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Life Cycle Costing
Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is a technique for assessing the economic consequences of various facility design decisions. It is used for three types of analysis:
1) Deciding whether to renovate, build new, expand, lease, or continue the current situation.
2) Establishing the annual facility budget to cover the life cycle costs of the project.
3) Comparing the life cycle costs of various building system alternatives for the purpose of selecting the "best alternative for the design.
KIRK Associates is proficient at each of these three types of LCC assessments. We maintain a life cycle cost database of various building types as well as cost and performance data for a variety of building systems. Typically, energy and maintenance related analyses are performed during the schematic and design development stages of a project while the first two types of LCC studies are done during early planning and programming.
Twenty years of Stephen Kirk's experience has shown that active application of life cycle costing can provide owners with a return on investment (ROI) in excess of 50 to 1 depending on decisions made during concept/schematic/design development phase of a project. Life cycle costing methodology may be applied at any point in the design process from early feasibility planning through construction and occupancy. As with any heuristic approach however, its greatest potential in the design process is in the "early stage" decisions. These may include: facility versus other economic investment; new facility versus retrofit of existing structure; high-rise versus low-rise construction; active/passive solar energy versus conventional HVAC; structural framing versus design modules; design layouts versus staffing efficiencies; spacial flexibility versus interior partitioning; natural lighting versus artificial means; native landscaping versus conventional landscaping; fire sprinkler systems versus insurance premiums; fixed partitions versus demountable partitions; interstitial space versus floor-to-floor height; insulation and glazing versus energy requirements; fenestration & shading versus lighting requirements.
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