Green Design, Construction, and Operations

Buildings are responsible for more than half the world's energy use, thus thinking sustainably requires attention to how buildings can be designed, constructed, and operated to use less energy and fewer material resources. The processes of design, construction, and building operations are inextricably linked: Design decisions determine in large part the methods, materials, and sequencing of construction; and the type of building systems selected in design and installed during construction determines the costs (dollar costs as well as energy costs) of operating systems both in the short-term (operational) and in the long-term (replacement). Traditionally, these three processes have been sequential and separate: performed by different teams of people at different times and places. More recently, the concept of performance engineering has been used in order ...