both for ourselves and future generations.

is a freelance journalist based in the Raleigh area. They specialize in writing articles on sustainable design, architecture, and the long-term effects of our built environment.

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This library of case studies serve as inspiration from the UKGBC Membership, demonstrating best case examples of the sustainable built environment. These examples represent a range of asset types, locations and building stages. Some are trail blazing in carbon emission reduction, others are leading in social value, some are forging new ground across all of our impact areas.

Please note, only UKGBC Members are profiled in our case study library.

Solutions and Innovation

Case Study Blogs

Circular development and net zero construction: a commercial office in the heart of edinburgh.

Net Zero Carbon, a huge retrofit and Salix funding: An Introduction to the Wolfson College Decarbonisation Process 

Addressing fuel poverty with data-driven retrofits

3 Sustainable building case studies

Published: 1 February 2006

• Publication
• Sustainability

Five detailed case studies in Section 3.4 cover the following types of buildings:

3.1 Introduction

• community library
• high school
• sub-district hospital

While the case studies concentrate on individual buildings, their analysis has been supported by the additional review of up to four other projects for each building type, where possible. More than 20 non-residential buildings in New Zealand have now adopted sustainable strategies to a lesser or greater extent.

3.2 Specific findings

It is difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the costs of sustainable buildings, as their nature and extent varies widely. It can also be difficult to differentiate between sustainable design and architectural features. Table 1 shows the indicative cost/benefits for the case study buildings. Some of the case study buildings have proved cheaper, others cost-neutral, and some more expensive. In forming our view on the value case for sustainable building we have therefore supplemented the case study data with overseas experience, where the extent and market for sustainable buildings is more developed.

Table 1: Indicative cost/benefit summary for case study ecologically sustainable development (ESD) buildings

1. Discount rate of 8.5%

2. Energy and water costs assumed to increase at 3% above inflation.

3. Three-year pre-design and construction period, with 20-year consideration period.

4. Costs have been normalised to 2005.

5. The library case study includes a number of materials features which add significantly to the sustainability of the building but which do not have a direct payback to the building owner. These include certified timber, alternative to CCA and LOSP timber treatment, recycled wool acoustic insulation, ceiling tiles with 70% recycled content, plant systems endorsed under the environmental choice labelling scheme, modular carpets with 100% recycled face fibre, cement with 70% fly ash content, crushed demolition materials as hardcore, alternatives to PVC and on-site waste management. These measures were generally included within a 1% premium on top of the construction cost.

6. Alternative on-site stormwater management systems such as swales and rain gardens can generally be achieved for little or no cost premium provided the budget includes a reasonable allowance for landscaping. The hospital case study included a stormwater retention pond which attracted a relatively significant cost premium.

We conclude that the purely sustainable features of a building add around 2-6% to the cost, compared with a conventional building. As discussed elsewhere in this report, operating cost savings pay this back many times over during the life of the building. This compares to international data as follows:

• Australia 2-4%
• United Kingdom 10%
• United States 0.7-6.5%

Building type affects the economics

The range of buildings illustrates that sustainable building strategies can be applied to any building type. The value case will, however, apply more to high intensity / long duration activities such as hospitals, than to low intensity / short duration activities such as schools. The nature of the building use may, however, make it harder to adopt certain sustainable strategies. Natural ventilation may have only limited application in hospitals, for instance, due to requirements for infection control, but can be widely adopted in other buildings such as schools. So although sustainable strategies can be applied to any building, their extent and value case differ significantly and require specific consideration.

Energy and water savings

The New Zealand case study buildings have all reduced energy and water usage (where conservation strategies have been implemented) compared to other buildings of the same type. However, predictions of energy used for the case study buildings have been generally optimistic compared to real data, generally because of extended hours of operation, inappropriate use of the building (particularly in the first year of operation), and factors that were not anticipated or interpreted correctly at the design stage.

Buildings enjoyed by users

The individual New Zealand case study buildings are almost all well liked by their users, as confirmed by both formal post-occupancy evaluations and anecdotal response. The sample is small and relates more to the better buildings, but New Zealand sustainable buildings generally have positive user satisfaction and potential benefits in terms of productivity, and are within the upper 5% of buildings surveyed by the Probe Study methodology (Leaman and Bordass, 2001). This may be largely due to the nature of the projects, with motivated clients and users, the relative simplicity / clarity of design intent of the sustainable strategies, and the interest, follow up and fine tuning of performance post-occupancy.

Time and budget constraints lead to lost opportunities

A number of the case study buildings faced an initial scepticism to adopting sustainable building strategies due to unfamiliarity, concerns about cost and performance and a lack of completed projects in the New Zealand context. In many instances, sustainable features were regarded as optional and were compromised - particularly when budgets were under pressure - even if they were not the cause of the situation. Sustainable features can be seen as soft targets for cost cutting - particularly for quantity surveyors and project managers.

Sustainable buildings prove to be reliable

The design and technologies employed in the case study buildings have generally proved reliable and fit for purpose. Any issues have been resolved during the first year of operation, as is normally the case for a conventional building. Some issues of summertime overheating in naturally ventilated buildings in the hotter and more humid Auckland environment could have been better addressed at the design stage - normally by a reduction in glass area or by better shading.

Award winning

Most of the case study buildings are of a high architectural quality, as shown by the architectural awards they have received. This has undoubtedly added to the experience for all involved - client, design team and users. It has also added to the general user satisfaction of some of the case study buildings subject to post-occupancy evaluation. Combining sustainability and architectural excellence requires a much more involved, and therefore expensive, design process. Some of the perceived extra costs of sustainable buildings may be due to this combination.

Generally, the completed case study buildings may be considered state-of-the-art rather than leading edge, at least in an international context, and are therefore not highly innovative. The challenge has been to reinterpret some international approaches in terms of availability of materials and equipment within the constraints of the New Zealand construction market and cost envelope. Clients and design teams have been challenged to think harder and leaner to change the normal construction process and, in doing so, have unintentionally added to the sustainability of the overall solution in comparison to overseas buildings.

Commitment from clients

In all the case study buildings, clients have accepted the sustainable path. In hindsight, some would have gone further. The increased capital cost premium paid by some has quickly looked like a sound, far-sighted investment as energy costs have increased beyond expectation over the past 10 years. The statement is often made - "I wish we had done more".

3.3 Conclusions

Some general conclusions can be drawn from the case study buildings:

• The difference in the initial capital cost of the case study buildings compared to conventional good quality buildings varies quite widely (from 15% less to 11.5% more), with sustainable features initially costing an average of 2-6% more.
• Energy costs for the case study buildings are 35-50% of those for similar conventional buildings.
• The sample is small and relates to perhaps the better quality buildings, but it can be concluded that New Zealand's sustainable buildings generally have positive user satisfaction and potential benefits in terms of productivity. They are within the upper 5% of buildings surveyed by the Probe Study methodology.
• The range of case study buildings illustrates that sustainable building strategies can be applied to any building type.
• The range of sustainable strategies being adopted is growing and has moved from conscious attempts to save energy to increasingly holistic approaches, which address not just energy but a wider range of environmental issues including water use, materials selection and waste management.
• The design and technologies employed in the case study buildings have proved generally reliable and fit for purpose.
• Many of the sustainable buildings are award winning and are of a high architectural standard. However, this has sometimes led to the costs of the sustainable aspects of the building appearing higher than they actually were.
• Sustainable design is most successful when experienced consultants are brought in at an early stage in the initial design brief and the procurement process.

Sustainable buildings represent a viable and increasingly attractive alternative to conventional buildings with benefits in terms of operating costs, user satisfaction, future proofing and environmental protection.

3.4 The case studies

University - Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Building

Community library - South Christchurch Library and Service Centre

High school - Albany Junior High School

Sub-district hospital - Waitakere Hospital

Office - CentrePort / Statistics New Zealand Building, Wellington

See more on...

February 2006

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• Published: 12 October 2023

Framework for sustainable building design and construction using off-cut wood

• Boyuan Yu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6782-3509 1 ,
• Jianing Luo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5684-0779 2 ,
• Yi Shi   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0004-5796-4529 2 ,
• Mingming Zhao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9940-490X 1 ,
• Adam Fingrut   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8898-8863 1 &
• Lei Zhang   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0004-5337-2163 3  

npj Materials Sustainability volume  1 , Article number:  2 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Irregularly shaped wood created as waste from construction is considered challenging to reuse because of its complicated geometry and a lack of well-defined design methods. Here, we propose a sustainable building design and construction framework as a systematic methodology for upcycling irregular off-cut wood into new components. This framework consists of repeatable steps, as follows: a. material reclamation system: 3D scanning is employed as the main technical method to record a material’s 3D information and material-specific parameters and create a database; b. structural generation and assessment system: material screening, voxel-based filling, and structure generation based on finite element analysis to employed to assess the generated results prior to construction to optimize the final structure. Using furniture, building components, and installations/buildings, we verify the use of this framework for material recycling and generative design and construction.

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Introduction

Three sustenance clusters exist in ecosystems: producers (plants), consumers (animals) and decomposers (bacteria). Manufactured systems and social production systems tend to focus on producers and consumers without considering the role of decomposers, ignoring waste processing or relying on natural absorption. Thus, neglected decomposer (end-of-life) processes emulate sustainable natural cycles, treat them as a new cycle of renewable resources, reinput and carry out sustainable design and composition instead of understanding waste as a final and definitive social output to be eliminated 1 , 2 , 3 . In the urban development process, many resources/materials that are difficult to recycle and reuse are directly discarded and left idle due to technological and process limitations. As urbanization rates increase and natural resources shrink, the UN Sustainable Development Goals 11 and 12 proposed adopting the method of preventing, reducing, recycling and reusing—as well as properly collecting and discharging—urban solid waste to reduce its total by half globally by 2030. The public perception of discarded items and materials has also shifted from social output to reusable sustainable resources 4 .

Wood, a critical biobased material, is considered a renewable but limited resource because of its long growth cycle and the actual supply and demand of the market, which are limited by the boundary of the growth environment 5 , 6 . In 2030, wood production is expected to be insufficient to meet societal demand 7 , 8 . The sustainable use of wood resources and the effective collection, disposal, and reclamation system of waste wood is of great importance to alleviate supply and demand conflicts and overexploitation pressure on the natural environment 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 . Building and industrial waste streams are vast reservoirs of materials and components, of which wood is a significant proportion. However, until now, wood upcycling only occupied approximately 2.5% of the total, and wood downcycling occupied approximately 89.6%, including chipping, downcycling, and repurposing for material use (mulch, composting, medium density fiberboard, chipboard, animal bedding) and biomass energy 13 . Downcycling or destroying these valuable recyclable materials is a waste of resources we cannot afford.

Linear to circular construction is a design principle for mediators to reduce or even eliminate disputes over human needs for natural, long-lasting cycles. Traditional approaches do not successfully reintegrate wood into production but delay its disposal, which ends up as waste 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 . A sustainable opportunity lies in resetting the lifecycle of waste wood through a viable reclamation, design, and fabrication framework tailored to the materials and the reuse market to reduce its placement into landfills and improve the recycling rate 20 , 21 . The industry aims to accomplish a sustainable design transformation by reintegrating recycled materials, workflows, and technologies 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 .

Reclaimed wood is a sustainable material with a renewable and unique customized nature, and the reclaimed wood esthetics and urban wood esthetics that represent nature make recycled wood products stand out from the competition in recycled products 26 , 27 . More specifically, potential upcycling work denotes the reuse and repurposing of used woods or building components as new building components (constructional elements) for sustainable design and construction. By summarizing reconfiguring design practices, the existing research case for sustainable circular system design can be described as follows: (a) embracing a circular economy and recycling waste; (b) mitigating a series of ecological problems caused by overexploitation of material resources, such as member exhaustion and climate change; (c) managing the urban environment; (d) easing urban development processes and sustainable development and mitigating the negative effects of divergent goals 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 . Thus, enhancing recycling performance and eco-environmental benefits through the adaptive modification of waste as input materials to produce renewable outputs is considered a promising approach.

In summary, we reviewed a vast group of upcycled wood products as alternate construction resources and highlighted 9 typical cases (Table 1 , Supplementary Table 7 ), comparing the material recycling and reuse information and reuse methods 12 , 39 , 40 . Architects have demonstrated the potential for reuse and architectural design and construction by recycling recycled wood, timber originals, and timber building discrete components into new architectural practices. At the same time, in terms of material recycling, material information recording, material-based design, and the construction process, since there is no design guidebook, all cases are designed based on the experience of architects, and no method that can be replicated has formed the principal and technical route (Table 2 ). When analysing and summarizing reclaimed-wood-based building design and construction projects, it was found that fewer than 20% of these construction projects had established databases for recycled materials, and those with databases had the following deficiencies: (1) for materials, only regularly shaped waste architectural resources that could be easily recycled were considered, such as in the Tysons Living Learning Center project 41 ; (2) for recycling processes, the deconstructed building components were disassembled and sorted; and (3) for recording, materials were collected and sorted using an alphabetical approach, which is a 2D method of on-site recording, sorting, and documenting. Due to limitations in comprehensiveness and information accuracy, this approach presents challenges for subsequent design and technical accuracy; and (4) projects with databases are not open sourced, which means their methods for material selection, quality control, and classification are not transparent, leading to limited replicability that can be universally applied to the industry.

This article proposes a rethinking of how different scales of waste wood, from edge scrap to building components, can be reused in building design and fabrication. The experimental hypothesis of our proposed sustainable building design and construction (SBDC) framework is that it can reclaim off-cut wood and can be reconfigured for new buildings. It involves the transition from digital to physical, which entails creating material databases, topology simulations, and physical constructions of various scales, from furniture to buildings to architecture, engineering and construction (AEC). Our technical route to achieving reproducibility is establishing a system framework using previously used off-cut wood and wooden components from renewable and salvaged sources. It also details how to verify the possibility of the method from the scale of furniture to the scale of architecture.

Sustainable building design and construction (SBDC) framework

The SBDC framework integrates green technologies with a multidisciplinary approach to sustainability, computer science, design and manufacturing, and materials science. It involves a comprehensive material reclamation system (MRS), which records and summarizes complex geometric details and material properties, and the MRS platform consists of two modules: material recovery and a material database. It is designed to collect and process recycled material information prior to the design phase. To complete the technical method of material data collection, its characteristics include the following: (1) it can provide 3D information collection methods for different scales of wood; (2) it can realize the visualization of data collection information, classify the data model information, and provide convenience for architects to screen materials; and (3) it can collect information accurately, quickly and flexibly, whether in the lab or on-site in different scenarios, and is not limited to the working local area network and the basic equipment environment. The structural generation and assessment system (SGAS) is a technical method for generating structural systems prior to actual construction. Prior to the fabrication phase, the SGAS utilizes two modules—structural generation and structural evaluation—by analysing new components to ensure their proper infill, design and evaluation of their construction possibilities (Fig. 1 ).

This framework includes material reclamation system (MRS), structure generation and assessment system (SGAS) and fabrication.

Material reclamation system (MRS) and material database

We investigated five wood manufacturing sawmills in the suburbs of London. Problems were found with the improper disposal of irregular wood, such as a lack of data recording and classified storage. Large amounts of wood were exposed and uncovered in the outdoor environment, which resulted in varying degrees of damage from insect infestation and its eventual waste. Therefore, following the “upcycling” vision of the material reclamation module, this study proposes a digital recording method instead of the traditional single-letter recording method, which is limited to regular wood only. It allows a more comprehensive 3D data capture process for irregular reclaimed wood. Multiple 3D scanning technologies (Supplementary Video 1 ), including 3D laser scanning, LiDAR, and photogrammetry, were employed. Additionally, comprehensive wood information was measured and recorded, including wood type, length, width, weight, approximate growing age, recycling grade, approximate moisture content, tree species, density, and material proportion. A wood database was then constructed after summarizing the information to provide data support for SBDC (Fig. 2 , Supplementary Fig. 1 ).

The database demonstrates the information on wood type, length, width, weight, approximate age, recycled grade, and material proportions were measured and recorded (Details: Supplementary Table 3 ). Type A contains complete and broken pallets.

Structure generation and assessment system (SGAS): reclaimed off-cut wood-based sustainable furniture design

Off-cut wood arises from cutting timber into marketable sizes during preliminary wood processing. Off-cut wood is recycled primarily following a standardized process and a specified length. To reclaim regular off-cut wood, easily reclaimed sections of 25 mm, 75 mm, and 100 mm are circulated in the second-hand market (Supplementary Table 1 ). The rest of the off-cut wood, which has an irregular cross-sectional size or has not entered the preliminary recycling process, is considered waste wood. Many materials are regarded as firewood sold on eBay and other platforms or downgraded and made into plywood, or the waste wood is disposed of by burning, causing resource waste and environmental pollution.

Off-cut wood is typically used in manufacturing and designing projects with simple geometric characteristics and categories. Those with the same section are considered regular easy-to-reconfigure off-cut wood that can be built into furniture and installed through simple reconfiguration (Supplementary Figs. 4 – 6 ). In the design phase, a maximum of five types of wood are normally used in the same topology for the same assembled structure (Supplementary Table 2 ). With the help of the Wave Function Collapse (WFC) algorithm, it is possible to generate a simulation of the assembled structure for wood species with the same section size, approximate weight density, and approximate moisture content (Supplementary Figs. 7 – 12 ). This offers more possibilities for assembly solutions of reclaimed off-cut wood. Meanwhile, it also enables statistical analysis of the generated structures, which contributes to easily comparing the overall quantity and types of materials used in different developed solutions (Supplementary Table 2 ).

Another portion of off-cut wood from sawmills has a variety of geometric characteristics, and it is therefore difficult to collect and summarize the data. Although more than the vast majority of off-cut wood is not suitable for standardized processing, there is no other applicable recycling method for irregular wood and limited utilization of waste off-cut wood 38 , 42 , 43 . For this reason , irregular hard-to-reconfigure off-cut wood is generally considered waste. The difficulty in integrating this into large-scale complicated structures lies in the material selection, utilization, packing method adapted to the digital aggregation, and realities encountered during assembly. Specifically, this includes the following:

Controlling the relationship between a single wood component into a new block and the whole structure: How can reclaimed off-cut wood of different sizes be packed to complete the unitization process?

Design and structure generation: how can the structure generation performance of the same topology be quantitatively analysed? How can the rationalization of material utilization in the wood database be maximized?

There are several steps in the SGAS workflow of furniture scale (Fig. 3a ). Voxel size definition (Supplementary Fig. 2a ): The first step of the structure generation is to pack 4–6 pieces of off-cut wood from the database and place them in 60 mm, 80 mm, 100 mm and 120 mm voxels and then summarize them by comparing their packing methods with their internal filling rate (IFR) and external overflow rate. Ideally, the external overflow rate should tend to be 0, with a higher IFR being more favorable for later applications. A voxel size of 100*100*100 mm could achieve an average filling rate of approximately 42.45% and an average overflow rate of 0%. This voxel size is therefore chosen as the unit of utilization for the experiment. Input voxel matrix (Supplementary Fig. 2b ): The matrix is the basis of the computational methods for the design and representation of irregular structural materials. The generation of blocks and components provides opportunities for off-cut wood-based design and construction in the generation of irregular structures. The voxel-based packing material is used to define the input matrix, to construct the adjacency rules between blocks and to determine the availability of blocks. The XYZ axes are set with respect to the corners and internal positions to obtain four different types of matrices, corresponding to the internal and external voxels in the horizontal or vertical areas.

SGAS Workflow in furniture and architectural components scales (Details: Supplementary Table 4 ). a Stool generation. b Column generation.

Voxel rotation mechanism (Supplementary Fig. 2c ): The simulated structures are completed with the aid of calculations by means of a modular material packing method. Adjacency rules define whether and how blocks match each other by enforcing geometric compatibility at the interfaces and avoiding unnecessary geometric features. More precisely, in the horizontal and vertical areas, the adjacency rule defines whether the voxels of the basic structure match each other to complete the construction of the structure (Supplementary Fig. 2c ) by means of the connection surfaces of the voxels and the interfaces of the blocks after wood utilization. Within the input matrix, some green voxels satisfy the characteristics of the re-entrant structure: they can re-enter the generating topology without considering the direction. Additionally, the “consecutive repetition of the same voxel” as a case of re-entrant structures is prohibited to avoid building incomplete structures. Finally, part of the blue voxel is considered a chiral structure to ensure that it generates a more continuous top-down block, limiting its rotation direction and rules 44 , 45 . Material rationalization replacement (Supplementary Fig. 2d ): In the simulations of the generating structure components, blocks of the same section size often appear due to their rotation mechanism and the adjacency rules between neighboring voxels, so when this occurs, the block is replaced directly in the database with a whole piece of wood of the same shape according to the dimensions of the block. This minimizes the need for secondary wood processing and rationalizes the use of the material in the database.

Voxelized stool typology (Supplementary Fig. 2e–g ): The structure generation is based on a geometry of 300*300*400 mm and then voxelized to the voxel size determined in the first step. Four types of stool prototypes were set up manually by comparing them with common stool shapes. The difference between the prototypes lies in the number of voxels and may change the degree of continuity of the off-cut wood within the voxels, which in turn affects the overall structural strength. Then, the structural growth of the irregular material is simulated to achieve digital aggregation to reality. With the WFC algorithm, 3D blocks are defined to follow the principle of adjacent structure generation, with different colored blocks corresponding to real materials within a real connected voxel. This allows the virtual simulation process to generate 3D structured materials, completing the digital aggregation of the design attempt. Finite element analysis (FEA) of the structure (Supplementary Fig. 2h, i ): To observe and compare the different paradigms generated for the same structure, FEA is used to visualize and compare the stress behavior of the structure, the maximum load-bearing areas, etc. (Supplementary Table 4 , Supplementary Method 1 ).

The project illustrates a replicable design system and construction process for reused wood under the SBDC framework (Fig. 4 ). It provides a basis for the application of these reclaimed materials in sustainable buildings from design to assembly. The final commercialization process is accomplished by digitally documenting and analysing the recycled off-cut wood for sustainable furniture design and construction (Supplementary Video 2 ).

Side and perspective views of the assembled stool. The stool itself maintains good integrity.

Verification and case studies: SBDC in architectural components

This research expands the design scale to the building scale after finishing the off-cut wood-based generation and topology optimization at the furniture scale. A major architectural component, a column, is used as an example (Figs. 3b , 5 ). To ensure that the project is actually implemented, that is, the actual wood can support the actual construction, we first complete the calculation and statistics of the total volume and quantity of the required wood and complete the data classification (specific classification, total amount, data situation in Supplementary Table 6 , Supplementary Fig. 13 ). Verification and case studies of the column carried the previous off-cut wood voxel filling logic, proportions, and species and thus unfolded directly from column typology voxelization (Supplementary Fig. 3a ). The column generation is based on a geometry of 300*300*1600 mm—approximately two-thirds of the actual column heigh—and is esthetically optimized after voxelization by removing the voxel that is outside the structural and decorative part. The voxel classification step (Supplementary Fig. 3b, c ) adds a parent classification, the structural and decorative, to the previous horizontal and vertical classifications and produces four classifications: the structural horizontal voxel, the structural vertical voxel, the decorative horizontal voxel, and the decorative vertical voxel. The research uses three types of voxels other than structural horizontal voxels in the design of architectural components such as columns. In this step, it is necessary to ensure the presence of structural vertical voxels in each horizontal plane of the vertical section, which can increase the number of off-cut wood replaced in the voxels and thus improve their continuity, as well as better load-bearing performance. Then, the off-cut wood is replaced with the filled voxel in the Supplementary Fig. 2b matrix to obtain multiple column typologies. After analysing and comparing the stress behavior and the maximum load-bearing areas of different column paradigms in the same design language, the construction was carried out by recycling and using discarded off-cut wood from Hong Kong and complying with the desired height and section width at the beginning of the design (Supplementary Fig. 3d, e ). A real column was built. The architectural components were realized and validated from digital aggregation, and the actual building process based on the reclaimed off-cut wood database as material resources laid the foundation for the subsequent spatial design with all the basic architectural components.

The column was assembled in the School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Primitive Hut: purposed sustainable building design and construction

In the architectural scale design and fabrication proposal, this research takes a pavilion as an example, named the Primitive Hut. Notably, unlike the previous column design, a voxel-volumetric structural system, panel system, and surface system are added to the pavilion. The voxel-volumetric structural system, panel system, and surface system were added to the Primitive Hut. The pavilion typology voxelization (Fig. 6a ) indicates a process from pavilion shape and boundary optimization. Systematic voxel classification (Fig. 6b ) demonstrates different boundaries of architectural components in a pavilion, which is divided into several parts, including two floors, one stair, five columns, and a roof. Meanwhile, these parts contain the four voxels mentioned in Supplementary Fig. 3b and fill in the off-cut wood according to the three systems mentioned above to form the digital aggregation in Fig. 6c . Two possible environments for this pavilion, the Primitive Hut, are shown in Fig. 6d .

a Voxelized pavilion prototype. b WFC voxel prototype and the exploded-view drawing. c Rendering prototype and the exploded-view drawing. d Two possible environments for the pavilion.

Upcycling and reuse have become the focal points for reducing resource waste and realizing reuse. The vital difficulty lies in systematically summarizing complex wood parameters and data and finding a nonexperience-oriented design practice method. This paper has considered all types of off-cut wood, a regular easy-to-reconfigure topology, and an irregular hard-to-reconfigure typology. We proposed the SBDC framework to carry out design research on reclaimed wood, taking furniture scale experiments as examples and practising the specific process from reclaimed materials and design to construction. The framework mainly highlights the following: (a). The SBDC framework processes used and waste off-cut and irregular wood upcycling for AEC. (b). The MRS records and categorizes sophisticated geometric details and material properties based on multiple 3D scanning technologies. (c). The SGAS is a programmable approach to designing and generating structural systems. (d). FEA is an effective quantitative method for research by design as data support prior to AEC. (e). The definition, design, assessment and fabrication of regular easy-to-reconfigure wood and irregular hard-to-reconfigure wood provides theoretical guidance and technical assistance in the AEC industry’s long-term development process.

The method proposed in this paper is reproducible. It provides a technical workflow to support the design generation and construction of furniture, installations, and buildings at different scales and helps to preserve wood resources that are becoming scarce. It also offers a solid case study and database for the design and construction of irregular materials in applications (Supplementary Video 3 ).

In a circular economy, attempts are made to reset the life cycle of materials and products through the recycling of items. However, the material cannot be recycled infinitely. Therefore, the durability and reliability of recyclable materials, low energy consumption, and refurbishment capabilities should also be considered to reduce waste, maintenance, and upgrades in the production process 46 . Based on the principle of nondegradable recycling, the study responded to the assembly of components and the way they can be reassembled.

Regarding wood storage, it was discovered during the investigation that the wood was randomly placed in the environment, which can cause problems such as insect infestation. To realize the commercialization process of existing wood, there should be a complete set of wood evaluation systems, surface treatment, potential damage degree, etc., as well as an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the former uses of wood through a SWOT 47 , 48 analysis to determine the strength and structural properties aged wood has and how to determine the possibility of using reclaimed wood in furniture production 49 .

FEA should be applied as a consideration for structural selection. Different from the design and construction of furniture, the study used FEA combined with a genetic algorithm (GA) to complete the selection and optimization for building and structure construction. In the future, the SBDC framework will screen materials, design structure generation methods, and directly use FEA as a consideration to complete iterations of the generation optimization process in real time (developed with the help of the GA) to show a relatively optimal solution and improve the entire system. Additionally, a novel module integrates FEA simulation, scientific visualization, and load measurement into an AR-based environment 50 .

A building design fabrication platform was proposed. After the assembly practice, we tried to reconstruct the model through the 3D model retrieval technology of photogrammetry (Fig. 7 ). By comparing the initially generated model, we found that there were deviations in details in the manual-guided construction case, and it was not easy to distinguish materials of different sizes, which increased the construction time. Regarding the problems mentioned above that can be improved and fabrication errors, construction techniques must be developed to address accuracy and time cost.

Comparison photogrammetry-based (fabrication) column and digital model.

For more complex furniture, installations, and architecture design, we are developing autonomous construction technologies, i.e., robotic assembly (autonomous assembly processes in lights-out manufacturing, such as Tesla), and AR-aided assembly methods, including picking and sorting guide methods, to avoid wasting time searching for materials and to avoid errors caused by manual construction during the construction process.

Additionally, the design phase should also consider the use of environmentally friendly materials and processes to minimize the environmental impact during production. The design for disassembly maximizes the reuse potential of the components and avoids the fabrication of new materials for future applications 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 . The current building process with nails and glue as the connections between materials should consider whether it is possible to choose a connection that is easy to configure, such as wood soldering, folding metal, adaptable plastic joinery, and Chinese mortises, to achieve the proper configuration of reused wood. The design principle of the combination of discrete architecture and SBDC, combined with the above flexible and adaptable joinery methods, can develop three or more connections through multiple assemblies, deconstructions, and reconfigurations of the original as follows: (a) adaptable plastic joinery as a new perspective on design for irregular and multiple-typology connection methods 56 , 57 ; (b) Chinese mortise joinery to reclaim material-based blocks and components and reconfigure them easily to new installations; and (c) folding metal as a reconfigurable joint method between structural units and surface/minor surface units. These approaches can be adapted to multiple aggregation and assembly directions. The design for the disassembly process can be evaluated. The evaluation of carbon emissions, life cycle assessment, economy, time, transportation, and other parameters optimizes the framework and tries to put it in the early stages of research as a new condition and consideration.

MRS: Toxicity detection is added when collecting database information, and those materials that are toxic and unstable in chemical composition are directly deleted from the database (physical material database and digital database), and the related toxicity of the wood data is referenced (Supplementary Table 5 ) 58 .

SGAS workflow

This workflow shows the structure generation at the furniture and architectural scales, taking a stool with a boundary size of 300*300*400 mm and a column with a boundary size of 300*300*1600 mm as examples. After voxelization, the boundary is divided into two parts: the horizontal areas above and the vertical areas below (horizontal areas are present at both the top and bottom of a column), and the voxels in these two areas are manually combined into different and more accurate boundaries according to some common stool shapes and column structures. Then, with the help of the WFC algorithm, all off-cut wood in the specified color outer frame is filled with voxels of the corresponding color. Finally, FEA and topology optimization are performed on the overall structure.

Data preparation: 3D scanning

A variety of 3D scanning techniques and physical information recording techniques for materials are used. In-depth records are kept on the geometric topology, materials, and numerous properties of diverse materials. The creation of the database for irregular wood is finalized to more fully comprehend the topological paradigm of irregular wood in the generation of structures. This research digitally packs irregular wood based on the induction of voxel units and uses algorithms to finish the structural simulation creation under specific circumstances. A FEA of the structure was performed before construction as part of the discussion process. There have been multiple attempts at wood recycling, design, and building.

3D scanning equipment and technical route (Supplementary Video 1 ). The database is built based on 3D scanning technologies. The process uses 3D laser scanning, LiDAR, and photogrammetry to record the geometric information of the wood and record the wood type, part, length and width, weight, approximate growth years, and recycling by measuring grade, water content, material proportion, etc. For different scales of wood, the study used different equipment to carry out scanning work. The small scale is limited by the boundary of the EinScan-SE 3D Scanner rotary table, less than 200*200*200 mm, for recording. The 700*700*700 mm medium-scale wood is recorded by means of photogrammetry, that is, photos taken from different angles are taken with a SONY A6400 digital camera, and the digital model is reconstructed and texture colorized using reality capture. For wood larger than 700*700*700 mm, one recording process uses the same method of photogrammetry with drones (DJI Mavic Pro) to scan wood in large sizes. Another recording process uses VX Element, an EinScan Pro 2X Handheld Scanner or its adapted portable workstation for model recording, and healthy reclaimed wood is logged in the database library. At the same time, a BENETCH-GM630 wood moisture meter was used to assess the wood moisture content and density range, wood species and so on.

To ensure that the locally collected wood has sufficient materials for building assembly, experiments were accurately realized through calculations in the early research and design stages (Supplementary Table 6 , Supplementary Fig. 13 ). Take the column in the architectural proposal (Fig. 5 ) as an example of innovation, statistical analysis, and fabrication (Supplementary Fig. 3 ). In the off-cut wood database, according to the off-cut wood belonging to hardwood, softwood, density, fire resistance, easy maintenance, strength, and durability-material screening stage, it is divided into structural parts and decorative parts.

The experiment assumes that the reclaimed wood is divided into two grades: Grade A and Grade B. The different grades are defined by the ratio of the volume of the wood itself to the total volume of the minimum number of voxels formed on the periphery of the wood. When this ratio is greater than 80%, the wood is classified as Grade A, which means that it can be considered as a structural part of the building. When this ratio is between 60% and 80%, the wood is classified as Grade B, which means it can be considered as a decorative part of the building. The fabrication will select a specific number of woods from Grade A and B to achieve the previously defined construction target, with a 5% redundancy compared to the digital model of that target to accommodate errors in the fabrication process, such as material wastage or overlapping connections. The IFR of voxels and the redundancy of the amount of wood are calculated using the following method. This paper employs wood data in the reclaimed wood database which can be defined using both Eq. ( 1 ) and Eq. ( 2 ).

Here, IFR denotes the IFR of all voxels on the periphery of the wood, R represents the redundancy of the amount of wood actually used. The subscript w and v stand for the wood and voxels, and a , b , i , d represent Grade A, Grade B, ith wood, and the digital model.

From reclaimed material to geometry: from geometry to structural form

Off-cut wood material can be seen as statistical, and there is a rate of repetition among the same typologies. By analysing and summarizing it, geometry variants are built as the input matrix. The input logic can be readily translated by computer languages. Thus, this research used programmable-based digital aggregation methods, and the WFC algorithm applied to microstructure typology and geometry generation 44 also provided more convenience to rapid 3D building model aggregation through build rules and variants 59 . The experiments take a voxel as a basic unit through digital packing work and automatic generation of the structure of off-cut wood. Depending on the desired structure to set the limits of the growth, more details, such as voxel rotation mechanism, connection logic, and adjacency relation, defined the adjacency relation in the existing matrix of the WFC algorithm as a positive adjacency relation and introduced the prohibited adjacency relation 60 , 61 , outputting a random showcase (furniture, column, building) of the rules built by the matrix/voxel definition.

Static simulation: FEA

This research uses mathematical models to understand and quantify the effects of real-world conditions on assembly. FEA has been extensively applied to the structural assessment of furniture, installation, and buildings, identifying critical components, evaluating structural reliability, estimating the structural behavior under a given load and determining new typologies 43 , 62 . More precisely, FEA allows us to locate potential problems in a design, including areas of tension and weak spots shown on a computer-generated color scale. The resulting topology is thus improved. In the chapter of furniture scale tests, the support surface and load surface are distinguished, and real-word parameters are set according to the usage of the structure to observe its static analysis. The columns and beams in the chapter of architectural components adopt the volumetric load static simulation method, and the volume load is 1.08 kN/m 3 for the output program logic (Supplementary Table 4 ).

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Sustainable, inclusive housing growth: A case study on Columbus, Ohio

Over the past two decades, the Columbus region has enjoyed outsize population and economic growth compared with leading peer cities and the US average. 1 In this article, “Columbus” refers to the Columbus metropolitan statistical area unless otherwise specified. See “Ohio Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs),” Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Office of Workforce Development, accessed June 22, 2023. Yet growth has come at a cost—specifically by outpacing the region’s supply of available housing. Home and rental prices have soared as stock has been depleted, making homeownership—and sometimes even having a roof over one’s head—increasingly out of reach for many people, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Brandon Carrus , Seth Myers , Brian Parro, Duwain Pinder , and Ben Safran, representing views from McKinsey’s Social Sector Practice.

In just this past decade, the increase in housing prices and rents has dramatically outpaced household income. Additionally, the region’s population of people experiencing homelessness (PEH) has grown faster than those of its US peers in recent years. The region’s challenges have a disproportionate impact on historically marginalized populations (such as Black and Hispanic residents), who have a dramatically lower likelihood of being a homeowner and a much higher likelihood of experiencing homelessness. Amid ongoing rapid growth, the need for affordable housing and support services for PEH will only continue to increase unless significant action is taken. 2 HUD defines affordable housing as “housing on which the occupant is paying no more than 30 percent of gross income for housing costs, including utilities.” See “Glossary of terms to affordable housing,” HUD, accessed June 22, 2023.

Columbus is a microcosm of the United States’ housing insecurity plight. While many major cities are receiving national press coverage for this issue, housing insecurity is a humanitarian challenge facing communities of all sizes across the country. The National Association for Home Builders estimates that about 70 percent of US households cannot afford a new home at the national median price. 3 NAHBNow , “Nearly 7 out of 10 households can’t afford a new median-priced home,” blog entry by National Association of Home Builders, February 15, 2022. In 2022, US home vacancy rates were at their lowest levels since 1987, 4 “Home vacancy rate for the United States,” US Census Bureau, retrieved from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) June 22, 2023. and the country is estimated to have a shortage of 6.5 million housing units. 5 Anna Bahney, “The US housing market is short 6.5 million homes,” CNN, March 8, 2023. Renters are also facing increased pressure nationally: 23 percent spend at least half of their income on housing costs, 6 Katherine Schaeffer, “Key facts about housing affordability in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, March 23, 2022. rendering them “severely rent burdened” as defined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 7 “Rental burdens: Rethinking affordability measures,” PD&R Edge, accessed June 22, 2023.

As in many regions in the United States, the primary contributors to the housing shortage in Columbus are embedded within deeply vexing economic and social issues, including stagnating incomes, racial gaps in homeownership, and access to financing and services.

As Columbus charts a growth strategy for the decades ahead, addressing housing and homelessness will be an essential component in realizing the goal of prosperity for all. Today, Columbus is projected to have a shortage of as much as 110,000 housing units by 2032. 8 Vogt Strategic Insights, “Analysis of housing need for the Columbus region,” Building Industry Association of Central Ohio, August 30, 2022. Without an increase in the supply of housing, Columbus may struggle to continue on a growth trajectory. Specifically, we have identified four priority interventions designed to work in concert to increase housing stock, keep rents affordable, and help more people, including historically marginalized populations, access the housing market:

• Tap into existing housing capacity potential. Public–private collaboration on policies can identify land available for housing either as underused property or as part of broader rezoning efforts to increase the supply of homes, which is a requirement for sustained economic growth.
• Reduce the cost of new construction. Promising cost-reduction opportunities include simplifying the permit process and engaging builders with expertise in cost-effective construction methods.
• Support homebuyers and renters. Local government and policy makers can expand resources and consider policies that support public- and private-sector initiatives to improve homeownership rates, assist with rental affordability, and reduce the risk of homelessness.
• Prioritize tackling homelessness. Alleviating homelessness requires increasing awareness of currently available resources for PEH and expanding relief funds to assist residents with affordable housing, healthcare support, training for employment, and other resources critical to reducing homelessness.

Many local leaders are well aware of the challenges that can result from booming growth. The policy-neutral research presented in this article is intended to complement the work already under way by leaders in the city of Columbus and surrounding areas to inform decision making about the housing shortage, affordable housing, and homelessness. 9 For example, see Bonnie Meibers, “Columbus details plan to build, preserve and invest in inclusive affordable housing,” Columbus Business First , June 27, 2022; Bonnie Meibers, “Columbus City Council announces 12-part plan to combat affordable housing shortage,” Columbus Business First , March 16, 2023; Bonnie Meibers, “The Punch List: Columbus lays out new solutions to housing crisis,” Columbus Business First , October 24, 2022; Mark Ferenchik, “Worthington considering asking for $1.1M affordable housing bond issue on November ballot,” Columbus Dispatch , January 16, 2023. In the process, we believe the Columbus region’s approach to housing could both build on and inform the economic development strategies of other regions across the country—with successes offering a potential blueprint for progress.

The fastest-growing region in the Midwest

From 2000 to 2021, the Columbus Region’s population increased by a third, adding more than 500,000 people and becoming the fastest-growing metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the Midwest. 10 “Resident population in Columbus, OH (MSA) [COLPOP],” US Census Bureau, retrieved from FRED April 7, 2023. Includes MSAs with populations greater than one million. Midwest defined as Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. See “Resident population in Columbus,” retrieved April 7, 2023; Factbook 2020 , City of Columbus, accessed June 22, 2023. In September 2022, Columbus was named the fifth-hottest housing market in the United States, driven by the speed of home sales and demand. 11 “CAGDP1 County and MSA gross domestic product (GDP) summary,” US Bureau of Economic Analysis, accessed May 12, 2023; “Table 1.1.6. Real Gross Domestic Product, Chained Dollars,” US Bureau of Economic Analysis, accessed May 12, 2023.

This growth was precipitated by, and continues to benefit from, the region’s mounting economic strength: from 2008 through 2021, Columbus outpaced national GDP growth by almost ten percentage points. 12 “Total gross domestic product for Columbus, OH (MSA) [NGMP18140],” US Bureau of Economic Analysis, retrieved from FRED June 23, 2023; “Gross domestic product [GDP],” US Bureau of Economic Analysis, retrieved from FRED June 23, 2023. Growth has also been bolstered by more-recent major commercial investments from a range of industries, including semiconductors, financial services, and biopharmaceuticals. 13 “Intel breaks ground in Ohio,” JobsOhio, accessed June 22, 2023; “Project announcements,” One Columbus, accessed June 22, 2023; “Western Alliance Bank expands into the Columbus Region, creating 150 new jobs at new technology hub,” One Columbus, January 9, 2023; “Discover plans to open a customer care center in Whitehall to bring high-quality jobs and enhance equity in the Columbus Region,” One Columbus, November 18, 2022.

Growing pains: Coping with rapid growth

The population influx has measurably strained Columbus’s residential real estate and rental markets, particularly for people of color. Increasing housing supply is a critical enabler for the region’s continued growth trajectory.

Increasing housing supply is a critical enabler for the region’s continued growth trajectory.

Rapidly rising home prices. Although the region remains relatively affordable compared with leading peers, home prices have skyrocketed in relation to incomes. Data from Zillow reveal that roughly a decade ago, the growth of median household incomes in Columbus and the value of the city’s “lower tier” housing stock began to diverge (Exhibit 1). In the ten years since then, lower-tier housing prices within the city’s boundaries increased at 1.9 times the growth of median household income—an unsustainable divergence. 14 Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) All Homes - Bottom Tier Time Series, accessed April 19, 2023. A cavalry in the form of new-housing construction may be slow to arrive: from 2004 to 2022, annual construction of new single-family homes in Columbus fell by 34 percent, and it has yet to return to pre-2004 levels. 15 “B19013 Median household income in the past 12 months,” ACS 5-Year Estimates 2016–21, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau. In fact, for every 100 net new jobs in the region, only 65 new housing permits were issued. 16 Analysis of housing need for the Columbus region , Vogt Strategic Insights, August 30, 2022.

Rent increases outpacing wage increases. Renters in Columbus have also seen a price surge.

Rent prices in Columbus increased by about 35 percent between December 2016 and December 2021, exceeding median household income growth in that period by 11 percentage points (Exhibit 2). As a result, by 2021, approximately 40 percent of renters in Columbus were spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent, meeting HUD’s definition of “rent burdened.” 17 “Gross rent as a percentage of household income,” 2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau. And renters account for a significant percentage of residents: as of 2021, nearly 40 percent of total households in the metro area were rentals, which is comparable to other fast-growing US regions such as Austin (around 41 percent) and Miami (about 40 percent) but much higher than similar sized regions such as Pittsburgh (around 29 percent) and Indianapolis (about 32 percent). 18 “B25008 Total population in occupied housing units by tenure,” 2021: ACS 1-Year Estimates, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau.

More people experiencing homelessness.

Columbus outpaced its US peers in the growth of its PEH population from 2008 through 2022 (Exhibit 3), and early reports indicate homelessness was up 22 percent in January 2023 compared with January 2022. 19 “Columbus region leaders introduce new action on homelessness: Funding for programs and services introduced as data shows increase in homeless count,” Community Shelter Board, June 6, 2023. McKinsey research on homelessness in the Bay Area indicates that homelessness is a result of a range of disparate triggers, including economic issues (such as job loss, raised rent, or foreclosure), health factors (such as substance abuse or mental illness), and social factors (for example, incarceration or domestic violence). 20 For more, see “ The ongoing crisis of homelessness in the Bay Area: What’s working, what’s not ,” McKinsey, March 23, 2023. A brief but significant drop in the number of PEH in Columbus in 2021 is likely attributable to additional support during the pandemic (for example, eviction moratoriums and stimulus payments). Still, as of 2022, Columbus had the fastest-growing PEH population among its peers.

Columbus outpaced its US peers in the growth of its PEH population from 2008 through 2022, and early reports indicate homelessness was up 22 percent in January 2023 compared with January 2022.

Disproportionate effect on historically marginalized communities. The racial disparities that plague many leading US regions are also starkly apparent in Columbus. Some historically marginalized groups are less likely to be homeowners: one-third of the region’s Black households own their homes, compared with more than two-thirds of White households (Exhibit 4). Black household incomes in the region are also about 42 percent lower than those of White households. 21 “S1903 Median income in the past 12 months (in 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars),” 2021: ACS 1-Year Estimates, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau.

In addition, Black residents account for 16 percent of Columbus’s general population but 60 percent of the homeless population. 22 “DP05 ACS demographic and housing estimates,” 2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates Data Profiles, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau; “PIT and HIC data since 2007,” HUD Exchange, February 2023. And even when people in these communities have housing, Black households are almost five times more likely to be overcrowded (more than one occupant per room) than White households. 23 “B25014B Occupants per room (Black or African American alone householder),” 2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau; “B25014A Occupants per room (White alone householder),” 2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau. These disparate experiences in different communities are reflected in other metrics of financial and housing stability, including income and the ability to pass on generational wealth. 24 “B19013B Median household income in the past 12 months (in 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars) (Black or African American alone householder),” 2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau; “B19013A Median household income in the past 12 months (in 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars) (White alone householder),” 2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates, American Community Survey, US Census Bureau; Jung Hyun Choi, Laurie Goodman, and Jun Zhu, Intergenerational homeownership: The impact of parental homeownership and wealth on young adults’ tenure choices , Urban Institute, October 2018.

These disproportionate effects have wide-ranging impact, including on overall economic growth. PolicyLink and the USC Equity Research Institute estimate that the racial gap in Columbus is costing the region’s economy $10 billion annually. 25 Erica Thompson and Mark Williams, “Racial inequities costs Columbus economy $10 billion a year, report finds,” Columbus Dispatch , updated May 12, 2022.

Four interventions to address Columbus’s housing challenges

Housing is a critical enabler for economic growth—and Columbus’s housing challenges are no secret. Local leaders, organizations, and partnerships have long worked to improve housing security directly. Advocates and organizations have all published research on housing and homelessness, including the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, the Coalition on Housing and Homelessness in Ohio, the Affordable Housing Trust for Columbus & Franklin County, the Center for Social Innovation, and the Community Shelter Board of Columbus. 26 Healthy Beginnings at Home: Final report , CelebrateOne and the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, June 2021; Regional Housing Strategy final report: Central Ohio , Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, September 2020; Annual report 2021: Preserving, creating & facilitating , Affordable Housing Trust for Columbus and Franklin County, 2021; Columbus, Ohio: Initial findings from quantitative and qualitative research , Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities (SPARC), Center for Social Innovation, May 2018. Yet the latest estimates show that the region could need as many as 110,000 housing units beyond the current run rate by 2032 to cover expected job growth. This would require more than doubling the construction rate, from around 8,300 units per year to as many as 19,300 per year. 27 Analysis of housing need for the Columbus region , Vogt Strategic Insights, August 30, 2022.

After reviewing the available research, examining the actions taken by other local governments, and drawing on our experience in the real estate and public sectors, we have identified four key interventions that can augment existing efforts to address Columbus’s housing challenge: tap into existing housing capacity potential, reduce the cost of new construction, support homebuyers and renters, and prioritize tackling homelessness.

Tap into existing housing capacity potential

Zoning regulates how land is used, where residential or commercial buildings may be constructed, and the density of new developments, making it a key lever in changing a city’s residential landscape. The city of Columbus spans 220 square miles of central Ohio, and it has 50 more square miles of single-family zoning than multifamily zoning. 28 Nicholas Julian, “Zoning in Columbus: Single-family vs. multifamily,” Ohio Housing Finance Agency, April 2, 2019; “QuickFacts: Columbus city, Ohio,” US Census Bureau, accessed June 22, 2023. Increasing density and creating housing “hot spots” are both potential options for Columbus to address current housing supply challenges.

Increased housing density. Zoning has a direct impact on housing density. In Washington, DC, for example, areas zoned for detached single-family units typically consist of up to 1,200 units per square mile, 29 Yesim Sayin, “Single-family zoning and neighborhood characteristics in the District of Columbia,” D.C. Policy Center, July 17, 2019. compared with up to 40,000 units per square mile in large multifamily buildings. But zoning in most US cities largely restricts higher-density homes. Three-quarters of the land in US cities is barred from development for anything other than detached single-family homes—and where multifamily buildings are allowed, height and lot size requirements hurt the economic calculus for development. 30 Jenny Schuetz, “To improve housing affordability, we need better alignment of zoning, taxes, and subsidies,” Brookings Institution, January 7, 2020. Specific zoning adjustments could contribute directly to closing the housing gap, not just in the city limits but also in the surrounding suburbs. For example, a recent analysis by the Columbus Dispatch found that zoning contributed to the lack of affordable housing options in Upper Arlington, New Albany, and suburbs in Delaware County. 31 Jim Weiker, “Columbus suburbs offer few affordable housing options,” Columbus Dispatch , May 4, 2023. High-density zoning can be a meaningful part of a community’s housing ecosystem to enable future growth.

‘Housing hot spots’ created by reusing and rezoning underused property. To help alleviate the shortage of homes in the near term, municipalities can also identify potentially high-impact housing areas by reviewing the zoning of properties that meet criteria for vacant or underutilized land, homes with room for more units, and more. This approach has been used elsewhere to great effect. An analysis of three counties in California found room for more than five million new units, 32 Jonathan Woetzel, Jan Mischke, Shannon Peloquin, and Daniel Weisfield, “ Closing California’s housing gap ,” McKinsey Global Institute, October 24, 2016. and separate efforts are under way in New York City and Los Angeles to rezone underused commercial zones for residential or mixed use—making more space available for housing construction without needing to expand a city’s footprint. 33 “Mayor Adams unveils recommendations to convert underused offices into homes,” City of New York, January 9, 2023; “Adequate sites for housing,” 2021–2029 Housing Element , Los Angeles City Planning, November 2021.

Reduce the cost of new construction

A priority for the Columbus region will be reducing the cost of new construction to accelerate the pace of development. Programs that accelerate construction, reduce permit fees, or otherwise defray development costs are common levers to help reduce the cost of affordable housing. Several approaches can be prioritized to address the challenges facing Columbus and other US regions.

Innovative, cost-saving construction techniques and builders. As in many areas of the United States, inflation drove up the cost of building materials, labor, and financing in Columbus by as much as 18 percent between 2021 and 2022. 34 “How much does it cost to build a house in Columbus?,” Home Builder Digest , accessed June 23, 2023. Innovative, low-cost approaches such as modular and prefabricated construction can help; in our experience, when applied at large scale, these techniques can reduce the cost of construction materials by up to 20 percent and decrease build time by 20 to 50 percent without sacrificing build quality. 35 Modular construction: From projects to products , McKinsey, June 18, 2019. This is especially true with projects featuring repeatable elements, such as schools and affordable housing.

Columbus, specifically, can establish itself as a center of excellence for modular and prefabricated construction by leveraging the region’s transportation network (such as railroads and highways) to efficiently transport modular units into the region. The region can further attract builders that use these construction techniques by offering tax incentives, investing in land and modular units at scale, reskilling the labor force, and streamlining the approval process to help drive affordable housing growth. These and other approaches could improve the economics for these kinds of construction projects almost immediately once implemented. For example, Portland, Oregon, made changes to its design review process to allow mixed-use and multifamily projects to go directly to the permit process, saving developers time and money by decreasing their financing costs. Local governments in the Columbus region can further improve the economics of housing development by producing and holding off-the-shelf design schematics that can easily be used by prospective housing-unit developers.

Reduced development costs. Identifying parcels of public land for housing development could defray the overall cost of new projects in addition to rezoning efforts. Some cities, including Copenhagen, London, New York City, and Stockholm, have established professional management of their publicly owned land, allowing them to identify suitable city-owned sites for affordable developments. 36 “ Affordable housing in Los Angeles: Delivering more—and doing it faster ”, McKinsey Global Institute, November 21, 2019.

Accelerating the construction permit process could help reduce lengthy permit timelines that both create delays and increase developers’ costs. Under Columbus’s permit approval system, new-construction permits can take six to nine months. In fast-growing metro areas elsewhere in the United States, permits can take as little as a few weeks—a disparity that the City of Columbus is reviewing as part of its longer-term affordable-housing initiatives. 37 Allen Henry, “Columbus to overhaul zoning code for first time in 70 years,” NBC4 WCMH-TV, October 20, 2021. The Affordable Housing Trust in Columbus has launched the Emerging Developers Accelerator Program to provide education and funding for minority developers. 38 Jim Weiker, “New program seeks to build ranks of minority and female developers,” Columbus Dispatch , updated May 18, 2022. Yet the holding costs due to the lengthy time horizon between initial plans and selling the first house keep many potential developers out of the business.

Reduced development finance costs and fees. Financing costs and government taxes tend to be a heavy burden on housing developers. Legal agreements and public financing tools, such as joint powers authorities (JPAs) and tax increment financing (TIF) programs, provide incentives for public and private partners to collaborate in the development of affordable housing. In instances where traditional incentives and subsidies are unable to produce the desired outcomes, JPAs enable the city, partnered with a developer, to issue bonds and use its property tax exemption to purchase a property or finance the creation of a new development process. As part of the acquisition process, the JPA agrees to restrict the rent of a set number of units in line with affordable-housing standards. This approach is unlike traditional affordable-housing projects in that long-term ownership rests with the city, with an option to purchase the property back from the JPA after a set period.

JPAs are eligible for significant tax exemptions on their properties, with the added benefit that these savings are passed on to renters. Bond financing can also be tax-exempt given that governmental bodies have the authority to issue tax-exempt bonds for facilities that provide a public benefit. 39 “Portantino bill creating regional affordable housing trust passes assembly local government committee,” Senator Anthony J. Portantino, California State Senate, June 9, 2022; Brennon Dixson et al., The ABCs of JPAs , SPUR and the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, June 2022. In California, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Regional Housing Trust is leveraging these benefits to address barriers to building nearly 3,000 affordable-housing units in the region. 40 “Newsom signs Portantino bill creating Pasadena-Glendale-Burbank affordable housing trust,” Pasadena Star-News , August 24, 2022. The JPA will be allowed to request and receive private and state funding allocations, as well as authorize and issue bonds, to help finance affordable-housing projects.

As another option, TIF districts enable cities to freeze property tax revenue at current levels and use incremental tax revenue generated from a development to reimburse the developer’s costs over time. In 2018, for example, the City of Chicago approved TIF measures for The 78, a $7 billion mixed-use project to transform a former railroad property into 13 million square feet of residential, commercial, and institutional construction with a 20 percent commitment for affordable-housing units. According to plans, this TIF district will reimburse around $551 million in future increments for the construction of new infrastructure related to this project, including a new subway station, street improvements and extensions, and riverfront renovations. 41 “The 78,” Department of Planning and Development, City of Chicago, accessed June 23, 2023.

Support homebuyers and renters

In conjunction with initiatives that improve the supply of affordable housing, Columbus can explore approaches that improve an individual’s ability to pay for housing. The region can take these approaches in tandem to reduce the risk that demand will outpace supply and drive up prices on housing, making it even more unaffordable.

Homebuyer assistance from the public sector. Increasing investment in housing programs could help broaden the range of homes applicants can consider purchasing. For example, the City of Columbus’s Housing Division currently offers homebuyer assistance under its American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI), which provides eligible first-time homebuyers with a loan of up to 6 percent of the purchase price (or up to $7,500) to put toward their down payment. 42 “American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI) Program,” City of Columbus, accessed June 23, 2023. This loan is forgiven after five years if the resident meets certain requirements, including maintaining residency and not selling the property.

In Cleveland, Cuyahoga County’s Down Payment Assistance Program covers up to 10 percent of a home’s purchase price (or up to $16,600). 43 “Cuyahoga County Down Payment Assistance Program,” CHN Housing Capital, accessed June 23, 2023. This higher amount is especially significant given that the median sale price for a home in Columbus was $250,000 in December 2022, compared with $175,000 in Cuyahoga County and $115,000 in Cleveland itself. 44 “Columbus housing market,” Redfin, accessed June 23, 2023. The down payment program available in Cleveland provides greater assistance in real dollars in an area where those dollars can go further than in Columbus. Beyond affordable housing, assistance in the form of microloans and flexible funding programs have been shown to enable this transition. 45 Interval House, “How flexible funding can create stability and prevent homelessness,” Long Beach Community Foundation, accessed June 23, 2023.

Increasing the amount of assistance available could help broaden the options available to prospective homebuyers who could benefit from programs such as these, especially for historically marginalized communities that tend to have much lower rates of homeownership.

Rental assistance from the public sector. Some 54,000 households in the Columbus region are spending more than half their monthly incomes on rent, making rental assistance a cornerstone of the effort to improve housing affordability in the region. 46 Homeport website, US Department of Homeland Security and the United States Coast Guard, accessed June 23, 2023. Today, the State of Ohio and Franklin County have a number of rental assistance programs, including specific funds to help families, seniors, and veterans. 47 “Rent assistance providers,” Rentful, accessed June 23, 2023. Alternative programs, including flexible funding that allows for short-term, flexible financial assistance, could help stabilize individuals’ housing needs. 48 “How flexible funding can create stability,” accessed June 23, 2023.

Additionally, HUD subsidizes rent for low-income families. 49 A family’s income may not exceed 50 percent of the median income for the county or metropolitan area in which the family chooses to live, and 75 percent of vouchers must be provided to applicants whose income does not exceed 30 percent of the area median income. For more, see “Housing choice vouchers fact sheet,” HUD, accessed June 23, 2023. For fiscal year 2023, Columbus is allocated to receive approximately $12.7 million dollars in HUD funding for housing programs—approximately 16 percent more than Austin and 35 percent more than Denver 50 “Community Development Block Grant Program,” HUD, updated December 22, 2022; “HOME Investment Partnerships Program,” HUD, updated December 22, 2022; “Community planning and development formula program allocations for FY 2023,” HUD, updated May 3, 2023. —but the need for housing support exceeds the availability of funding. Columbus and Franklin County have also received more than $120 million combined due to the reallocation of unused federal COVID-19 relief funds to fight evictions, a majority of which is expected to go toward rent and utility assistance for low-income residents. 51 Bill Bush, “Columbus, Franklin County get over $120 million windfall in federal rental assistance,” Columbus Dispatch , May 8, 2023.

In addition, the Columbus City Council has made it illegal to deny a lease based on the source of a potential tenant’s rental payment—an effort to prevent landlords from denying leases to tenants using Section 8 subsidies. 52 Yilun Cheng, “Some landlords reject Section 8 renters despite Columbus law against discrimination,” Columbus Dispatch , February 8, 2022. The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Department has even offered cash incentives to landlords, and nonprofits have offered home upgrades in attempts to persuade more landlords to accept vouchers. 53 Jamilah Muhammad, “Central Ohio mother struggles to find homes accepting HUD vouchers,” Spectrum News 1, December 1, 2021. However, while these vouchers can effectively keep people housed, wait times to obtain them can be as long as 12 months. And about 30 percent of vouchers have expired over the past three years because participants could not find landlords in time. 54 “Some landlords reject Section 8 renters,” February 8, 2022. Streamlining the process from application to placement in subsidized housing could increase the impact of housing choice vouchers.

Potential interventions from the private sector

The private sector can take an active role in ensuring housing stability for both their employees and the communities where they operate by investing in and implementing sustainable-housing initiatives.

Three actions offer the potential for significant impact:

• Offer housing assistance to employees. To build effective assistance plans, businesses can assess the specific needs of their employees and design targeted assistance, including employee housing, emergency housing assistance, down-payment assistance, and mortgage rate subsidies. Sugar Bowl Resort in California offers an array of affordable employee housing options near the resort. 1 “Employee housing,” Sugar Bowl Resort, accessed June 23, 2023. In Ohio, MetroHealth launched an employer-assisted housing program (EAHP), providing eligible employees $20,000 toward the purchase of a home near the hospital’s campus. 2 “MetroHealth System employees to receive up to $20,000 to buy a home near West 25th Street main campus,” MetroHealth System, June 24, 2019. Similarly, Habitat for Humanity in Dallas, Texas, started an EAHP with up to $13,000 in a forgivable loan for down payment assistance. 3 Lin Grensing-Pophal, “Employers begin offering home-buying support benefits,” SHRM, November 8, 2022.
• Invest in increasing the supply of affordable housing. Businesses can invest in building new affordable-housing units in their communities. UnitedHealthcare has invested nearly $800 million to create approximately 19,000 housing units across the United States. 4 “Building health equity with $100 million in housing,” United HealthCare Services, July 6, 2022. In Columbus, Nationwide Children’s Hospital invests in the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families initiative, which aims to increase access to and supply of affordable housing. And as businesses navigate a new hybrid phase of work and reassess their footprint needs, affordable housing is a powerful way to invest in and repurpose excess space. In Columbus, the owners of Continental Centre and PNC Tower have started converting office space to residential, creating hundreds of new rental units. 5 Dean Narciso, “Nationwide Children’s Hospital builds homes in South Linden with $4.2 million fund,” Columbus Dispatch , June 24, 2021.
• Focus on affordable housing in site selection. Businesses can select sites for new locations based on availability of affordable housing, as well as give preference in requests for proposal (RFPs) to commercial real estate owners who invest in expanding affordable housing. 6 Bonnie Meibers, “Chase Tower in downtown Columbus could be converted from office to residential,” Columbus Business First , updated May 23, 2023.

Housing assistance from the private sector. Private-sector employers in Columbus and across the United States play a crucial role in helping employees maintain stable housing by providing appropriate compensation. However, simply paying employees a living wage may not be enough to ensure stable housing in the face of unexpected expenses or other financial difficulties. A recent Harvard Business Review article suggests that any investment in housing assistance can both attract new workers (a growing challenge for companies across the United States, with ten million unfilled jobs 55 “Total unfilled job vacancies for the United States,” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, retrieved from FRED July 7, 2023. ) and increase the productivity of existing workers (for example, by creating a shorter commute or reducing stresses related to housing affordability). 56 Edward L. Glaeser and Atta Tarki, “What employers can do to address high housing costs,” Harvard Business Review , March 14, 2023. Other housing-security interventions—such as housing search and placement services, access to shower facilities, or even temporary hotel rooms—can support employees more quickly than local social services and also reduce employee turnover. Some corporate programs can provide immediate relief to recipients, while others can provide long-term benefits to at-risk individuals over the course of several years (see sidebar, “Potential interventions from the private sector”).

Any investment in housing assistance can both attract new workers and increase the productivity of existing workers.

Employers also can collaborate to provide a broader set of resources to employees. In Cleveland, for example, the Greater Living Circle offers financial assistance for home purchase, rent, and renovation projects for employees of nonprofit institutions in the Greater University Circle area, including in low-income neighborhoods. Such collaboration is also the goal of the Columbus Regional Housing Coalition, a task force focused on convening leaders across the region to address the region’s housing and homelessness challenges.

Prioritize tackling homelessness

Homelessness across the region served by the Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio Continuum of Care has increased by 33 percent in the past decade 57 The Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio Continuum of Care is the organization that oversees programs funded by HUD in the region. ; in January 2023, more than 2,300 people in the region were experiencing homelessness. 58 “Columbus region leaders introduce new action on homelessness,” June 6, 2023.

Improving awareness of available resources and expanding access to essential resources—such as healthcare, transitional housing, and training programs—can help alleviate challenges for PEH and reduce the homelessness rate across the region.

Improve awareness of existing resources. A recurring problem in approaches to homelessness is a lack of public awareness of resources available to PEH. This is especially a concern among people who have recently lost their source of housing, including young people (aged 18–24). Partnering with other organizations to increase awareness of and augment available resources can equip individuals with the means to self-resolve or seek help earlier. Even initiatives that partner with existing organizations can provide immediate relief. For example, in December 2022, the City of Columbus partnered with Columbus Coalition for the Homeless to launch an interactive map showing the locations of warming centers and homeless shelters to help individuals find places to keep warm in the winter months.

Expand essential resources to alleviate homelessness. Expanding access to essential resources will be necessary to combat the increase in homelessness. Health resources make it much more likely that PEH will remain housed after securing a more permanent living situation. For PEH who have health issues such as substance abuse or severe mental health disorders, long-term health-focused housing should be considered. Efforts that expand housing with easily available healthcare resources could provide both immediate and gradually increasing support in reducing chronic homelessness. These resources can be combined with existing techniques for ensuring PEH have the resources they need to secure permanent housing. Other innovative solutions such as alternatives to traditional security deposits and credit scores can support PEH who may not have enough savings for a security deposit or the credit history to be approved for a loan.

One emerging strategy is providing training to PEH by placing them in some form of transitional housing and helping them find employment so that they can remain housed. Portland, Oregon, and other cities have also amended zoning to allow for more homeless shelters and more flexible group living, while increasing access to resources PEH may need. 59 “Warming stations,” City of Columbus, accessed June 23, 2023; Lindsey Mills, “Columbus leaders, community partners launch interactive map for warming centers, homeless shelters,” WBNS-TV, December 19, 2022. In Columbus, the Community Shelter Board (CSB) serves thousands of people through programs to prevent and respond to homelessness, including partnering with landlords to create additional housing capacity for PEH and with the Homelessness Prevention Network to coordinate social services in the community for PEH. 60 “Major updates to the City’s housing-related zoning rules coming August 1,” City of Portland, Oregon, July 16, 2021.

As Columbus’s population continues to grow, stressors that come from growth need to be understood and mitigated head-on through innovative approaches. Through a focus on housing development, the region’s public, private, and civic leaders are seeking to improve housing security while supporting economic development. By setting clear goals to increase the overall housing supply, reduce the cost of new construction, provide support to improve housing affordability, and assist those who are currently experiencing homelessness, 61 Community Shelter Board website, accessed June 23, 2023. Columbus could make significant strides toward sustainable and inclusive growth, set an example for other regions, and ensure that all who wish to reside here can find a place of their own to call home.

Brandon Carrus is a senior partner in, and managing partner of, McKinsey’s Ohio office, where Seth Myers is a partner and Brian Parro is an associate partner; Duwain Pinder is a partner in the Ohio office and is a leader of the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility; Ben Safran is a partner in the Washington, DC, office.

The authors wish to thank Kyoka Allen, Charlie Baca, Laura Hempton, and Sarthak Soni for their contributions to this article.

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Analysis of house damage and prevention strategies for cut slope house-building landslides in tectonically weak and humid hilly areas: a case study of Jiangxi Province

• Original Paper
• Published: 06 April 2024

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• Yun Liu 1 , 2 ,
• Chongjian Shao 1 , 3 ,
• Yufu Wu 2 ,
• Hengxing Lan 4 ,
• Yilong Yang 5 ,
• Zhaokun Yan 3 ,
• Yilin Li 3 ,
• Qiujuan Zhong 2 ,
• Zhongping Wu 6 &
• Lianwei Yang 7  

The increasing intensity of human activity is exposing more people and property in hill regions to geohazards (including rockfall, landslide, debris flow, et al.). In tectonically weak and humid (TWH) hilly areas, such as the Jiangxi Province, a large proportion of the losses in geohazards are caused by cut slope house-building (CSHB) landslides. The house is the “first line of defense” of a household against geohazards. However, previous studies mainly studied cut slope landslides themselves to reduce disaster losses, but few conducted analyses from the perspective of house damage. Considering the situation, this study makes an inventory of house damage information related to CSHB landslides in Jiangxi Province from 2019 to 2022 and analyzes the house damage characteristics, effects of influencing factors on house damage, and prevention suggestions in TWH hilly areas. Some main findings can be summarized as follows: (i) The main house with a brick-concrete structure will not collapse under the influence of 81.07% cut slope landslides; (ii) the first floor needs to be reinforced due to its high frequency of damage; (iii) the ancillary houses should be placed in front of the main house or on diagonal sides away from the cut slope and should not be set up as high-activity functional areas; (iv) the kitchen is the functional area with the most severe damage closely related to layout pattern and stability characteristics. Our study contributes to subsequent analysis of house damage or physical vulnerability, and disaster loss reduction in TWH hilly areas.

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Supplementary materials related to this article can be found in the attachment. Supplementary material presents the inventory of 1,622 geohazards that caused losses in Jiangxi Province from 2019 to 2022, and the inventory of 715 landslides related to cut slopes with rich information on house damage.

Bera S, Guru B, Oommen T (2020) Indicator-based approach for assigning physical vulnerability of the houses to landslide hazard in the Himalayan region of India. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 50:101891. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101891

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Ali Darvishi Boloorani (University of Tehran) for discussing and improving the English version. Many thanks will go to the editors and reviewers for their constructive comments.

This work was supported by Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation [grant number: 20232BAB213073], Open Fund from Engineering Research Center for Seismic Disaster Prevention and Engineering Geological Disaster Detection of Jiangxi Province [grant number: SDGD202204], Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education Science and Technology Research Project [grant number: GJJ2200759], Jiangxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources Project [grant number: 360000243188887011285]), and ECUT’s 2019 the Start-up Fund of Research for recent Ph. D. graduates [grant number: DHBK2019044].

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School of Earth Sciences, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, 330013, China

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Liu, Y., Shao, C., Wu, Y. et al. Analysis of house damage and prevention strategies for cut slope house-building landslides in tectonically weak and humid hilly areas: a case study of Jiangxi Province. Landslides (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-024-02245-5

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Received : 26 November 2023

Accepted : 08 March 2024

Published : 06 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-024-02245-5

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