Current global warming hovers at 0.8oC and has already led to politically destabilizing droughts, heartbreaking human migration due to sea-level rise and irreversible devastation of biodiversity. It we want to avert even greater tragedy, we need to keep global temperature rise below 2.0oC, an ambition which translates into a global carbon budget for buildings of 930GtCO2e until 2050. In practice, this means that the global renovation rate must increase from the current 1% to 5% per year and all new construction must be carbon neutral by 2040 in terms of both operational and embodied energy use. What may have sounded like a fantasy just a decade ago, is becoming today’s societal imperative.

In summary, we cannot afford to design a single building that is not net zero ready.

Over the past decade, building performance simulation tools for energy, daylighting and solar design have made their way into mandatory building technology classes for architects. An example is MIT’s 4.401/4.464 Environmental Technologies in Buildings class. In these classes, students learn the fundamentals of building science along with some simulation workflows to analyze the results for their own designs. However, simulation novices often struggle translating what they learn in class into studio or practice. This situation then leads to elaborate renderings in lieu of – rather than in combination with – careful quantitative evaluations.

This web site aims to alleviate this disconnect. The primary audience are students/instructors enrolled in introductory sustainable design courses as well as anybody interested in learning how design buildings that combine high occupant comfort with low carbon emissions from operational energy use. The material consists of design exercises that can be combined into a comprehensive environmental design concept and concept exercise to engage with a building science topic or technology. Lecture notes from past versions of MIT 4.401/4.464 can be found on MIT Open Courseware. If you are interested in the 13 week MOOC version of 4.401/4.464 go to edX Sustainable Building Design.