By Mark Roddy, FAIA
The barrage of news and information on global warming and its regional impacts can feel overwhelming, depressing and even paralyzing. In addition, as professionals we are subsequently being asked to adjust our business and processes to accommodate new and evolving energy codes and standards, and it’s challenging! So how do we make a deliberate, immediate, and positive impact on our environment and communities, without disrupting the service to our clients and the business models that keep our studios thriving? Exactly what steps should we take, and how difficult will it be? The good news is that according to recent commentary in Architectural Record by Ed Mazria, founder of Architecture 2030 and the AIA’s 2021 Gold Medal recipient, it’s “not difficult at all to design to zero carbon,” He advocates that we can get to ZERO Carbon in three steps:
- Design to the latest code standards, NOT minimums
- Design All-Electric + Renewables
- Zero Out Embodied Carbon
Sounds simple, right? Big picture, it makes sense. But how do we realistically begin to implement tangible changes to our processes enough to make a difference and achieve measurable change? For 15 years as a design leader and corporate design director for SmithGroup, I led teams to achieve high-performance buildings. As a result, I am proud to have earned both a national AIA COTE Top 10 award and a Net-Zero Certification through the International Living Futures Institute. Currently as a Sac State Department of Design faculty member, I am sharing this practical knowledge with my 4th year Interior Architecture students. They are learning a basic approach to designing a net zero energy building. So, what exactly is a net zero building? According to AIA California’s Net Zero Primer, “Zero Net Energy is nothing more than a very efficient building with photovoltaics”. This is perhaps an overly simplified explanation, but I appreciate the clarity: design a building that uses the least amount of energy possible, and then use renewable energy to offset its energy use. In my students’ final design studio, I am asking them to do six things within their design process that will result in a ZERO Carbon design; the first five address Energy and the last one addresses Embodied Carbon.
- Establish an EUI Benchmark and Target
EUI is an acronym for Energy Use Intensity, and it is expressed as energy per square foot per year. It is calculated by dividing the total energy consumed by the building in one year by the building area (kBTU/sf). EUI conveys a building’s energy use as a function of its size or other characteristics, meaning you cannot compare a hospital EUI to that of an office. You must compare the same building type and size. To design an energy efficient building, you need to know two things: the first is the Benchmark, which is the typical energy use or EUI of the building type and size, and the second is the Target, which is the energy use goal of the building you are designing. These two factors will enable you to keep making informed decisions throughout the design process to ultimately reduce the energy consumption of the building to its lowest possible amount. Then that energy load must be offset by renewables. The Architecture 2030 Zero Tool provides a powerful resource to help you calculate an EUI Benchmark and associated Target.
- Apply Passive Strategies
The first step in seeing how low of an energy requirement you can design to is to incorporate passive design strategies, which are simply the strategies architects traditionally used to design buildings before the advent of air conditioning. We used to design buildings that responded to and benefited from our local climate and environment. Correct solar orientation, glare and heat control, daylighting and natural ventilation are some of the basics. To explore optimal passive strategies for your building, I recommend UCLA’s free Climate Consultant tool. This easy-to-use, intuitive, web-based program provides climate data and the best set of design strategies for any climate zone and location in California. The program also links to the Architecture 2030 website and provides numerous case studies of those specific strategies.
- Integrate Energy Efficient Technology
After you have incorporated as many low or no cost passive design strategies into your building, then it’s time to think about Energy Efficient Technology, such as Energy-Star rated equipment, efficient lighting, and smart plugs. Building orientation, insulation, and envelope materials, combined with passive strategies, can make substantial impacts on the building’s energy load. By comparison, Energy Efficient Technology will have a smaller cumulative effect, but if you are rigorous and detail-oriented, each of the incremental impacts can aggregate to a measurable difference in getting to ZERO.
- Incorporate Renewable Energy
Once you know your target EUI, have incorporated as many passive design strategies as possible and integrated energy efficient technology for your building, it’s time to think about photovoltaics. The photovoltaic system should be right sized to meet the designed energy demand. If net-positive is the project goal, then the system would obviously need to be larger. Photovoltaics themselves don’t make an energy efficient building; they are part of the greater whole. If your building is an energy hog that requires a huge PV array to offset its use, that is frankly wasting resources, not achieving efficiency. An important thing to remember in your design is that roofs are not free range for photovoltaics. Skylights, equipment, and maintenance circulation need to be considered, and you may not have as much room as you initially think. There are many tools online and within energy modeling software that can help you calculate the size of the system you need. NREL the National Renewable Energy Lab provides an easy to use on-line tool, PVWatts Calculator.
- Engage in iterative energy modeling
Energy Modelers are now an important part of the consultant design-build team. Many architecture firms now have energy modelers in-house as part of their design team. I believe they are critical to the integrated team, but if you are not ready to engage a new consultant, you can still benefit from an iterative energy modeling process by using plug-ins for modeling software you are currently using, such as REVIT and SketchUp. REVIT utilizes Insight 360; SketchUp uses Sefaira. Both programs are intuitive, and tutorials are widely available. These programs are not a substitute for accurate and detailed energy modeling; however, they can provide a design team with real-time feedback on design decisions throughout the process.
- Understand the embodied carbon of construction and building materials
While the above five steps help us to zero out building operation carbon, we must still address the embodied carbon in the materials and construction processes we use. The simple steps we already know are re-use, reduce, recycle and repurpose materials and buildings. We are likely doing these things already by doing more with less, reducing material use and capitalizing on existing infrastructure. The more challenging step is to specify low- to no- carbon materials and to fundamentally understand how much carbon is in our buildings. The Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) is an efficient tool to compare materials.
I am happy to say that my students have produced some beautiful work. But what I am most proud of and hopeful about is that within a one-semester time frame, the students have learned, engaged, and implemented processes that they previously knew nothing about, integrating them successfully into an already demanding design studio. If students can do this, then certainly as professionals with our resources and experience, we can too. If you can find a way to begin incorporating these six steps into your design process, then you will be well on your way to becoming a key part of the solution to our looming climate crisis.
If you would like to learn more about the above-mentioned tools and gain confidence incorporating a Net Zero Approach into your design process, please attend SMUD’s Commercial Workshop, “Rethinking the Typical Design Process to Achieve Net Zero” that I will be presenting on Thursday September 9th, noon-1pm. You can register at the link below or visit SMUD’s webpage. https://reg.learningstream.com/s_reg/reg_registration_maintenance.aspx?ek=0059-0013-4a0759b776b448599fba32c7ed578086