Achieving a zero carbon design

by Leying Gao, Environment II
With the increasing of people’s awareness about environmental protection, it’s more and more needed to design buildings with positive influence to environment.
In this assignment, I tried to demonstrate how a design can become a zero, or near-zero energy building. The main goal of my design is to reduce the environmental impact of the building ( and of the occupants ) and contribute positively to the environment, with reasonable and detailed proofs. As a result, some requirements about achieving zero carbon design are below:
- Thermal comfort should be achieved in all seasons, through all rooms in the dewlling
- Minimal reliance on artificial heating and cooling operations
- Minimum of life cycle energy
- 100% self-sufficiency of electricity through the whole building
- 90% self-sufficiency through reuse and recovery of rainwater and grey water
- On-site water management.