Davidson, Eleni; (2025) A life-cycle approach to optimise Higher Education building design strategies for future UK climate projections. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Refurbishment of higher education buildings offers potential for substantial carbon savings but involves complex trade-offs between embodied and operational emissions, often evaluated using static assumptions over the building’s life-cycle. This research develops a dynamic Life-Cycle Assessment and Climate Change Adaptation (LCA-CCA) optimisation methodology to assess refurbishment strategies under future climate and grid decarbonisation scenarios. The approach was applied to three mixed-use urban university buildings, evaluating life-cycle carbon and life-cycle cost impacts over a 60-year period using the multi-objective genetic algorithm, NSGA-II, to identify Pareto-optimal solutions. Findings demonstrated that air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) had a far greater influence on life-cycle carbon reduction than fabric upgrades, with all three case studies exhibiting baseline airtightness and thermal performance suitable for efficient ASHP operation. Despite higher embodied impacts from refrigerant leakage and end-of-life recovery, ASHPs consistently delivered the greatest overall carbon savings, reinforcing the cumulative life-cycle benefits of system electrification, particularly under faster grid decarbonisation scenarios. Mixed-mode ventilation also emerged as a key driver of both carbon and cost savings. Overall, system upgrades and control strategies were found to offer greater benefits than extensive fabric interventions. The analysis also demonstrated an increasingly nuanced balance between embodied and operational carbon when aligned with system electrification and grid decarbonisation. Measures such as triple glazing or insulation additions beyond regulatory standards provided limited or adverse effects on life-cycle carbon when coupled with ASHPs, despite benefits under gas-based systems. Finally, long-term stability in annual building life-cycle carbon emissions was achieved only when rapid grid decarbonisation was paired with full electrification of heating systems. Under slower pathways, all other design combinations showed continued increases in carbon impact over the buildings’ 60-year lifespan. Overall, these findings emphasise the need to consider dynamic uncertainties in LCA, incorporating changing interactions between building design, wider energy systems, and climate conditions to ensure refurbishment strategies remain robust throughout the transition to net zero.

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