Comparative life cycle assessment of a modular cross-laminated timber residential building designed for disassembly and reuse versus traditional wood frame construction

Abstract

There is a need for affordable housing across the U.S., with high-performance modular and prefabricated buildings providing a logical avenue for meeting some of this demand. However, there is a need to balance high performance construction – including low emissions – with affordability. To provide a proof-of-concept in meeting these goals, the Circular Home is a cross-laminated timber (CLT)-based deconstructible and reconfigurable single-family residence that meets high performance targets in moisture, energy, design, economics, and life cycle assessment (LCA). This study focuses on the LCA, presenting a cradle-to-cradle whole-building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) for the Circular Home and a functionally equivalent Baseline Home constructed with traditional materials and methods. The functional unit is 1 $m^2$ of gross floor area across 60 years. Revit building information models (BIM) provided material quantities and Tally LCA was utilized for impact data (inclusive of biogenic carbon sequestration), supplemented with manufacturer environmental product declarations (EPDs). The Circular Home outperforms the baseline residence in most measured impact categories, including global warming potential (GWP), producing −2.73 kgCO${}_2$eq/m² in embodied emissions, whereas the modeled baseline has an embodied GWP of 428 kgCO${}_2$eq/m². The careful material selection and advanced building design optimizes performance, with the Circular Home containing only −0.006 times the embodied emissions and −0.02 times the operational emissions of its traditional counterpart. The unique contribution of this work is in the environmental impact comparison of a high-performance modular CLT structure that can be affordably scaled and mass produced in a U.S. market, compared to typical single family home construction.