Life-cycle costing of laboratory buildings

Situation and motivation: Today’s calculation of life-cyle costs is characterized by a high degree of standardization and uses uniform calculation parameters and "fixed" specific values, especially for the purpose of benchmarking in the context of sustainability certifications. Contrary to that, specific life-cycle costing is applied to predict real construction and follow-up costs and to use it for decision-support during the planning process.Objective and procedure The presented project "Life-cycle costing of laboratory buildings" aims to develop specific life-cycle costing through reference to a practical tool for planning costs even enabling benchmarking within sustainability certifications. The starting point is the calculation of life-cylce costs beginning with a virtual cost model of a reference building. Firstly, the model for a "standard building" will be developed by information won from literature and existing data pools. The model will be specified regarding its costs and characteristics and classified by subgroups that are relevant for the costs. Secondly, cost factors like calculation parameters or corrective factors, which will help afterwards to navigate the cost model, will be defined in interviews with designated experts. Thirdly, the model will be tested on about 30 laboratory buildings of the project’s partners who will provide information, data and characteristics of the laboratory buildings. At last the result will be iteratively checked by applying the model to real projects. Thus, especially the applicability and validity of the result will be continuously asserted.Organization: The project is conducted by the University of Stuttgart (Prof. Dr. Christian Stoy, Verena Walter M.A.) and supervised by an advisory council, which sets emphasis on the content and enables the suggested procedure through the supply of data and financial support. In return, the projects will be uniformly registered, compared to each other and used for developing the cost-planning tool. The ultimate result of the project will be put at the disposal of the project partners. The first interim result of the project is expected within 12 months.