Boston is at a moment of convergence, regarding reversing runaway greenhouse gas emissions. Designers have new skills/tools to realize cost-effective carbon reducing designs, developers and institutions are aligning their emissions with their sustainability values and governance, greater utility incentives are available for projects seeking Passive House certification, and the Boston Planning and Development Authority (BPDA) is leveraging ordinances, like Article 37, to ensure that early opportunities and value savings are found on large projects – all with the goal of decarbonization by 2050, as presented in the CarbonFree 2050 masterplan (2019).

This presentation by Blake Jackson AIA, Director of Sustainability, NORR, will explore two key areas of interest for this event – 1) 2050 decarbonization goals and strategies for new/existing buildings, and 2) identifying and managing Owner goals – by exploring how architectural envelopes hold the key for decarbonization. It will explore several Boston metropolitan projects, many under Article 37 purview, and it will assess how prescriptive measures found within the City’s Carbon Neutral Building Assessment supports decarbonization by helping Passive House design and construction principles proliferate. This is important because reduces the complexity of achieving these targets, by promoting all-electric systems, enabled through forcing the “architecture”(orientation, envelope, and window-wall-ratio) to do the heavy lifting, regarding building performance.