With our challenges facing climate change, there is a greater need for sustainable design. It is important to make more environmentally conscious and efficient buildings to help minimize our effect on the planet. But, how do we do that?
Net Zero Energy Building
A net zero energy building (NZEB) is a building that produces enough renewable energy to power itself. An NZEB uses a variety of strategies to minimize energy usage and to generate power using solar, wind, geothermal, and or hydro.
Sustainable Design
Passive House Standard
The Passive House Standard is a guide that points a home design to be more comfortable and energy efficient. The criteria of a Passive House Standard helps houses regulate temperature, air circulation, and energy use.
Heating and Cooling Strategies
Heating and cooling strategies come into play for meeting the house standards and the client’s goals. Heating and cooling strategies design around exposure from the sun using active and passive methods.
Thermal Solar
Rain Barrels
Rain barrels collect and filter rain runoff from a building. The water then can be used for other uses like gardening.
Active methods are more mechanical and involve technology like solar thermal and photovoltaic solar panels. Passive methods are more structural and architectural, utilizing the form of the building to respond to the sun exposure.
Photovoltaic Solar Panels
Green Globes
Green Globes is a non-profit organization set “To reduce climate impacts by improving the built environment. We deliver education, standards, assessments, and certifications through an inclusive and global community.”
Life Cycle Assessment
“Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a process of evaluating the effects that a product has on the environment over the entire period of its life thereby increasing resource-use efficiency and decreasing liabilities. It can be used to study the environmental impact of either a product or the function the product is designed to perform.”
LEED
LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a certified rating system that looks at a buildings ability to “reduce contributions to global climate change,” “Protect and restore water sources,” “Promote sustainable and
regenerative material cycles,” “Enhance individual human health,” “Protect and enhance biodiversity
and ecosystem services,” and “Enhance community quality of life.”
