Sustainable Design & Green Buildings Individual Courses
Green Design: Introduction to Sustainability & Measurement Systems
1 Hour | $39.95
"Achieving sustainable development is perhaps one of the most difficult and one of the most pressing goals we face. It requires on the part of all of us commitment, action, partnerships and, sometimes, sacrifices of our traditional life patterns and personal interests."
In this 1-hour interactive online course, we discuss the concept of sustainability and the need for ways to rate the sustainability of a building design. In addition, the course describes three rating systems developed by the US Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the goals each strives to achieve: LEED for New Construction (NC), LEED for Existing Buildings (EB) and LEED for Commercial Interiors (CI).
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Green Design: Introduction to Integral Sustainable Design
4 Hours | $159.80
This 4-hour interactive online course outlines a new, rigorous theoretical and practical approach to understanding sustainable design (SD). Though the concepts covered are fundamental to full-fledged Sustainable Design, they challenge the participant on an advanced level. The course is not designed to deepen specific knowledge about LEED topics. Instead, the course places LEED into its larger context and thereby helps the LEED AP better understand the other non-technical perspectives on sustainability. As such, it provides the possibility for you to communicate with and better understand the design team members who are not working with the purely technical aspects of design.
The course covers all of the major ways of thinking about sustainable design. We will use an Integral lens to view SD from four fundamental perspectives: Technology, Ecology, Art, and Culture. We will also examine the four major contemporary worldviews on SD: Traditional, Modern, Post-modern, and Integral. In doing so, the Integral approach offers the designer the potential for using a better map of the SD terrain.
If you are taking this course as part of the University of Tennessee Online Certificate in Sustainable Design and Green Building, it is highly recommended you take this course first as it provides a powerful conceptual framework for the courses that comprise the certificate program.
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Green Design: Introduction to Sustainable Design Materials and Resources
3 Hours | $119.85
Materials with low environmental impact that contribute to the creation of healthful, energy efficient buildings both now and in the future have the affect of moving our system of construction toward a condition of sustainability. This 3-hour interactive course is intended to be an introduction to the study of those materials and techniques that are both ecologically efficient and ecologically effective.
Topics covered include: life-cycle analysis and defining characteristics of sustainable materials, environmental, economic, cultural, and aesthetic benefits, selection and analysis techniques, design for material and building reuse, construction waste management, regional and renewable resources, certified wood, and an overview of LEED MR (materials and resources) credits.
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Green Design: Introduction to Indoor Environmental Quality
3 Hours | $119.85
This 3-hour interactive online course describes the indoor environment quality (IEQ) of buildings and the variables that regulate it. It gives background information for the variables and their effect on people and for the design of buildings and systems to create a safe, healthy and productive environment. The course goes on to list the credits offered for optimizing the indoor conditions by the USGBC LEED®NC rating system and the requirements for achieving the credits.
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Green Design: Introduction to Sustainable Water Systems I
2 Hours | $79.90
It is often said when discussing sustainable practices that people need to think globally and act locally. This is especially true when dealing with water resources. Unlike any other resource, water cycles through the earth’s environments at global and continental scales, but at each step of that journey serves as a highly valued local resource. This is the first course in the sustainable approach to water in buildings, sites, and campuses series. It systematically introduces key concepts that help professionals understand the larger watershed and community water systems that local development practices impact, and the cultural, social, economic, and health benefits communities derive from earth’s water systems.
This 2-hour interactive online course also introduces the consequences of conflicts between current development practices and these water systems and emerging developments practices that work better with, and have a lower-impact on watershed systems. Brief overviews of the LEED WE ratings and low-impact practices including water conservation and recycling, stormwater, water harvesting are included to help orient professionals to practices they may wish to learn more about. Lastly, the course wraps up with some examples of how strategies introduced in the lesson can contribute to and express the natural, cultural, social, and aesthetic character of places.
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Green Design: Introduction to Sustainable Sites
1 Hours | $39.95
Architects think about buildings. Our experience and training often predispose us to see buildings as isolated objects. Buildings insistently hold our attention to the exclusion of all else. For us, too often the building is the project. Yet, for the architect who wishes to practice in a green manner, the focus must be broadened. By its very nature sustainability deals with interconnections between natural phenomena and human interventions across multiple scales. True green design demands that we look beyond buildings to understand both how projects are shaped by wider concerns and how our decisions affect the broader world. As such, a reconsideration of how one approaches site design is often a first step on the path to a greener mode of practice
This 1-hour interactive online course provides students with the conceptual foundation necessary for exploring many aspects of environmentally progressive site design. Aspects of site sustainability covered in the course include water, solar environment, natural ventilation, transportation, and civic patterns. Each is considered at a variety of scales ranging from the individual parcel to the neighborhood and placed within larger regional and global contexts. In this way, students are equipped to immediately begin making ecologically informed decisions about the site design of their projects, while simultaneously preparing themselves for further, more detailed study of various issues related to site sustainability.
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Green Design: Levels of Complexity Theory
3 Hours | $149.85
This 3-hour interactive online course continues the development of study in Integral Sustainable Design Theory. Students examine four levels of evolving complexity for Sustainable Design. You will investigate each level of complexity for each of the Four Foundational Perspectives of Sustainable Design covered in the Introduction to Integral Sustainable Design Theory. The 16 Prospects of Sustainable Design outline the multiple approaches to the discipline with profuse illustrations and examples. The information presented in this course elaborates on the theory of sustainable design in architecture, and does not include practical instructions for design or construction of buildings.
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Green Design: Introduction to High Performance Building Design
4 Hours | $159.80
There is consensus among the majority of scientists that the climate of the earth is changing in the direction of higher temperatures and that some of the change is anthropomorphic (caused by human activity). This course is intended to address that portion of the human contribution to climate change that is related to energy use in buildings.
At the conclusion of the course the student should be able to understand the ways buildings use energy and how buildings can be designed for high energy performance. He or she should be aware of activities and plans for improving building designs in the future. The successful student will have an understanding of the requirements of the Energy and Atmosphere portion of the LEED New Construction (NC) Rating System, Version 2009.
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Green Design: Economics of Green Building
2 Hours | $99.90
Description: While there is strong evidence that green building has great environmental and social benefits, there is still consistent resistance, both inside and outside the green community, because of the lack of accurate and reliable financial and economic information to make the case for building green. This 2-hour interactive online course uncovers the truths associated with LEED and the green building market. The Economics of Green Building is an "in depth" study of the perceived and actual costs associated with green building. It provides an overview of many federal, state and local tax credits available, life cycle cost analysis and business incentives to go green.
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Green Design: Brownfield Redevelopment
2 Hours | $99.90
Description: Brownfield is used to describe land that is abandoned or underused out of concern that the land is contaminated. There are a variety of estimates that claim there are anywhere from 450,000 brownfields to over 5 million acres of abandoned properties throughout the US alone. These properties are sited in every metropolitan city in the U.S. as well as in rural America creating major urban infill opportunities. This 2-hour interactive online course gives you a better understanding of what brownfield is, where it came from, where it still exists and with the help of USGBC and LEED, the multitude of Federal, State and local initiatives that surround brownfield redevelopment.
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