Designing for durability is essential for green buildings, because if you double the life of a building, regardless of construction type, you halve the environmental impact of its construction. In the design of buildings and building components to achieve long-life, moisture must be managed and understood, including the ability to have effective and efficient maintenance and repair. Drawing upon decades of hands on experience, two building scientists will present the nitty-gritty of good design that embraces and understands moisture.

The Living Building Challenge Materials Petal is intended to induce a successful materials economy that is non-toxic, transparent and socially equitable. In this workshop, participants will gain an understanding of how to meet the material-related Imperatives of the Living Building Challenge: I-10 Red List, I-11 Embodied Carbon Footprint, I-12 Responsible Industry, I-13 Living Economy Sourcing, and I-14 Net Positive Waste as well as introduce and explain the Declare Program.

The Living Building Challenge Energy Petal is intended to signal a new age of design, wherein the built environment relies solely on renewable forms of energy and operates year round in a pollution-free manner. In this in-depth review of the Energy Petal, participants will gain an understanding of how to create Net Zero Energy buildings. This interactive session will present detailed case studies of several Net Zero Energy certified buildings - identifying the design and operational challenges these projects had to overcome to meet their Net Zero Energy goals.

This workshop will investigate the design process for analyzing and constructing a building envelope to meet aggressive air-sealing goals for new and renovated commercial and institutional projects in cold climates. Example details from four case study buildings will be shared with a central focus on decisions, changes, best practice guidelines, thermal analysis, lessons learned and specific challenges encountered during the construction process.

Designing high performance commercial buildings will cost 10% - 25% more to build than conventional buildings – right? Adam Cohen of Structures Design/Build, LLC has been designing and building Passive House Commercial Buildings at costs comparable to typical new construction and is achieving Passive House level results. This workshop will explain the basics of Passive House design principles specific to Commercial Buildings. It will then go into the details of how buildings like medical clinics and college dormitories can be built at market rate while achieving Passive House standards.

Leaders in the realm of low-carbon materials are drawing attention to the increasing significance of the front-end carbon loading associated with the materials with which we build our supposedly ZNE buildings. Given the urgency of addressing climate change in the next two decades, this front-end carbon investment must be addressed. Our speakers will describe the emerging thinking about this important topic, along with the tools available to assist building professionals in making carbon-savvy material decisions.

This session will give real world examples of multi-family affordable housing projects that made decisions about trade-offs between construction costs and reduced operating costs. While project teams strive to have no- or low-cost implications for environmentally responsible building features, sometimes a simple payback analysis or life cycle costing can help make decisions. We will have perspectives from RMI’s Super Efficient Housing Program Manager, a green building consultant and an architect to explore some case studies.