Study On Guiding Effectiveness Of House Environmental Assessment Systems For Urban Residential Districts

Based on environmental assessment systems for buildings developed in some countries, several assessment systems have been in place in China. As use of assessment systems is dependent on their guiding effectiveness, it is important to examine the guiding effectiveness of assessment systems. This also helps in promoting awareness of such systems and in improving the systems.Urban residential districts are focus of sustainability issue for China's development. Our environmental assessment systems for residential districts, which were derived from individual building environmental assessment systems from other developed countries, have become significant tools for accrediting and guiding the sustainable development of residential districts. This dissertation studies the guiding effectiveness of house environmental assessment system in the practice of urban residential construction. The methodologies mainly include literature review, field investigation, case study and multi-disciplinary tools.The dissertation comprises three parts. The first part is on cmparison study. We examine developments and practices of existing building environment assessment systems along the way from foreign practices to domestic practices, from general guidelines to specific handling. Based on an extensive comparison of representative house environment assessment systems, we think that one weakness of residential environment assessment systems used in China is excessive items in the criteria. The second part is application study. Three newly-built urban residential districts were examined using various assessment systems. The conclusion of the first part was validated by counting their scores on each criterion, computing the extent to which the weights and scores are correlated. Subsequently, "80/20 prinicple", borrowed from management science, is used to select and induce available criteria. The third part is optimization study. Based on unique features of china's urban residential districts, the selective criteria are extended to a reasonable scope. All of these efforts help build a concept model. Finally, by ranking the criteria and calculating the weight of each criterion, a primary framework of assessing urban residential project environment in design phase is achieved.The assessment tool for designing sustainable urban residential districts addresses the question of how to do instead of what to do. To achieve higher flexibility in application, the method offers an open structure, which enhances guiding effectiveness.As a study on house environment assessment systems, this dissertation tries to establish an assessment of urban residential project environment, aiming at promoting china's sustainable residential development in cities.