Conversations in Sustainable Design

This presentation follows a new approach involving presenting ethical dilemmas that arose in major projects. The presentation focuses on actual case studies showcasing dilemmas that arise in the world of construction and how the key players involved reacted to the situation. This program satisfies the ethics requirement for licensed professional engineers in New York.

High-performance design projects now pay more attention to human health impacts of buildings. While health has always been a part of sustainability, exciting new data (and some scary findings) are driving rapid change to a health-motivated perspective. Learn how there is an increased emphasis on human health in our communities and how certification programs can address human health in communities, including LEED, Enterprise Green Communities, National Green Building Standard, WELL Building Standard, and Fitwel.

Learn how to design zero energy buildings with no ongoing carbon footprint. Understand the basic requirements and associated concepts that help create mainstream zero energy buildings that are attractive to stakeholders. Maximize efficiency and renewable energy production with best available technology to minimize operating costs while providing solid financial returns and a green differentiator.

Receive a thorough update to all the new building code changes in the New York City and state Building Codes, both of with are based on the International Code Council’s model codes. Learn about the growing need to incorporate energy efficient design features. The presentation will introduce the current codes and provide a brief overview of the International Code Council’s code development process. Key changes to the relevant editions of the International Building Code (IBC) will be reviewed as this is the model code being used in both the city and the state.

The course starts by assessing the need for vegetated roofs. This is followed with a lesson in history showing that green roofs. We offer an overview of accepted green roof system types with graphical examples. The key benefits of vegetated green roofs are examined with a cross reference to LEED categories. These benefits are further examined by briefly reviewing tools that are available to evaluate life cycle savings.