Advancing Low-Carbon Buildings and Through Acoustic Integrative Educational Architectural Design

The early-stage design process in architecture is critical for shaping conceptual, aesthetic, and functional ideas, and it is also the most influential phase for determining embodied and operational carbon emissions. Key variables such as structure, materials, form, and size are largely established before construction. However, in architectural education, students often prioritize form and aesthetics while underestimating the integration of sustainability concepts needed to reduce carbon emissions. This is particularly evident in relation to acoustics, which can contribute to buildings energy performance, but it is often treated separately from sustainability-oriented design education. In response to this gap, this exploratory pilot educational study examines a design studio exercise to understand how early-stage acoustic design decisions influence the building performance. The study adopts a comparative case-study approach, investigating four comparable student projects developed by 13 students in the Building Utilities 2 course at the American University of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, which focuses on acoustic and lighting design. A quantitative method is applied to analyze the design studio exercise through building performance simulations. Based on building simulation results, the acoustic design strategies reveal varied outcomes across four projects. Some projects show reduction in total building carbon, and annual energy use intensity, while embodied carbon increases in some cases because of material selection decisions. These findings suggest that acoustic design can support performance-based decision making during the early-design stages within a studio environment. The study also highlights the need for architectural education to integrate sustainability strategies that encourage future architects to consider carbon, energy, material, and acoustic performance together in their design processes. In this way, simulation-based design pedagogy can strengthen students’ understanding of embodied carbon reduction strategies and low-carbon building design.