Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is considered as the most suitable way to assess the environmental impact of buildings. Due to its extensiveness and complexity, but also due to a lack of knowledge amongst architects, the LCA methodology is currently most often applied as a post-design evaluation and not used to support or optimize design decisions during early design stages. Therefore, this paper looks at possible solutions to apply LCA, including operational energy demand simulation, in early design from two different perspectives: design-oriented user requirements, derived from literature, a survey, interviews and a focus group with architects, and LCA simplification strategies based on a literature review. Both perspectives are discussed and merged into an evaluation framework that can be used to check the suitability of LCA-based environmental impact assessment (EIA) tools for use by architects during early design stages, but also to develop new design-supportive LCA-based EIA tools. In turn, this can contribute to an increased uptake of these tools in building practice. Display omitted •The importance of building environmental impact assessment (EIA) is increasing.•Most influential design decisions are made by architects in early design.•Current life cycle based EIA tools are not adapted to the architects' needs.•Architect-oriented user requirements and LCA simplification strategies were derived.•The framework will improve the usability of EIA tools in architectural practice.