Chinese Architects’ Awareness of, and Attitudes towards, Low-Carbon Architectural Design

摘要

Environmental issues have drawn increasing attention in China, and consequently low-carbon architectural design has become more in demand. By analyzing the results of a questionnaire survey, this paper aims to investigate Chinese architects’ perception of low-carbon design, their current design practices as well as their expectations of future developments. From September to November in 2014, 168 Chinese architects participated in an online survey for this study. The findings suggest that although the awareness of low-carbon issue is relatively strong, Chinese architects confront many barriers in practice by the lack of design methods appropriate for local circumstances of architectural practice. The paper concludes that crucial for improving the status of low-carbon design in China is to integrate existing technologies with design methods.