Life-time performance of post-disaster temporary housing: A case study in Nanjing: Fid-Bau Portal

Life-time performance of post-disaster temporary housing: A case study in Nanjing

Song, Yiming / Mithraratne, Nalanie / Zhang, Hong

Highlights • Post-disaster temporary housing has an important impact on environment. • The construction energy is much more than operating energy in temporary housing. • Using recycled materials or light wall materials could reduce construction energy. • Structural material with low energy intensity could reduce the construction energy.

Abstract Temporary housing is crucial to disaster recovery, due to the demand for large numbers within a short period. The short life cycle and unique functional requirements associated with temporary housing could lead to significant environmental impacts. However these have not been adequately investigated. This paper focuses on the life cycle performance of light-framed temporary housing in China with local technologies, taking Chinese electricity mix of each process and domestic transportation distances into consideration. The research selects four popular temporary housing in China, calculates the material requirements and compares the life cycle impact of different wall assemblies based on Future House built in Nanjing. While energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are used as surrogate indicators of environmental impact, total life-time impact is established by including construction energy, operating energy, maintenance energy and end-of-life energy and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions. It was found that the life cycle energy of post-disaster temporary housing is much higher in comparison to low energy buildings with construction energy contributing 65% to life cycle energy due to unique requirements. The results also show that life cycle energy of post-disaster shelters could be reduced by using recycled materials, lighter structural materials and light wall cladding materials.