Low Carbon Communities: An Analysis of the State of Low-Carbon Community Design

The focus of sustainable design encompasses entire cities, stakeholders include developers, lawyers, political leaders, business owners and citizens, and topping the list of concerns is the need to reduce carbon emissions. To explore this priority, this paper focuses on the current state of design (or retrofit) for “low carbon” communities. By investigating a sampling of communities that have focused on reducing their carbon emissions, this research examines some of the most important aspects of designing, building and commissioning a low carbon community. The aim of this research paper is to identify the current standing of low carbon communities, the key objectives these communities are successfully meeting, and the sorts of setbacks the communities have encountered.

This is a report from the AIA/AIAS COTE Research Fellowship 2010.