Constructing and using buildings significantly impacts the environment and human health. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an evolving science that helps us understand and quantify these impacts throughout a building’s lifecycle. This article explores the fundamentals of LCA, explaining its stages, the types of environmental impacts it assesses, and its application in the building industry. What is Life Cycle Assessment? LCA is a method used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a building over its entire life cycle. This process includes the following stages: In LCA terminology, the

If I asked you to close your eyes and imagine yourself in a relaxing environment, odds are that the environment you just picked incorporates several natural features like the presence of plants, the sea and its gentle breeze, a fireplace with its crackling sound, … You’ve most likely heard before that humans are instinctively drawn to nature. Biophilia describes this innate human-nature connection. Biophilia is being introduced into buildings through biophilic design, a practice that uses nature-inspired design methods to awaken our inherent affinity to nature to make us feel emotionally