Environmental assessment of Digital Fabrication: contribution of IT design to the overall life cycle impacts

Digital fabrication represents an innovative technology with the potential of expanding the boundaries of architectural design and construction. The control of the manufacturing process through computational design is transforming design disciplines. Initial studies based on 3D printing have associated digital technologies to a significant reduction of resources, energy and emissions. However, there have been no quantitative comparison between digital fabrication and traditional construction processes at architectural scale. This study researches the environmental implications of the development of digital fabrication on the improvement of sustainability in construction. Questions related to digital fabrication are identified with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework present in ISO 14040-44 standards. The environmental approach undertakes the classification of architecture in four categories where digital fabrication enables improvements over traditional construction. In each category, life cycle assessments are applied with the aim of studying which processes produce larger impacts on the environmental profile of digital fabrication. Finally, the impact assessment approach is applied to a case study of architecture digitally fabricated with additional functions. The life cycle of a self-shading brick façade is compared to conventional construction with specific focus on embodied energy of materials and technologies, processing, and operational energy. The results of the assessment will be used as environmental guidelines providing support to designers in the process of optimization of digital fabrication in architecture and construction.