Article concerning Green Design Education.

Design resource identifying recycled material

EPA site that contains many links and resources for sustainability - database located at epa.gov/oppt/epp

Residential, government and non-profit local green building resources

Green building design & technology

www.eba.nys.org

Environmental Business Assoc. of NY

Guide for green products

www.greenworks.state.pa.us

"Pennsylvania's First Green Building" Dept. of Environmental Protection.

"Green Seal ... strives to achieve a healthier and cleaner environment by identifying and promoting products and services that cause less toxic pollution and waste..."

Sponsored by architectural record

Follows standard numbering system used by profession as in sweets catalogues

Battery Park City green guidelines

http://www.greendesign.net/

Firms:

London, England

http://www.ashleymcgraw.com/

http://www.asg-architects.com/

412-394-7196

Harry Gordon in our D.C. office is recognized as one of the "founding fathers" of the movement. Anyone in D.C. who is interested in Green design could, with appointment, stop by and see him. We haven't made a "market " out of green design , but it creeps into a lot of projects (few clients come to us explicitly looking for green).

Our office has its roots in energy efficient design having been started just prior to the 70's energy crises. That attitude has stayed with us and we were somewhat amused (pleasantly) to see the resurgence in interest in recent years. This time around the breadth of environmental consciousness has increased to include the sustainable concepts, life-cycle costs, in addition to energy conservation. Many of our clients request or require sustainability in their designs and we have recently won sustainability awards for several projects including the NOLS headquarters building in Lander Wyoming, designed by Partner, Jim Childress, FAIA and Project Manager,Tom Lodge, AIA SU '89.

An entire studio devoted to sustainable design. Our green studio focuses on environmentally sound design, better building practices, life cycle use, material waste management and other areas which filter through the entire building process.

Featured in Big Nd Green Exhibit at National Building Museum, DC.

Office seminars on Fridays feature green design case studies, vendors.

Intranet with database of Green technologies.

Robert Fox is chapter president of USGBC.

HOK

Participates in the LEED program and has certified professionals registered nationally. They have been trying most recently to incorporate a point system approach in the design of newer campus buildings.

Mithun Partners

www.mithun.com

SmithGroup

Designed the country's first Platinum LEED-rated building for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Philip Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis, MD.

A planning and design practice with offices nationwide, offering experience and insight into the characteristics and challenges particular to a range of ecosystems and urban contexts.

Organizations:

The Rocky Mountain Institute, located in Colorado, is one of the premier organizations concerned with green design in the United States. They award grants for studies on green design.

The EPA is running a parallel program in "green" lab design. I've been involved in developing the standards.

Advancing the use of solar energy for the benefit of U.S. citizens and the global environment.

The Earth Pledge Foundation promotes sustainable lifestyle by highlighting the connection between everyday choices, personal well-being, and a healthy world. Our primary approach is to develop creative educational projects and bring together leading voices to foster sustainable solutions that are useful to professionals and the public.

This is the site for the Northern Cal. branch of the national organization of Architects Designers and Planners for Social Responsibility. It started in Chicago during the Cold War to protest nuclear proliferation.

ADPSR is an active organization which now primarily promotes sustainable design in all its forms. They have a great email list which lists upcoming events, and serves as a bulletin board for resumes, job listings, building salvage sales, demonstrations, political activism.........this is mostly for the Bay Area, but anything really good can be listed.

The National Resource Defense Council, a "nonprofit dedicated to protecting wildlife and wild places, ensuring a safe and healthy environment for all living things."

This Berkeley-based non-profit is similar to NRDC, but since it is not a national organization, is easy for those of us near it to feel its direct benefits. They sponsor things like "make your own bio-diesel" workshops, lectures, and even run the curbside recycling for the city of Berkeley, picking up your recycling in trucks running on vegetable oil.

The Permaculture Institute is a non-profit organization devoted to promotion and support of the sustainability of human culture and settlements. Our work is based on 'permaculture,' a design system for creating sustainable human environments in balance and harmony with nature. As permaculture is based on three ethical principles, all our decisions are informed by those ethics:

- Care of Earth

- Care of People

- Reinvesting the surplus towards the former two"

This sounds like a bunch of tree-huggers talking, but every permaculture project I've seen has been mind-blowing, real, and effective. This stuff works, so check it out.

Italian architect Paolo Soleri's prototype city of the future, based on ecological and theological principles.

This site offers numerous links for community organizers, planners, and government officials concerned with sustainable development.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing energy efficiency as a means of promoting both economic prosperity and environmental protection.

http://www.ise.fhg.de/

National Solar Architecture Research Unit (SOLARCH)

http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/units/solarch/

http://lesowww.epfl.ch/anglais/Leso_a_frame_demo.html

Graduate Programs:

For the technically/academically Carnegie Mellon University has a PHD program dealing with issues of building efficiency and systems integration. At CMU I met a professor there named Bob Kobet who has been a sustainable design guru since the 70s. He is in the process of writing a book on the subject and does much consulting throughout the world on it. He has much to say about the current 'trend' toward green design with corporate America since he has been involved with the subject much longer than most of the advocates today.

www.donau-uni.ac.at

LEED:

The US Green Building Council is a "nonprofit consensus coalition promoting the understanding, development, and accelerated implementation of green buildings."

USGBC is the parent organization of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). LEED is a rating standard that provides a reference for the 'greenness' of new construction, and is becoming THE standard nationally, and internationally. Many government projects now require LEED certification.

Check out the website.

I think their checklist is a must for anybody beginning a building/design project (architects, students, professors, contractors, owners....) The checklist helps understand how any building is a system in and of itself, and its surroundings, and puts this into quantifiable terms. It helps understand the Green design is not just putting in low-VOC paint, if there is money left in the budget at the end, but that most of the ways to make a building sustainable are free, and need to be done before a single sketch is made.

Since LEED is growing so fast, I also highly recommend that graduates become LEED accredited. This is not cheap (about $500 total), but can certainly give job-seekers an edge. If you are already employed, ask your boss to pay for it, and invite your boss to become accredited also.

I was impressed to hear about students interested in being LEED certified. Actually, buildings become LEED certified. Professionals become LEED accredited. And, technically there are no prerequisites to take the LEED accreditation but the USGBC recommends that candidates have "...tenure in the building design and construction industry...." If you're interested in finding out more about this or if there are students that are interested they should go to www.usgbc.org and go to the LEED menu. LEED certification is going to be widely recognized throughout the US as a sustainable design benchmark. But they have several levels of certification and some US cities are requiring public projects to achieve a certain LEED level of certification, i.e. LEED Silver, Gold, or Platinum. But before a student or young professional like myself would consider becoming LEED accredited, I would strongly recommend just reading up on the topic. An interested student should find as much information on Green building design, advanced building systems, passive heating/cooling/ventilation strategies, etc.... that they can find, and filter through it.

Publications

EBN is an organization dedicated to giving reliable information to building professionals about the "greenness" of materials, products, and services. They publish a newsletter (10 issues a year, 20-30 pages) highlighting and reviewing new and old products, and doing comparisons to give the necessary information to allow us to make the best choices in specifying 'green' products.

Along with the newsletter, EBN also publishes the GreenSpec binder. This contains a sample 'green' spec. book, and lists 'green' products by CSI section. The binder also contains (by CSI sections) product brochures to start you off with a green product library.

Search for "green architecture"