Fall 2005

Engineering for LEED
by Angela Mazzi, AIA
Nationwide, the majority of LEED™-accredited practitioners are architects. However, mechanical engineers and, to a lesser extent, electrical engineers are starting to become accredited in greater numbers. These integrated team members provide valuable contributions to any sustainable building effort, and it is interesting to hear about the process from their side. Four mechanical and electrical engineers offer their insights into the process.

Teaching to the Test: LEED Challenges
by Angela Mazzi, AIA
Having tackled many sustainable projects, Monica Green has become an expert of sorts at what LEED is—and what it is not. She feels that LEED should be a measuring stick of a building’s sustainability, not a driver of its design. Far from producing “eco” projects, LEED is really about taking the building types that we design, construct, and inhabit every day and making them better.

Everything’s Gone Green: Sustainable Design in Public Architecture
by Angela Mazzi, AIA
Sustainable projects involve more than the selection of materials and systems. They require an integrated team that sees past the particular project at hand and examines the implications of design decisions over time.

Green-ness as a State of Mind
by Angela Mazzi, AIA
Achieving sustainability in a building requires understanding and embracing the complexity of a project and tailoring services to match the project’s needs. One size does not fit all. The only way to ensure a successful outcome is to identify all the issues that ; study those issues with an integrated team; and work with the client to frame the scope of work.

Energy and Environmental Standards for Small Projects
By Bruce Bockstael, FAIA
The Yale Divinity School was the site for a recent pilot program addressing the need for a workable process to measure the sustainability of small state projects. This pilot explored alternatives to the USGBC's LEED process, which small-project budgets often cannot support.

Visit the AIA Committee on the Environment Web site to learn more about AIA initiatives for sustainable design.

Learn more about LEED at www.usgbc.org/LEED/.

5th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference – Jan 26-28, 2006
January 26–28, 2006 l Denver
The 2006 New Partners for Smart Growth Conference will build on the tremendous success of the first four conferences. The program will feature cutting-edge smart growth issues, the latest research, implementation tools and strategies, successful case studies, interactive learning experiences, new partners, new projects, and new policies. The audience will include participants from across the nation, including local elected officials, key local government staff, planners, transportation professionals, traffic engineers, developers, builders, realtors, architects, and landscape architects. Also participating are public health and injury prevention professionals, law enforcement/crime prevention professionals, urban designers, lending institutions, parks and recreation professionals, bicycle and pedestrian advocates, advocates for youth and older adults, affordable housing and social equity advocates, educators, and other environmental professionals and citizen activists. Click here for more information.