Sustainability and Resilience

Catalog description

This course introduces concepts of environmental science and principles of sustainability and resilience, in the context of the built environment. Major environmental drivers of the need for more sustainable design such as climate change, ozone depletion, biodiversity losses, and others are presented. Societal and political factors influencing adoption of sustainable practices are discussed and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) is explored. The significance of various sustainability rating systems such as Envision and LEED are discussed. Techniques for improving the sustainability and resilience of the built environment, including energy and water conservation strategies, appropriate site selection and materials use, and project management techniques are presented. Basic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques and software tools are introduced to provide a framework for objectively determining which design alternatives are the most sustainable.