The Climate Responsive Design Web Tool


The Climate Responsive Design web tool is designed to graphically illustrate the feasibility and potential energy benefits of several climate responsive design strategies. The tool is intended to help designers and owners make correct early decisions that will result in buildings that are more energy efficient. The output of the tool are graphic data plots designed to illustrate not only conventional climate data, such as temperature and relative humidity, but also more complex interactions of these raw weather data with building specific user input data and a rule set for various energy efficient design strategies.

The Climate Responsive Design web tool requires viewing in Firefox internet browser.


Pacific Northwest Building Carbon Neutral Initiative

The Pacific Northwest Carbon Neutral Building Initiative (PNW CNBI) is committed to reducing the carbon emission impact of new commercial construction by 60 percent by the year 2010 and achieving carbon neutral buildings by 2030, on all of the projects in which initiative partners and we participate.

Goals

  1. To increase awareness of the 2030 Challenge and provide the necessary technical capacity to help designers fulfill their commitment to the goals of the initiative.
  2. To directly reduce energy use in buildings and therefore carbon emission impacts in buildings in accordance with the 2030 Challenge by:
  • Developing climate and building-type specific design strategy resources and tools
  • Providing training and education on climate responsive and integrated design processes
  • Consulting early in the design stages for new building construction projects that seek aggressive energy savings
  • Establishing and strengthening a long-term vision of energy use reduction in buildings among designers, owners, and contractors
  • Fostering long term consultative relationships between University faculty, staff & students and design & construction professionals in order to continually innovate the building delivery model

These goals are adopted from Architecture 2030, a non-profit organization developed in response to the global-warming crisis in 2002 by Edward Mazria. The 2010 Imperative and the 2030 Carbon Neutral Challenge were adopted by the American Institute of Architects in 2006.

Who We Are

The University of Idaho - Integrated Design Lab in Boise and the University of Oregon - Energy Studies in Building Laboratory developed the Pacific Northwest Carbon Neutral Building Initiative in 2007 as a project funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 10.

Why Regional?

We feel it is crucial to develop regionally specific resources and commitment opportunities for architects, engineers, owners, developers, contractors, consultants, students and educators in order to meet the 2030 Challenge. The Pacific Northwest Carbon Neutral Building Initiative connects regional members who have adopted the mission with web-based resources and design tools to help them realize their commitment.