Carbon Designer 3D Guide

How can you implement LCAs early in the design process?

One of the most common questions newcomers to LCA ask is how they can implement LCAs at the early stages of the design process, before anything has been drawn, while still needing to benchmark different structural frames and material combinations.

There are numerous advantages to implementing LCAs early on, including, but not limited to:

1. Being able to obtain a Bill of Materials for a project early on.
2. Achieve more certification credits, like LEED.
3. Optimize design choices from an embodied carbon perspective.
4. Get early feedback on carbon hotspots.
5. Assess embodied carbon in tandem with cost implications.

At One Click LCA, we developed Carbon Designer 3D (CD3D) to address the early carbon optimization challenge. The tool allows any team member to easily obtain carbon information on a project from its inception. CD3D enables teams to generate designs, identify carbon hotspots, benchmark different structural frames, drill down into details for powerful comparative analyses, and eventually move their desired design forward to perform full-blown life-cycle assessments.

But how does Carbon Designer 3D work?

1. Create a design & choose a building type

First, the user needs to input some basic information about their project: the desired name (1), the reference building to be used (2), the rough gross floor area (3), and the calculation period (4). The calculation period is used to determine the impacts from the building's use stage, essentially representing how long the building will be in use.

Since different building typologies have different requirements, choosing the correct building type will ensure that the most appropriate settings are applied. If your project is mixed-use, choose the type that best describes the majority of the project.

2. Define the scope of the project

At this point, you’ll be asked to provide some additional details about the project (1), such as which building elements you want results for, the number of above and below ground floors (2), and your baseline structural frame (3).

3. Calculate the geometry

Carbon Designer 3D is a shoebox analysis tool, meaning the resulting geometry will be a rectangle. However, you can still influence both the dimensions of the project and the quantities used to calculate the final impacts.

4. Applying building templates

The last step, although optional, is of great importance as it allows you to assign predefined building templates. Within CD3D, you also have the option to save your favorite configurations as complete building templates and use them on multiple projects. This boosts client communication, as it enables you to demonstrate to clients the benefits and impact of your design and consultancy in practice.

Review your results and compare up to 4 design alternatives

From a carbon heatmap to a carbon estimation of your project’s elements, CD3D provides a clear way to communicate the anticipated impacts of design choices. CD3D also offers a detailed list of all the material assemblies used to calculate the project’s carbon impact. If any of these assemblies don’t match your design choices, you can easily substitute them with more suitable options. For instance, if you’re not satisfied with the default choice for floor slabs, you can replace the in-situ concrete slab assembly with a post-tensioned floor slab.

Additionally, CD3D allows you to compare up to four different design alternatives and export the chosen one. In the example below, we made sample changes to the bill of materials for the floor slabs, using a post-tensioned slab as our baseline and comparing it with a wooden-joist slab, a cast-in-place slab, and a composite concrete metal decking.

Substituting assemblies in Carbon Designer 3D

Need more options? You can use your own custom constructions within Carbon Designer 3D for a more tailored experience.  For details on setting up private constructions, refer to this this article from our helpdesk.

In this video tutorial, you will learn how to modify the default construction for a specific building element in Carbon Designer 3D. By navigating through the tool's interface, you can select the desired building element and set a construction to 100%, making it the new default.

Merging designs together

In this Carbon Designer 3D video, you can see the creation of a unique building design by adjusting the building dimensions and modifying the structural inputs. The process showcases how to customize various elements, from building dimensions to building structures. Once the design is complete, the CD3D design is seamlessly saved and merged into an existing project.

Can I use Carbon Designer 3D later
in the process?

The tool provides the most benefit early on when no decisions have been finalized, but it also plays a significant role later in the process. It can be especially powerful in cases where there is an information gap. Often, several elements are not drawn in BIM models, such as reinforcement in concrete, paints, etc. Since CD3D not only provides carbon numbers but also an actual bill of materials, you can fill in any missing information in your design.

If that’s your use case, then during the geometry calculation step, set all quantities for which you already have information to 0 and choose to merge the exported design with an existing one instead of creating a new one.

Optimize embodied carbon in the earliest phase of design with Carbon Designer 3D

Timing is crucial for decarbonization. Reduce emissions by up to 50% by optimizing early. With Carbon Designer 3D, begin with building type and size, adjust material and structural elements, and compare designs to find the most carbon-efficient option. Carbon Designer 3D allows you to save time on carbon calculations, get early feedback on carbon hotspots, find savings, set your targets and win more projects by optimizing embodied carbon impacts within a few minutes.