Acoustic design trade-offs when reducing the carbon footprint of buildings

Abstract

Architects and building engineers are increasingly tasked to consider the environmental performance of building designs to meet national and global targets to reduce carbon emissions. While minimizing the carbon footprint is needed to mitigate the effects of climate change, sustainability-driven design can have benefits or unintended consequences on secondary design objectives. Neglect of additional building disciplines could negatively impact the indoor environmental quality in a building and require costly change orders or retrofits. Recent research has shown that sustainability-driven design decisions can affect the acoustical performance in a building, though sustainable and acoustical goals are often unrelated. In response, this presentation reviews acoustic trade-offs when the building design is driven by sustainable goals. Acoustical ramifications and design solutions when minimizing the operational and embodied carbon are discussed. Lastly, areas of future research at the intersection of architectural acoustics and sustainability are provided. Overall, this presentation gives a brief overview on reducing carbon emissions in buildings, discusses the consequences sustainability-driven design can have on building acoustics, and provides sustainable alternatives that do not hinder acoustic performance.