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Soak up carbon into beautiful, healthy buildings that heal the climate

"Green buildings" that slash energy use and carbon emissions are all the rage, but they aren't enough. The hidden culprit is embodied carbon - the carbon emitted when materials are mined, manufactured, and transported - comprising some 10% of global emissions. With the built environment doubling by 2030, buildings are a carbon juggernaut threatening to overwhelm the climate.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Like never before in history, buildings can become part of the climate solution. With biomimicry and innovation, we can pull huge amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere and lock it up as walls, roofs, foundations, and insulation. We can literally make buildings out of the sky with a massive positive impact.

The New Carbon Architecture is a paradigm-shifting tour of the innovations in architecture and construction that are making this happen. Office towers built from advanced wood products; affordable, low-carbon concrete alternatives; plastic cleaned from the oceans and turned into building blocks. We can even grow insulation from mycelium.

A tour de force by the leaders in the field, The New Carbon Architecture will fire the imagination of architects, engineers, builders, policy makers, and everyone else captivated by the possibility of architecture to heal the climate and produce safer, healthier, and more beautiful buildings.

The New Carbon Architecture: Building to Cool the Climate

Acknowledgments

Preface: Buildings Made of Sky





Introduction

A Word about "Carbon"





1. Beyond Zero: The Time Value of Carbon by Erin McDade

A Global Carbon Limit

Buildings Are the Problem; Buildings Are the Solution

Zero by 2050

The Zero Net Carbon Gold Standard

Embodied Carbon: Getting to Real Zero

Emissions Now Hurt More than Emissions Later: The Relative Importance of Embodied Carbon

Embodied Carbon in the Future

The Time Value of Carbon

Zero Energy in a Nutshell by Ann V. Edminister



2. Counting Carbon: What We Know and How We Know It by Catherine De Wolf, Barbara Rodriguez Droguett, and Kathrina Simonen

Building Carbon Neutral

The Relative Impact of Embodied Carbon in Typical Buildings

Comparing Structural Materials

Comparing LCA Methods

Concrete

Steel

Wood

Other Structural Materials

Nonstructural Materials

Comparing the Embodied Carbon of Buildings

Getting to Zero: Embodied Carbon



3. Rebuild: What You Build Matters, What You Don't Build Matters More by Larry Strain

We Can't Build Our Way Out of This

Reuse: A Complete Strategy

Reducing Embodied Carbon

Reducing Operating Carbon: Renovation + Upgrade

Upgrading to Zero

Retrofit Opportunities

Energy Efficiency Opportunities

Net-zero Opportunities

Saving Embodied Carbon Opportunities



4. Wood: Like Never Before

Mass Timber Construction by Frances Yang and Andrew Lawrence

The Carbon Argument

So How Tall Can Timber Really Go?

Enter Cross-laminated Timber (CLT)

Stiffness

Fire

Acoustics

Seismic Performance

Beyond Carbon

The Future

Seeing the Forests for the Mass Timber by Jason Grant



5. Straw and Other Fibers: A Second Harvest with Chris Magwood and Massey Burke

Straw Bales and Straw Bale Panels

Prefabricated Straw Bale Wall Panels

Straw Blocks

Straw Panels

Bonded Plant Fiber Insulation Systems

The Planet's Sixth Carbon Sink: A Success Story by Craig White



6. Concrete: The Reinvention of Artificial Rock with Fernando Martirena and Paul Jaquin

What Is Concrete?

The Problem with Concrete

The Reinvention Is On

But First, Some Basics

Clay: The First Cement by Paul Jaquin

Historical Building Using Clay as a Binder

What Makes Clay Special?

Bonding in Clay

Sheets, Layers, and Assemblages

Sheets

Layers

The Assemblage

Friction

Suction

How Strong Is Clay Concrete?

Humidity Buffering and Thermal Mass

Future

Rethinking Cement by Fernando Martirena

More Ways to Reinvent Concrete

What About Reinforcing - Steel and More



7. Plastic: So Great, So Awful - Some New Directions

by Mikhail Davis, Wes Sullens, and Wil Srubar

Introduction

Biopolymers and Bioplastics

Plant Biopolymers

Animal Biopolymers

Bacterial Biopolymers

The Bioplastics Dilemma

Existing Plastics in the World

The Scale of the Plastics Problem: How Much Is Already Out There?

What To Do With All That Existing Plastic?

Barriers to Plastics Recovery and Recycling

Bright Spots for Plastics

What You Can Do: The Low-carbon Plastics Hierarchy

Guidelines: The Low-carbon Plastics Hierarchy

From Obstacles to Opportunities to Solutions: Can We Redeem Plastic?

Trash to Treasure: Can We Harvest the Existing Plastic Pollution from the Environment to Make New Products?

Carbon-loving Plastics: Can We Produce Plastics that Capture or Store Carbon?

Paths to Bio-based Plastics

Regenerative Agriculture

GHG to Plastic

Carbon-plastic Composites: Can We Put New Carbon into Old Plastic?

Closing the Loop: Can We Truly Manage Plastics in a Circular System?



8. To Your Health: The Health Benefits and Impacts of Natural Building Materials by Pete Walker, Andrew Thomson, and Daniel Maskell

Health Benefits

Moisture Buffering Materials

The Breathing Wall Concept: Vapor Permeability and Capillarity

Controlling Volatile Organic Compounds

Health Risks

Radioactivity

Silica Dust

Handling Lime

Protective Treatments

Concluding Comments



9. Size Matters: Can Buildings Be Too Tall? by Ann Edminster

The Height Problem

Aspects of the Problem

Ground Zero: Height as a Driver of Embodied Carbon

Will Transit Catch Up?

Middle Ground, Perhaps

Livability

Resiliency

Conclusions

Editor's Endnote



10. Technology and Localization: Trends at Play

Nanotechnology

Biotechnology and Biomimicry

Localization: The Convergence of Social and Technological Trends

Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and 3-D Printing



11. Action Plan: Places to Intervene in a System

Places to Intervene in a System

Building Codes and Standards

Incentives

Research

Information Flows

A Price on Carbon

Necessary Afternote #1

Necessary Afternote #2

Necessary Afternote #3: Which System Are We Talking About?

Necessary Afternote #4: In Which the Republicans Make the Case



Afterword

Contributing Authors

Index

A Note about the Publisher