These reference buildings comprise:
- commercial offices ranging from a gross floor area of 1500 m² up to over 9000 m² - these are modelled as structure and enclosure only
- stand-alone houses that have been designed to achieve compliance with the New Zealand Building Code (NZBC) and others that have been designed to exceed the NZBC, particularly with respect to thermal performance and energy efficiency
- a medium-density housing (MDH) building
- an apartment building
- School buildings.
The results for the reference buildings are embedded in LCAQuick and may be used as comparators during design. They are case studies and should not be considered as a statistically representative sample.
Operational energy use is simulated. For the purposes of these simulations, we assume that the buildings are operated to achieve a comfortable indoor temperature in the range 18-25˚C. For office and school buildings, this is assumed during occupied hours and for residential, all the time.
All buildings are simulated for Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Get more detail
These study reports provide more information about the reference buildings and how they have been modelled:
- SR418 New Zealand whole-building whole-of-life framework: LCAQuick v3.4
- SR350 New Zealand whole-building whole-of-life framework: Development of reference office buildings for use in early design - covers the development of the reference commercial office buildings for version 1.0 of LCAQuick, so parts of the report have now been superseded.