DESIGN FOR CLIMATE ACTION
By the Year 2050, another 2.5 billion individuals will be living in urban areas (IPCC, 2018), which puts those areas on course to experience significant growth in energy consumption and consequent greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, to mitigate climate impacts, cities are being called on to reduce emissions by 50% in the next ten years (UNEP, 2019). The built environment is responsible for half of these emissions (GABC, 2019). With 30 million new households predicted to be built in the US by 2040 (EIA, 2014) residential buildings (new and existing structures) present both a challenge and an opportunity for impactful climate action.
Our belief is that a built environment which supports an individual’s pro-environmental values increases the likelihood that pro-environmental behaviors will ensue. The objective of our work is to develop design strategies for new and existing residential buildings that support and encourage reduced environmental impact. There are three approaches that we are currently researching: (1) architectural design features that promote reduced energy use (e.g., smart metering); (2) low-carbon / carbon storing construction materials (e.g., mass timber); and (3) prefabrication for custom passive house construction.
The aim of our architectural practice is to design and construct energy efficient residential structures that utilize smart energy technologies to provide tailored (personalized) information to residents at the point of decision (where energy is used). Our research demonstrates that tailored feedback information leads to choices that reduce energy consumption with attendant climate impact mitigation, one decision at a time.
Our approach is in line with the Behavior Energy and Climate Change (BECC) 2020 call to action. Climate change mitigation is more urgent than ever and major leaps in systems and user behaviors are essential to address this critical issue. Researchers have demonstrated the importance of occupant behavior to effective reduction of building energy use (Zhang, Bai, Mills, & Pezzey, 2018). Architects are realizing that a better understanding of human interaction with buildings is a key factor in promoting occupant behavior that reduces consumption in residences.
Even when feedback can be immediately accessed on a computer or mobile device, people find the process inconvenient and/or not tailored in a way that the information has personal significance. Overcoming these hurdles is essential to establishing a viable connection between energy consumption behavior and real-time feedback. With that connection in place, a better understanding of energy events that trigger pro-environmental values is achieved. This understanding can then be used to refine the feedback loop in ways that further encourage behavior that will reduce individual residential energy consumption.
A primary goal of our work is not only to re-think energy monitoring techniques and feedback systems for individuals to spur major leaps in climate based responses but also to re-think material selections and construction practices. We believe that if well designed and crafted architecture is coupled with carbon smart materials (Kriegh et al., 2021) and prefabricated Passive House construction (Kriegh, 2021) practices a significant reduction of energy use and consequent emissions can be achieved.