,Affordable Carbon Positive Housing Design
There are many new possibilities for rethinking affordable homes that can be improved for climate resilience and carbon positive buildings.
It can be designed to be part of a circular economy, by reducing waste,
reusing it and using it as sustainable alternatives with energy efficiency principles.
By utilizing innovative approaches to design and technology,
these buildings can perform better, help manage their energy needs, and possibly generate energy themselves.
There are two ways that can be achieved to scale up inexpensive carbon positive housing, namely,
through data-driven decision-making and bringing reproducibility into the process.
Climate and site analysis was performed manually, by architects and designers,
to understand the context of their designs and make design decisions to help make the building more energy efficient.
This process is manual and time consuming and can add to project costs.
Using an automated performance analysis tool can help speed up the project schedule,
allowing designers to choose better materials and improve design options with sustainability goals in mind.
The use of advanced energy analysis tools, for example, can ensure that energy efficiency measures are always built into projects.
Affordable Carbon Positive Housing Design
This can include design strategies that reduce demand-side loads,
such as high-performance envelopes,
air barrier systems, daylighting and solar control, shading devices,
careful selection of windows and glazing, passive solar heating, natural ventilation, and water conservation.
Once the overall building loads are reduced, careful consideration of effective equipment and systems must be made.
This may include energy-efficient lighting, electrical lighting controls,
high-performance HVAC, geothermal heat pumps, or energy conversion devices.
The Charlotte Vermont home’s deliberate design strategies and methodologies,
which keep redundancy in mind, are key to creating affordable, sustainable homes that have the potential to be built on a large scale.
When you combine this philosophy with tools and techniques that can help speed those decisions
and guide designers toward smarter design choices,
you will unlock the possibilities of tackling affordable housing and climate change.
Affordable Carbon Positive Housing Design
To reimagine the possibilities of sustainable and affordable housing, architects, engineers, policy makers and stakeholders must work together to achieve a common vision.
Thoughtful policy and thoughtful design need to converge in order to address the complex issues of affordability and sustainable housing in a climate risk environment.
Different types of housing, such as modular homes, manufactured homes and tiny homes, offer possibilities for building affordable homes on a large scale, but this cannot happen in isolation.
There is a need for innovative design and technology combined with well-crafted policy, and the right incentives to develop more sustainable and affordable societies.
