Adapting to COVID-19
Adapting to COVID-19
EARTHEN BUILDER LCA
M A S T E R S T H E S I S
ADVISOR: LOLA BEN-ALON
METHODS: GAMIFICATION, 3D MODELING, DATA VISUALIZATION
TOOLS: BLENDER, UNREAL ENGINE
Natural building materials are a critical future of a decarbonized built environment. Involving raw materials such as clay-rich soils and vegetable fibers in building processes employ a range of techniques, and hence, a range of environmental and visual features, from rammed earth, to cob and light straw clay. However, despite their advantages, natural materials are not represented in mainstream construction, perceived mistakenly as poor in their performance, low-tech, and are missing representation in training for building professionals. Earthen Builder: Life-Cycle Assessment presents a digital tool for designing architecture with natural materials and visualizing their associated embodied carbon (carbon footprint measurement covering the production, transportation, and construction of building materials). It links, for the first time, computational play and critical data with traditional recipes of designing with natural materials. The project’s primary goal was to identify how game technology can advance the knowledge base of an overlooked, historic, and sustainable practice. The result showcases a digital tool for sustainable engagement that utilizes a geological database of locally available soil-based repositories to decarbonize building materials. As an exploratory design tool, it was tested for its mechanics, graphical user interface, and perception shifts among designers and researchers. The final outcome seeks to establish a digital foundation for a more comprehensive earthen materials knowledge tool and life-cycle assessment. Click here to access paper publication.
P R O O F O F C O N C E P T
F I N A L D E M O W A L K T H R O U G H
M E T H O D O L O G Y
This project aimed to develop an accessible tool that bridges disciplines to design structural solutions using low-carbon, soil-based mixtures as pre-applied building materials. By incorporating a play-based approach, the tool engages a broader audience in designing with natural materials through a publicly accessible computational platform. Using the CRISP-DM (Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining) framework, a virtual environment was created to integrate computational play with design pedagogy, empowering users to make sustainable, data-driven decisions while enhancing their understanding of design technology.
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P R E C E D E N T S
Existing tools like the Cardinal LCA Grasshopper plugin and OneClick LCA were evaluated to explore how the principles of building decarbonization could be effectively translated into an accessible format, enabling designers to better understand the impact of their material choices. Schematics developed in Rhino Grasshopper provided insights into how these representations could be adapted and integrated into a game engine simulation, bridging technical analysis with interactive design.
T E X T U R E M A P S
The initial step in digitally visualizing materiality involved photographing original soil and fiber-based textures. The Natural Materials Lab acted as the central hub for curating a comprehensive portfolio, which included clay soil, fique, flax, hemp, light straw clay, and various iterations of rammed earth. These materials were digitized into a range of texture maps—normal, albedo, diffuse, edge, height, and smoothness—allowing them to be rendered as both abstract material representations and functional components within the tool's material inventory, accessible to users for design exploration.
3 D M A T E R I A L R E N D E R S
First iteration of the photographed natural materials mapped into a 3D context.
[Top row from left-to-right: gravel, rammed earth, straw; Bottom row from left-to-right: loam soil, clay soil, cob.]
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D I G I T I Z I N G T H E F I R S T P O I : S A N T A F E , N E W M E X I C O
The soil data was captured from the USDA Web Soil Survey for Santa Fe, NM. The topography of the landscape was downloaded as a BIL file from the USGS EarthExplorer interface, digitized as a digital elevation model (DEM) in the TerreSculptor software, and rendered into UE5 spanning a 129,024 meter map to-scale with a procedural semi-arid biome texture applied. This large-scale map would contribute to the sandbox aesthetic of the tool where the users could endlessly design around themselves at free-will.
P L A Y T E S T S
A freeform base-builder algorithm was developed, enabling users to place architectural elements such as walls, foundations, roofs, doors, windows, beams, arches, bricks, and simple blocks into an open-world environment. Certain assets were adapted and retextured from open-source libraries, including UE5 and Sketchfab. The embodied carbon of materials was calculated using data from the University of Bath's Inventory of Embodied Carbon and Energy report. A total of 24 playtests were conducted with participants including architectural and planning researchers, students, and professors. Below are images from the alpha (initial), beta (intermediate), and gold (final) stages of the playtests, which informed the development of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
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P L A Y T E S T R E S U L T S & E M B O D I E D C A R B O N D A T A
Outlined are the results from the three stages of the playtests conducted, their purpose, and how the outcomes informed the next iteration along with the calculations for the cradle-to-site embodied carbon data collected from the University of Bath. It's important to note that since the carbon data was limited to embodied carbon measurements within select countries of Europe excluding Sante Fe, U.S. as a result, the materials data only serves as a schematic estimate for providing feedback to user decisions. Hover and click to view charts.
O U T C O M E
By developing a virtual space that represents low-carbon materiality within an impact-driven spatial data simulation, users can (1) geolocate natural materials in an accessible virtual context, (2) understand its visualized materiality, and (3) design through sustainable data-driven decision-making. From the playtests, it was observed that streamlining these objectives into a gamified interface engaged users into the pedagogy of decarbonized design technologies. Users were eager to design within additional localities with suggestions of a crowd-sourcing interface of contributing to the dataset of soil mixtures pre-applied to building elements.
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Further development of this project can seek to (1) visualize the environmental consequences of modern building materials in relation to its low-carbon counterpart and (2) provide a materials map of where specific soil mixtures were sourced from within its locality for its embodied carbon metric. More localities can also be added to the simulation’s library encouraging users to envision sustainable building practices within their respective communities. Opportunities such as community-driven participatory engagements and crowd-sourcing initiatives can contribute to using the simulation as a method of unveiling knowledge-bases for a more sustainable world.