Sustainability in Practice
1 AIA LU/HSW; 0.1 ICC CEU; 0 IACET CEU*; 1 AIBD P-CE; AAA 1 Structured Learning Hour; This course can be self-reported to the AANB, as per their CE Guidelines; AAPEI 1 Structured Learning Hour; This course can be self-reported to the AIBC, as per their CE Guidelines.; MAA 1 Structured Learning Hour; This course can be self-reported to the NLAA.; This course can be self-reported to the NSAA; NWTAA 1 Structured Learning Hour; OAA 1 Learning Hour; SAA 1 Hour of Core Learning
Learning Objectives:
- Discuss design solutions that can improve building performance and reduce embodied carbon.
- Understand practices for sourcing sustainable materials and the processes behind their extraction, manufacture, and fabrication.
- Describe the strategies to incorporate renewable-energy systems as key element of project design.
- Discuss Passive House and net zero approaches for commercial and institutional projects.
This course is part of the Biophilia Academy
View course on architecturalrecord.com »
Photo © Kendall McCaugherty
NASA Aerospace Communications Facility.
This month, RECORD dives into the complex challenges of sustainable building through multiple perspectives, from envelope-pushing projects to practitioners who are moving the needle to material and technical innovations that promise industry-wide change.
Select an article to read more
Winthrop Center
By Joann Gonchar, FAIA
Photo courtesy of Millennium Partners
A number of tenants have leased multiple floors, connecting them with communicating stairs, including one office by IA Interior Architects.
At 691 feet and 53 stories, Winthrop Center, a recently completed glassy mixed-use tower in Boston, developed by Millennium Partners and designed by Handel Architects, is now the tallest in the downtown core. It surpasses—though by just a few feet—the height of an earlier collaboration between the developer and Handel, Millennium Tower, a nearby condo building completed in 2016.
Energy Advancement and Innovation Center
Photo © Michael Moran
Energy Advancement and Innovation Center.
Standing at the gateway to the Ohio State University’s (OSU) nascent Carmenton campus, the 64,000-square-foot Energy Advancement and Innovation Center (EAIC) is about one-fifth the size of a neighboring research building, but “it can hold its own on the site,” says Brendan Flaherty, a senior project manager with the institution’s facilities, design, and construction group. For starters, the luminous structure of glass, polycarbonate, and precast concrete significantly departs from the campus vernacular of brick rectangular buildings, he points out.
NASA Aerospace Communications Facility
By Katharine Logan
Photo © Kendall McCaugherty
Layers of scrawled mathematical equations embellish the NASA Aerospace Communications Facility’s precast facade.
The success of transformative programs currently under development at NASA, such as the Artemis mission to establish a long-term human presence on the moon and the Advanced Air Mobility project to integrate electric air taxis and drones into America’s airspace, will depend on breakthroughs in the technology of communication. To support the necessary innovations, NASA’s Glenn Research Center, in Cleveland, has brought together 25 research labs from across its campus in a dedicated state-of-the-art Aerospace Communications Facility. Designed by Ross Barney Architects and completed in late 2023, the 54,000-square-foot, $40.5 million building integrates stringent programmatic and budgetary requirements with the desire for supportive daylit workspaces and the need to meet ambitious sustainability targets.
Building Electrification Charges Forward
By Matthew Marani
Photo by Sundry Photography, Shutterstock.
Berkeley, California, with downtown Oakland in the distance.
America’s cities and states are increasingly turning toward building electrification as a tool to further decarbonization goals. According to the EPA, building operations account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption and approximately 30 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions. Switching over to equipment such as induction stovetops and heat pumps, coupled with the use of renewable energy and efficiency measures, could bring those numbers closer to zero. In the last year, in a riposte to the growing upswell, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill to block the Consumer Product Safety Commission from using federal funds to ban gas stoves, and litigation has turned the courtroom into a battleground in the race to decarbonize.
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