The Reopen and Rebuild America’s Schools Act of 2021 invests $130 billion to help reopen public schools, provide students and educators a safe place to learn and work, and identify strategies to rebuild our schools for the future. Creating the optimal conditions for learning requires product solutions designed to address the unique needs of educational spaces: optimal acoustics, air quality, natural lighting, and aesthetics work together to impact how students understand teachers, stay focused, and even perform on tests.

Climate change will have significant impacts on indoor cooling needs in New York City, particularly for vulnerable communities who will see disproportionate health, economic, and other effects. This session will describe the key findings and recommendations from a recent NYSERDA-sponsored project. The project investigated how current cooling usage patterns will change based on climate change and committed building energy efficiency goals, and evaluated the impacts of different technology and policy options to meet future residential cooling needs while minimizing increases in energy use.

For too long, making buildings healthier has focused on occupant health, a narrow view neglecting manufacturing workers and communities around the factories. Truly healthier materials must be free from chemicals of concern throughout the supply chain. Outrage over the injustice embodied in unhealthy products is valuable only if it spurs action, and action means designing out bad product types and pushing manufacturers for safer materials. You can contribute to the movement by lending your voice and your project’s buying power.

While certifications are crucial to pushing the limits of sustainable construction, validating investments, and providing quality assurance, they sometimes risk a narrowed viewpoint, shifting priorities towards meeting a prescribed matrix and away from big picture values better benefitting building occupants and the environment. This presentation showcases individual projects and lessons learned from pursuing single and multiple certifications (LEED, Living Building Challenge, Passive House and WELL), and how they can be leveraged to create truly regenerative buildings.

For decades, the drive for energy efficiency took priority over indoor air quality (IAQ). With COVID, the pendulum swung in the direction of IAQ, but as we emerge from the pandemic and prepare to meet ever more stringent building performance standards, we need to design and operate buildings for both IAQ and efficiency. The question is how to solve for these seemingly contradictory goals given the “energy penalty” associated with higher ventilation rates.

Adjacent to each other in the flood-prone Rockaways in NYC and completed 2 years apart, Beach Green Dunes I and Beach Green Dunes II are two of the largest multifamily Passive House projects in the U.S. Although nearly identical in appearance, they are very different under the hood. Each has a different structure, envelope, HVAC system, resiliency strategies, and operational requirements.

With climate change resulting in increased heat and precipitation, coastal flooding, and other hazardous events, the built environment is experiencing increased vulnerability and disruption. The goal of resilient design is not only to protect critical project components from current climate hazards, but also to reduce downtime following a hazardous event and to prepare for and adapt to future challenges. This session will review three Passive House case studies, evaluating design solutions that incorporate the results from both passive survivability and climate resilience assessments.