Structural–Carbon Integrated Design for Sustainable Hybrid High-Rise Buildings
Material selection is a critical determinant of sustainability in building design, requiring careful balance between structural performance and environmental impact. Conventional Building Information Modeling (BIM) workflows often separate structural analysis from embodied carbon assessment, limiting the ability to efficiently explore design alternatives. This study introduces the Structural-Carbon Integrated Design (SCID) framework as a unified approach to address this challenge.
Limitations of Conventional BIM-Based Design Approaches
Traditional BIM workflows typically evaluate structural stability and environmental performance in isolation, resulting in fragmented decision-making and increased computational effort. Such separation restricts rapid comparison of material strategies, particularly during early design stages when design flexibility and impact reduction potential are highest.
Development of the SCID Framework
The SCID framework integrates structural performance evaluation and embodied carbon assessment within a single parametric BIM workflow. By enabling simultaneous analysis of structural stability and environmental impact, SCID supports data-driven exploration of multiple material and geometric configurations, significantly enhancing design efficiency and decision accuracy.
Case Study Description and Parametric Scenarios
The framework was applied to 1,125 structural design scenarios of the UBC Brock Commons Tallwood House, an 18-storey mass timber–concrete hybrid high-rise. Parametric variations were conducted across material combinations and element dimensions for columns, flat slabs, and core walls, allowing systematic evaluation of hybrid, timber-only, and concrete-only configurations.
Structural and Environmental Performance Trade-Offs
Results indicate that the benchmark hybrid configuration (Case I), utilizing a concrete core with timber slabs and columns, achieved a 52% reduction in embodied carbon compared to a concrete-only structure, while incurring only a 40% increase in structural impact—remaining within acceptable performance limits. Fully timber systems achieved near-total environmental impact reduction but exhibited structural performance losses of up to 86%, limiting their feasibility for high-rise applications.
Design Implications and Framework Contributions
Concrete-only systems demonstrated superior structural reliability but the poorest environmental performance. In contrast, SCID enables rapid identification of optimal hybrid solutions by explicitly revealing trade-offs between structural integrity and carbon reduction. This study demonstrates SCID’s potential to support early-stage decision-making and advance low-carbon, high-performance strategies in tall building construction.
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