This Lightning Round will pack as much information into one session as possible, with succinct, practical presentations on a variety of topics including B-corp; Iterative Daylighting Analysis Tools; Aerial Thermal Imaging, 3D Modelling and Orthographic mapping; EcoFAST.

The status quo of traditional project delivery requires continual review and improvement. Although the value of the Integrative Design Process (IDP) has been established, it is not widely used or fully embraced. Even its most ardent supporters make mistakes in timely team engagement and short-circuited design process, often lacking a clear path to project completion. Despite these challenges, Integrative Pre-Design empowers early collaborative and iterative techniques critical to creating ultra-high performance buildings. This session will focus on the value of Integrative Pre-Design as a vital component in the IDP process. Following ANSI guidance principles, we will reinforce the basic concepts and principles of IDP and highlight how IDP provides a means to effectively explore and implement sustainable design principles on a project.

Rhode Island’s first PHIUS certified passive house was built for $160/sq. ft. In this session, builder Steve DeMetrick of DeMetrick Housewrights will walk through the entire construction process, from excavation to finish for this 1800-square-foot home. Steve will get down to real details, like how to airseal electrical boxes in zip sheathing and what to do with all those mini split lines. Steve’s approach blows away all the mystery (and $$$) out of high-performance construction. Grab a cup of coffee and come learn about what’s happening in Rhode Island.

This team’s contract with a university client for a new student housing project required LEED v4 Silver, a worthwhile goal. But the team wanted to punch up to meet more aggressive sustainability goals – Passive House and Living Building Challenge Materials Petal – within the same design and construction budget. Did they succeed? In this session, you’ll hear key findings associated with energy modeling, solar shading, water management, healthy materials, and high-performance building envelope. We’ll explore the metrics employed to evaluate options and their return on investment to make it palatable to naysayers and confirm financial feasibility. Speakers will also discuss the teams’ persistent approach to strive for a better building and strategies to engage the complex group of university stakeholders.

Williams College has established the goal of 35% campus wide carbon reduction of 1990 carbon emissions by 2020. In this session we will present the development of a methodology (i.e., Green Gauges) for design and construction teams to communicate strategies with the owner early in the process, and to provide consistent information regarding operational energy and the resulting carbon savings. What is the cost per metric ton of avoided carbon over the operation life of that strategy? We’ll find out.

Incorporating quantitative tools throughout each stage of the design process empowers architects to evaluate and understand the complex environmental implications of their design decisions and to make deliberate, informed choices. We will discuss the rapidly expanding arsenal of tools available to designers, including energy modeling, thermal modeling, LCA, and solar analyses. The presentation will focus primarily on how to deploy thermal and energy modeling early in the design process for both preservation and new construction projects.

If you have difficulty getting ideas to move ahead quickly in your organization, this session is for you. We will share the journey to roll out a "smart building" controls system in the TD Bank retail network. We navigated the good, the bad, and the ugly through the major milestones: selecting the best controls package for the existing portfolio, piloting the pilot process, and turning the 10-site pilot into a 300-site program rollout. We'll share our best strategies to cut down on approval times and nimbly leap through organizational hurdles to deliver energy efficiency and cost reductions.

What do People and Planet decisions cost, what are they worth, and how do they affect our employees, our neighborhoods, our planet? Declan Keefe, Strategic Director of Placetailor, an architecture, construction and development company, will share some of Placetailor’s live company budgeting spreadsheets, development proformas and sample projects.This session offers an analysis of the business models of Architecture, Construction, and Development. We examine the similarities and differences of how each type of business functions, how design-build, architect as developer, builder as developer, and designer-builder developer models might impact the bottom line of a business or project. Once we understand the levers available to us that affect the "Profit" bottom line, we’ll consider how to invest in the “People” and “Planet” bottom lines.

In the real estate market, decisions about home purchase, construction, and upgrades suffer from lack of data and knowledge about energy efficiency or, worse, don’t consider energy efficiency at all. How do we change this? This session will point the way. Attendees will learn to be proactive – to prepare clients and lenders for the mortgage application and appraisal process and make energy efficiency count. We’ll share ways to be an advocate of sustainable building practices with local real estate professionals.

Since 2013 the Passive House Institute US has seen a significant increase in the design, construction, and certification of multifamily passive buildings. Many first multifamily passive buildings, from 6- to 57-unit developments, have been completed and occupied since then. Monitored performance data are now available. This presentation will report on a detailed comparison of modeled performance predicted by passive design tools and actual measured performance data of four case study projects while occupied and under operation. This session will answer these questions: How well do the currently used passive modeling tools, algorithms, and underlying modeling assumptions match the measured performance in the field? Were the anticipated energy and carbon-reduction goals met?