Carbon Reduction and Housing Affordability: A Case Study of a Typical House from Northern New Jersey

This paper is part of a study investigating the applicability of using a combination of embodied carbon reduction through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Affordability by Design (AbD), and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) as an integrated methodology to adjust and balance carbon and cost in housing developments. The paper explores strategies to design low-carbon, efficient, and more economical housing alternatives in the US and comprises testing a hypothesis by using a case study. The case study involves carrying out Whole Building LCA (WBLCA), energy use estimation, and LCC of a typical house in Northern New Jersey to evaluate the status of cost and carbon, followed by examining the outcomes of designed scenarios to reveal further the dynamics. The scenarios are mainly developed based on AbD principles, referring to efficiency and sufficiency in design in addition to low-carbon material replacements. The procedure includes conducting multiple LCAs, and LCCs using a BIM model of the house and comparing before and after results. Throughout analyses, the study remains in the BIM environment to facilitate the process and strengthen the integration of tools and the model, resembling how an architect may incorporate the methodology in common design developments. The results show that in the case of this two-story 3500 square foot house in New Jersey, a reasonable and functional downsizing and densification in combination with mainstream material replacement could lower life cycle carbon and cost effectively. While a material replacement has limitations due to restrictions over the availability of low-carbon materials and technology, downsizing and densification have an immediate impact by avoiding carbon emissions and driving down the cost. The study, overall, highlights the importance of incorporating AbD principles and the usefulness of embodied carbon reduction as a proxy to manage cost and carbon.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AIA.InterMaterialEco.23.19

Volume Editors
Caryn Brause & Chris Flint Chatto