ABSTRACT
Designers of the built environment, architects must know how to design carbon-neutral buildings. The architectural design process is a complicated one in which the architect generates and evaluates multiple solutions to produce a sufficiently refined object that fulfills the requirements of sometimes conflicting ideas or programs. A computer-aided design tool is a program or a set of computer tools that substitute for or add to traditional design tools used in the architectural design process. The objective of the carbon-neutral architectural design process is to help organize the steps and strategies in a design process that help to reduce building-related anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Strategies to achieve carbon neutrality at the urban scale are different from those to achieve it at the building scale. In addition to being carbon neutral, the building must also respond to the society’s needs, as expressed in a program, budgetary constraints and code requirements, and environmental pressures to maintain healthy physical and biological environments.
