Optimizing Affordable Housing

Intended users

Architects, urban planners and developers focused on affordable housing projects
Non-profit organizations and governmental agencies seeking efficient, cost-effective housing solutions
Students and educators in AEC industry
Sustainability consultants aiming to meet decarbonization targets

Need you’re trying to provide a solution or support for

Affordable Housing projects often struggle with complex trade-offs, minimizing upfront costs,, reducing embodied carbon, and achieving energy efficiency. Designers must quickly explore multiple configurations to minimize costs while meeting regulatory and community requirements. There is a need for a user-friendly tool that bridges these gaps by optimizing materials selection, cost, and operational energy performance holistically. This helps stakeholders optimize construction methods to deliver the most units at the lowest cost, without sacrificing quality.

Inputs

Low-Carbon Materials
Construction costs
EUI
Building width
Building height

Underlying logic of the model you’ll implement

Accept user-defined inputs for building dimensions, material properties, cost, and EUI calculations
EUI:

Used the link below to estimate the energy usage by mass floors at the lowest level and the highest level
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772783123000109#fig0006
Formula: Annual Energy Consumption (12 times monthly usage) divided by the gross floor area

Construction Costs

Formula: Finding the value at each level by multiplying the massFloorArea by the ValueAtLevel

Embodied Carbon Materials

Material selection (concrete, steel, and cross-laminated timber) with embodied carbon data from Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
Prioritize materials with < 300 kgCO2e

The model will calculate the construction costs, embodied carbon materials, and EUI generating a scatter plot
Generate a study using the specified parameters, ensuring we find the most optimal solution
Automatically evaluates various combinations to identify options that best align with constructing affordable housing units.

Outputs

Construction cost for each evaluated design option
EUI for each evaluated design option
Low-carbon material to use for each evaluated design option

Comparison table to find the combination of the lowest carbon-emitting material choices, lowest EUI, and most affordable costs.
Exportable model in Revit via Dynamo