Emerald Elementary School in Broomfield, Colorado is a net-zero-ready, public school serving students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Designed and constructed to meet the highest green building standards, the new school supports the district’s aggressive sustainability and energy efficiency goals.

Building Enclosure was recently joined by Daniel Overbey. Dan is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Ball State University and the Director of Sustainability for Browning Day in Indianapolis. He joined us to chat about some trends in sustainability and how this ties into LEED v5.

In many cases, building envelope design is mostly a matter of aesthetics and costs. As attention to environmental issues grows, however, sustainability and energy-related concerns play an increasing role in these decisions. The push to reduce urban heat island effects is one of the most prominent of these concerns.

Our Summer issue is packed with sustainability topics, including the importance of adaptive reuse and the impact on the building enclosure.

The author provides an exhibit of BPS tools (many of which are free) that can help your team examine, disclose, and optimize your next building project for energy and operational carbon.

Sustainability involves everyone, especially those in the commercial sector. Each company’s carbon footprint can hurt or help the planet survive climate change. Reimagining energy consumption and usage is essential in crafting a greener future. These are a few ways to optimize your commercial structure to reduce each property’s environmental impact.

The building’s design is not just about the present, but also about the future. The design strives to anticipate future tenants’ needs of security, evolving technology, flexibility, and seamless operation.

The following is an exhibit of over twenty tools (many of which are free) that can help your team examine, disclose, and optimize your next building project for embodied carbon. 

To achieve substantial environmental impact, a broader framework that connects biophilic elements with green building practices is imperative for sustainable construction.

Rehabbing buildings with energy conservation in mind can be a massive undertaking, requiring a holistic exterior and interior approach to decrease buildings’ carbon emissions and energy consumption while minimizing disruption to current occupants. A deep energy retrofit is achieved when renovation activities reduce a building’s site energy usage by at least 40 percent.