Last Wednesday, we were placed into research groups for the NEXT Competition. The group I'm in include Alex, Becca, and Emily. Out of the topics to research we were assigned 'LEED & Sustainability'. Although, I hadn't fully gone down the list of research topics, I must say that I was very happy with the result. After taking Travis' Intro to Sustainability, it really opened my eyes to a lot, regarding sustainability in general, as well as organizations and methods/options.
With LEED being part of our research topic, it seemed to me that we could add other sustainable organizations or certifications. Two that I learned about in Travis' class were SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design) and LBC (Living Building Challenge). SEED is geared more towards the social aspect of design, and not as much emphasis on the building itself but on how it affects everything else. LBC is the closest, that I have learned, to an ideal for designing a sustainable structure. Its intent is for any structure to be completely Net Zero or self-sustainable/sufficient. I was happy that my group mates were open to other sustainable certifications and organizations. However, we decided to emphasize LEED due to its popularity and feasibility. After discussing SEED, we decided to mention it but not go into depth since our focus for the competition is on the interior. Thanks to Emily, we were able to find another organization which focuses more in Virginia that we can include as another sustainable organization/certification.
It was been great working on this with my group mates so far! They seem to be quite interested and invested in the research. Now we're in the midst of working on sections of our presentation for a first draft with the intent on fine tuning this Friday. Hopefully, there won't be too many adjustments needed!
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