Makara Long PhD

Sustainable Building Design Integrated Life-Cycle Assessment, for Best Strategy to Design the Green Residential Buildings in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The building construction growth in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, has been built by lacking attention to sustainability and limited awareness of sustainable building topics in the construction sector will deal with consequences in the near future.  Residential buildings are crucial and most constructed in the city due to the present and future demands of the urban population. Environmentally, buildings consume more than 40% of global energy and around 12% of global freshwater, generate about 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, and are considered a major account of environmental degradation. The relationship between the building industry and environmental pollution is commonly associated, although the building industry is important for social and economic development. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been introduced as an innovative method to minimize the environmental impact of the building sector and promote green building design, and support the decision-making process among architects and planning professionals.

The research proposes the design strategy and guideline-integrated LCA methodology to reduce the overall carbon and environmental footprint and enhance the sustainable design of residential buildings in Phnom Penh. It also aims to implement the green building approach to affordable housing design which included material efficiency, energy efficiency, cost efficiency, waste management, and indoor environment quality. In order to be well applied in the green building criteria of the research context, the state of the art of LCA framework in the same region is studied, and aware of existing standards, references, methods, databases, and tools on the LCA of buildings and construction products.