Carbon Footprint in the Design Studio, a Paradigm Shift
Abstract
This paper reports on investigative academic work of the authors employing evidence-based design tools to teach students how to optimize their design for the combined impact of operational and embodied energy. An approach that recognizes the fact that at day zero of building operation, it has already contributed to energy consumption and carbon generation. Being aware of the optimization problem and their responsibility for training the new generation of designers, the authors integrate energy performance as a primary design goal in teaching a Comprehensive Design Studio that is required for senior students in Architecture and Architectural Engineering. The paper discusses life cycle carbon analysis, in association with other tools, as a means to evaluate design alternatives based on overall contribution to carbon footprint due to both operational and embodied energy. Minimizing operational energy, however, may be at odds with minimizing embodied energy. For example, a high window-to-wall ratio can be ameliorated by exterior aluminum shading devices, but these shading devices may actually have high embodied carbon. Therefore, energy performance and life-cycle carbon reductions must be treated as an optimization problem. To make this point clear, a case study in a student’s evaluation of envelope design alternatives is presented.
Keywords
Carbon footprint, Operational energy, Operational carbon, Embodied energy, Embodied carbon.