Living Lab Research



Materials and Structure

Life Cycle Costs of Structural Systems (Jen Tobias)
This research project uses LCADesign to create ecoProfiles for a steel and wood structural system in order to determine the system with the lowest environmental impact. Building materials are often chosen without full knowledge of the product's impact on the environment. This makes engineering for sustainability significantly harder. The Life Cycle Impact Analysis (LCIA) methodology translates scientific data into ecoProfiles, providing AEC professionals with information vital to sustainable design.

Biocomposites (Sarah Billington)
The Green Dorm project presents several opportunities for investigating the application of innovative materials that promote sustainable living.   One current research area at Stanford is on the engineering of new materials made from renewable resources (e.g. fiber-reinforced plastics made from plant-based products) could be used in both structural and non-structural applications. A second area of materials research focuses on the application of traditional cement-based materials that have been re-engineered to achieve properties such as high tensile strength and ductility, resulting in more durable as well as easily demountable and replaceable building components.

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