Buildings are designed to be expendable. Codes focus on safe evacuation in an emergency, not on keeping buildings occupiable through a disaster. With climate change, displacement due to damage from extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy is more common. Is building to code minimums really enough?

College campuses are leading the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy at the community level. This session will combine design, technology, and policy with real-life case studies of campuses moving toward carbon neutrality. We’ll present three different colleges in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. What better way to help the rising generation prepare for their own future than to lead the campus, as community, into the clean-energy future?

Improving the operational performance of buildings requires highly skilled and qualified workers, particularly as building technologies become more advanced. Yet many lack the skill-set they need to maintain these facilities. This session will cover what happens when you don’t train or engage building operators in effective O&M strategies.

In 2011, the Susquehanna River flooded Binghamton NY. The MacArthur Elementary School was inundated with contaminated flood waters and declared a total loss. This session will recount the inspiring process by which the city created a new school – a 125,000-square-foot, LEED platinum (pending) building with an EUI of 10 that embodies new models of educational engagement. Community discussions yielded five overarching vision statements which guided all decisions about site, building form, and materials.

Beyond the energy used during building operations, the construction of buildings causes atmospheric emission of carbon dioxide and CO2 equivalent gases (CO2e). Some of these emissions are related to the materials’ “embodied energy” but some materials have high emissions due to other factors, such as direct emissions from chemical processes, or the use of high GWP blowing agents.

The obstacles to a high performing building are legend, but those barriers can now be surmounted. A new performance-based procurement process, developed and successfully executed at NREL, targeted and achieved an EUI of 35 kBtu/sf/yr while keeping costs in check.

Beloved institutional buildings: These storied landmarks of architectural significance have a unique relationship to students, faculty, alumni, and the general public. We will explore the complex path of decisions and designs intended to meet the needs of a diverse constituency and changing resource climate.

An inspirational educational session illustrating the methodologies nature uses to optimize. Through storytelling, discussions with the audience, and use of prezi as background, we will learn about biomimicry, biophilia and bio-utilization and learn to employ the clues in those realms to processes supporting project planning, business management and workflow.