Advancing urban resilience with modular construction: An integrated sustainability assessment framework

Abstract

Given the rapid growth of sustainable construction strategies globally and the importance of resiliency in civil infrastructure, it is crucial to adopt best practices. Modular construction is one such practice and is considered a better alternative to conventional construction in terms of resilience, construction times, resource efficiency, and sustainability. However, the continued expansion of modular construction relies on quantifying and evaluating its sustainability and the purported benefits. This paper develops and checks feasibility through an integrated multi-level decision support framework to empirically evaluate the sustainability performances of single-family residential modular homes. Criteria and indicator development and calculation, benchmark scale establishment, quantitative and qualitative data collection from literature and surveys, and multi-criteria decision analysis are unique aspects of this framework. The results of the two case studies located in the Okanagan region, Canada showed that modular homes perform at a higher level of sustainability than their conventional counterparts across multiple metrics and levels related to environmental and economic factors. The modular homes scored eco-efficiency values of 62.5 and 56.0, respectively and fell into higher performance range. The proposed framework offers flexibility in examining different dimensions of sustainability, providing valuable insights into the key parameters that need to be addressed to enhance overall sustainability. This research, which integrates life cycle thinking and decision-making, helps the construction industry and, municipalities, governments, and policymakers in making informed decisions on the selection of suitable construction methods in city developments and move towards a more resilient and sustainable sector.

Keywords

Modular construction / Performance benchmarking / Building resiliency / Resilience cities / Life cycle sustainability

Relevance to resilience

Modular construction is increasingly recognized as construction suitable for both pre- and post-disaster events and has a potential to increase resilience of buildings in urban settings. This work directly addresses two focus areas of building resiliency. Firstly, it is a recognized resilient technology that offers flexibility, adaptability, and scalability. The reduced construction time and wastage of materials, quick assembly and construction has seen its application in numerous post disasters recovery efforts. Secondly, it deals with and goes beyond life cycle assessment and provides more comprehensive sustainably benchmarks. Resilience based design is ensured as suitable parameters such as energy efficiency, adaptability, and economic criteria where they are prioritized and investigated individually as well as collectively.

This research, which integrates life cycle thinking and decision-making, helps the construction industry and, municipalities, governments, and policymakers in making informed decisions on the selection of suitable construction methods in city settings and move towards a more resilient and sustainable sector. In addition, the novel framework presented in this paper can be adapted for assessing sustainability of other civil infrastructure that contributes to resilient cities.

Funding statement

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Mohammad Kamali: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Validation, Software, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Kasun Hewage: Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Anber Rana: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Visualization. Shahria Alam: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Rehan Sadiq: Writing - review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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