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Timothy Kohut, AIA, CEA, is Director of Sustainable Design for National Community Renaissance, a regional Developer/Builder of affordable housing. In his role, he focuses on high performance sustainability and zero net energy. Within National Community Renaissance he works with the Construction team and subcontractors to understand and implement strategies aimed at high performance and energy efficiency. He is a Certified Energy Analyst (CEA), Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Rater, and Building Performance Institute (BPI) Certified Energy Analyst.

Tim combines his architectural, energy modeling, diagnostic skills, and knowledge of construction to identify pathways for increasing energy efficiency without driving up costs. He has spent more than 25 years designing, building, and consulting on affordable housing projects throughout Southern California, and he has been involved in the design and construction of more than 3,000 units of high performance multi-family housing. He was coordinating architect for the first affordable housing project in Southern California to install a photovoltaic system (Hart Village, 2003) Principal Architect for the first multi-family housing project to to achieve LEED for Homes Platinum level certification in Southern California (Casa Dominguez, 2009), the first commercial scale project to include a gray water irrigation system in Los Angeles County (Casa Dominguez, 2009), and the first project in Southern California to install a gray water system for indoor water reuse (Cedar Springs, 2016).  

His current work focuses on the design, construction, and operation of zero net energy and carbon neutral affordable communities, and decarbonizing existing affordable housing.  His research has focused on thermal comfort in multi-family housing, and he has designed projects that use passive ventilation and night flushing instead of refrigerated air conditioning.  Current grant funding from the California Energy Commission includes research into resident interaction with energy systems, implementation of retrofits aimed at reducing or eliminating “energy poverty” in affordable housing, and sharing lessons learned with affordable housing advocates and practitioners across the country.  He was the primary sustainability consultant for two affordable, multiple multi-family housing projects pursuing Living Building Challenge certification (Cedar Springs, 2016 and Silver Star Apartments, 2017), which are Zero-Net (or Near Zero) Energy, Zero Net Carbon buildings.  Tim is also a Certified Access Specialist (CASp), and helped craft the Los Angeles Community Development Commission’s Universal Design Standards (used in all affordable housing projects), and the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee’s “Enhanced Accessibility Standards”. He has presented locally and nationally on issues of energy efficiency and accessibility. 

Tim holds an MArch and an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA, and a BS in Architectural Studies from the University of Illinois (Urbana).   Tim teaches classes focusing on sustainability and sustainable architecture Cal Poly Pomona.  He has previously taught at Woodbury and USC.