Course Information: ARCH 4621
Department of Architecture, Cornell University
Course readings
Tentative (subject to change)
a) Required text:
USGBC, LEED reference guide for building design and construction, 2013 Edition (v.4) updated Aug. 2020.
Ordering information and options:
b) Other required readings (online or otherwise made available):
Outlined in week-by-week course schedule.
c) Online newspapers and magazines:
See collection of online news articles
d) Other (optional) sources:
Location and Site:
- Land use (Historic Preservation, EPA): http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Land_use
- Margolis and Robinson, Living Systems: Innovative Materials and Technologies for Landscape Architecture
- Calkins, Materials for Sustainable Sites: A Complete Guide to the Evaluation, Selection, and Use of Sustainable Construction Materials
- CRS Report for Congress, Federal wetlands legislation: http://ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/wetlands/wet-2.cfm
- Nuclear Waste Legislation: http://www.agiweb.org/gap/legis106/yucca106.html, http://www.radwaste.org/laws.htm
- Zoning: Euclid v. Ambler: http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/zoning/euclid.htm
- Idealization of urban density and connectivity:
- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Cities and the Wealth of Nations
- Urban light rail systems: http://www.lightrailnow.org/
- Project for Public Spaces: http://www.pps.org/transportation/
- Douglas Farr, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature
- New Urbanism: http://www.newurbanism.org/
- Birch and Wachter, Growing Greener Cities: Urban Sustainability in the Twenty-first Century
- Howard Frumkin, Urban sprawl and public health : designing, planning, and building for healthy communities
- Urban Interstate Highway system:
- Endangered Species Act:
- Wetlands legislation: ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/WLI/tn_b_77_a.pdf [PDF]
- National Menu of Stormwater Best Management Practices
- Night sky:
- Kwok and Grondzik,"Green Roofs," GreenStudio Handbook
- Congestion pricing:
Water:
- Green Buildings + Water Performance (BD+C White Paper) http://www.bdcnetwork.com/contents/pdfs/bdc090411whitepaper_optimized.pdf [PDF]
- Harper, Zalewski, and Pacini, ed., Ecohydrology : processes, models and case studies : an approach to the sustainable management of water resources
- Mauser (translated by Schneider), Water resources : efficient, sustainable and equitable use
- http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/watewaterpollution.html
- Energy Evaluation for Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility [PDF]
- Gray water: http://greywateraction.org/
- Low-flow toilets (Energy Policy Act): http://www.cepis.ops-oms.org/muwww/fulltext/repind48/energy/energy.html
- Alice B. Outwater, Water: a Natural History
- Kwok and Grondzik, "Water and Waste," GreenStudio Handbook
Energy/Atmosphere:
- ASHRAE, Energy standard for buildings except low-rise residential buildings, 2007 Fine Arts Library (Sibley Hall) TJ163.5.B84 E64 2007
- New Buildings Institute: Energy Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings [PDF]
- Critique of NBI LEED energy study: Lies, Damn Lies, and... (Another Look at LEED Energy Efficiency)
- Yoon, Sang, Climate change, technology and policy: Strategic Output And Green Technology Rivalry In A Globalized World: Theory, Empirics And Policy Implication http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/13782
- Baer and Singer, Global warming and the political ecology of health : emerging crises and systemic solutions
- Architecture 2030: http://www.architecture2030.org/current_situation/coal.html
- "Professor denies global warming theory," Daily Princetonian, January 12, 2009, http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/01/12/22506/
- Somerville, The forgiving air: understanding environmental change
- Cornell's Lake Source Cooling system: How Lake Source Cooling Works | 1998 Critique
- Federal speed-limit legislation:
- New York State Energy Conservation Legislation: http://bcap-energy.org/node/86
- Renewable energy: http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1560
- Kwok and Grondzik, "Energy Production," GreenStudio Handbook
- Passive House Institute US
- Solar Action Alliance
Materials/Resources:
- James L. Hoff, The Emergence of Disclosure in Green Design: Understanding environmental product declarations [EPDs], Construction Specifier, November 2015
- Spiegel and Meadows, Green Building Materials : A Guide to Product Selection and Specification
- Wilson and Piepkorn, Green Building Products: The GreenSpec Guide to Residential Building Materials-3rd Edition
- Niemann, Tichkiewitch, and Westkamper, eds., Design of sustainable product life cycles [digital online resource through Cornell library catalog]
- Forest management:
- Asbestos promotional videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aK9DRbAZ5I (Part 1) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyKtOZ-sOEM (Part 2)
- Kwok and Grondzik, "Insulation Materials" and "Strawbale Construction," GreenStudio Handbook
Indoor Environmental Quality:
- ASHRAE, Position papers on subjects including airborne infectious diseases, tobacco smoke, indoor air quality, legionellosis, mold, etc.
- ASHRAE, Ventilation for acceptable indoor air quality, 2007 Uris Library at Cornell: Oversize +TH7678 .A5 2007
- EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] booklets on Building Air Quality and I-BEAM ("The Indoor Air Quality Building Education and Assessment Model, released in 2002, is a guidance tool designed for use by building professionals and others interested in indoor air quality in commercial buildings.")
- National Research Council Canada: http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/programs/irc/ie.html
- Legionaires' Disease: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/legionnaires-disease/DS00853/DSECTION=causes
- Risk Management for Legionellosis, ASHRAE Journal, October 2015
- Kwok and Grondzik, "Lighting," GreenStudio Handbook
- Commercial websites. Aircuity: Producer of "integrated sensing and control solutions that cost-effectively reduce building energy and operating expenses while simultaneously improving its indoor environmental quality." Also contains links to white papers and articles on IEQ; and Indoor Air Professionals: technical bulletin page.
Sustainability in General:
- The 2030 Palette is a free online platform that puts the principles and actions behind low-carbon and resilient built environments at the fingertips of design professionals worldwide.
- Daniel Vallero and Chris Brasier, Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering [electronic access]
- Low-Energy Building Design Guidelines, Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) [PDF]
- A Report on the Green Building Movement (BD+C White Paper) [http://www.loginandlearn.com/media/whitepapers.php]: http://sc.leadix.com/bdcuniversity/files/course_pdf/BDCWhitePaperR203_lowrespdf.pdf [PDF]
- Progess Report on Sustainability (BD+C White Paper): http://www.loginandlearn.com/media/whitepapers.php
- Alison Kwok and Walter T. Grondzik, The Green Studio Handbook
- LEED certification system (U.S. Green Building Council): http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19
- Green Globes "practical building rating system": http://www.greenglobes.com/
- William McDonough, The Hannover Principles: http://www.mcdonough.com/principles.pdf [PDF]
- National Park Service: Guiding Principles of Sustainable Design http://www.nps.gov/dsc/d_publications/d_1_gpsd.htm
- Brundtland Report, 1987 (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future): http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm
- American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc., ASHRAE GreenGuide: The Design, Construction, and Operation of Sustainable Buildings, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006.
- LEED AP study guides: Peot and Schumacher, LEED BD&C Practice Exam: Building Design & Construction (Paperback); and Leppo, Peot, and Schumacher, LEED Prep BD&C: What You Really Need to Know to Pass the LEED AP Building Design & Construction Exam
- Melaver and Mueller, The Green Building Bottom Line: The Real Cost of Sustainable Building
- Greensource, Emerald Architecture: Case Studies in Green Building
- WBDG Federal Green Construction Guide for Specifiers
- Vallero and Brasier, Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering (Electronic version available through Cornell Library)
- Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962
- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949)
Economics and Public Policy:
- Karl Held and Audrey Hill, The Democratic State: Critique of Bourgeois Sovereignty, GegenStandpunkt, 1993, https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/books/democratic-state
- Kenneth Janda et al., The Challenge of Democracy, 11th edition [PDF]
- Government Green Buildings Programs Inventory: http://www4.uwm.edu/shwec/GovtGreenInventory.pdf [PDF]
- USGBC [U.S. Green Building Council] Research Publications: this site contains numerous links to research papers relating sustainability to cost/profitability.
- Robert W. Hahn, In Defense of the Economic Analysis of Regulation, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Washington, D.C., 2005, 1-2. "Countries and states throughout the world require extensive use of cost-benefit analysis and related tools as a way of informing key regulatory decisions and reforming the regulatory process. In the United States, for example, the regulatory oversight agency uses cost-benefit analysis to both improve regulatory proposals and stimulate new regulatory measures where the benefits exceed the costs."
- Green Buildings and the Bottom Line (BD+C White Paper): http://www.loginandlearn.com/media/whitepapers.php
- Nicholas Mercuro and Steven G. Medema, Economics and the Law: From Posner to Post-Modernism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1997. For a discussion of various attitudes concerning "wealth maximization," economic "efficiency," and so on as articulated by various left- or right-leaning apologists of capitalism.
- Keohane and Olmstead, Markets and the environment
- Furtado, Tamara, and Ramachandra, ed., Economic development and environmental sustainability: Policies and Principles for a Durable Equilibrium (World Bank); 1.56 Mb PDF download at: http://www.worldbank.icebox.ingenta.com/content/wb/1136
- Committee for Development Policy, United Nations, Achieving sustainable development in an age of climate change, 2009 [digital online resource through Cornell library catalog]
- Burns and Osofsky, ed., Adjudicating climate change : state, national, and international approaches
- Simpson, Toman, and Ayres, ed., Scarcity and growth revisited: natural resources and the environment in the new millennium
- Tower of Power's funky policy prescription: "There's only so much oil in the ground/ Sooner or later there won't be none around/ Alternate sources of power must be found/ Cause there's only so much oil in the ground..." See this YouTube video live at the 2006 Java Jazz Festival.
Critiques of LEED:
- Pat Murphy, The Green tragedy: LEED's Lost Decade [PDF], 2009: "In The Green Tragedy: LEED's Lost Decade, energy analyst and former builder Pat Murphy traces the history of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system, and shows where its leadership relative to energy has been lacking. Murphy criticizes LEED for setting a low energy performance level for certification and for a lack of transparency about the actual energy performance of its certified buildings. He also argues that the USGBC has shown a tendency to dismiss legitimate critiques of its system."
- Randy Udall and Auden Schendler, LEED is Broken-Let's Fix It", 2005
- Alex Frangos, Is It Too Easy Being Green? from Wall Street Journal, Oct. 19, 2005 (or here for link to WSJ subscriber-only site)
- Ted Smalley Bowen, Constructive criticism for green standards: LEED building program confronts critics and growing pains, updated Nov, 2005
- Anya Kamenetz, The Green Standard, Fast Company, Oct. 1, 2007
- Critique of: New Building Institute [NBI], Energy Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings [PDF], March 4, 2008 --> see Henry Gifford, A Better Way to Rate Green Buildings and the USGBC's email reply with Gifford's rebuttal here. -->Then there is this critique of Gifford by Nadav Malin in BuildingGreen.com's blog called Lies, Damn Lies, and... (Another Look at LEED Energy Efficiency) and Gifford's blog reply in the comments section immediately below the article ("Any study that omits the worst-performing 16% or so buildings from one dataset and compares that dataset to another which hasn't had any buildings removed is like a tobacco company study that removes the people who died of lung cancer before doing an analysis.")
- "GreenBuilding TALK" blog post discussing Joe Lstiburek's critique of LEED: LEED Under Scrutiny, Sept. 17, 2008 ("In fact, Lstiburek said, poorly designed LEED-certified structures such as the Seattle City Hall, a building on the Yale University campus and an office building in New York are 'energy pigs.'")
- Daniel Brook, It's Way Too Easy Being Green, Slate, Dec. 26, 2007
- Daniel Brook, LEED Compliance Not Required for Designing Green Buildings, Scientific American, Oct. 14, 2008 (re-titled "MisLEEDing" in their online version): "The incongruity of a gas station being hailed as green is not strictly the fault of its architecture. Nevertheless, Helios House is emblematic of how hollow LEED certification can be as an indicator of a building's environmental benignity. Too often LEED can reward building planners for taking some environmentally progressive steps while ignoring deeper problems." [need site license access to get beyond the first two paragraphs]
- Edward Keegan, Promise vs. Performance: A Deeper Shade of Green, Architect (The magazine of the A.I.A.), Oct. 20, 2008
- Alex Beam, 'Green' building and its discontents The Boston Globe, Nov. 21, 2008: "'The current green and sustainability craze can be summed up as architects and engineers behaving badly,' Lstiburek writes."
- Stephen Del Percio, The Ugly, the Bad, & the Good: Thoughts on Greenbuild 2008, Nov. 23, 2008: this guy is a lawyer who wants to "educate our industry about emerging green building risks"; other than that, the article is not that useful.
- Joseph Lstiburek and company, numerous excellent papers are available at their BuildingScience.com Insights web page. A few selected articles of particular interest in this context are:
- Mis-LEED-ing, undated, but seems to be Nov, 2008. Critiques the NBI [PDF] report: "So what does this mean? Let us translate—the LEED buildings did not conclusively save any energy compared to typical buildings built at the same time. This is not good. LEED needs to be fixed. Manipulating a bunch of statistics to hide behind does not save any real energy. Let's fix the problem and save some energy."
- Joseph Lstiburek, Prioritizing Green—It's the Energy Stupid, Oct. 28, 2008: "Many 'green' buildings don't save energy (see 'Mis-LEED-ing' sidebar). Why? They have too much glass, they are over-ventilated, they are leaky to air, they are fraught with thermal bridges and they rely on gimmicks and fads rather than physics."
- Joseph Lstiburek, Westford House. Contains a brief history of the super-insulated (passive house) house as well as an implicit criticism of the LEED "technology du jour" priorities. March 2009. "So here we are 25 years later. We all know what to do, but we can't seem to do it. Use lots of insulation, airtight construction, controlled ventilation, and not a lot of glass. We now know what else to add to this 1970's list—use real good glass whenever you use glass (it wasn't available back in the day), use real good appliances, use real good lighting, and after you have done all of this use real good equipment. The real good equipment is now pretty small because you have done the other stuff. And then stop."
- Saqib Rahim, Can Green Buildings Pass Payback Tests?, Feb. 27, 2009: "Now a group of builders has issued a report arguing that the green-building vision may be more of a myth. You can make a building more energy efficient, the group says, but it won't come cheap, and it could take decades to pay off." Some criticism of this builders' study can be found in a blog post by Stephen Del Percia (Mar. 10, 2009) here: "Ed Mazria said that it was 'meant to confuse the public and stall meaningful legislation, insuring that America remains dependent on foreign oil, natural gas and dirty conventional coal.' Lloyd Alter of Treehugger called it 'one of the dumbest studies that has crossed our screen in a while.'"
- Jonathan Ochshorn, What Sustainability Sustains. "This paper examines how the idealization of sustainability as a moral obligation of individual architects contrasts with the reality of sustainable design practice as a voluntary or government-sanctioned response to specific economic and political conditions... These arguments will be examined in two ways: first, by briefly discussing the history of governmental intervention in two related areas (fire safety and accessibility); and second, by showing how these arguments play out in two representative texts on sustainability and architecture, William McDonough's Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability, and the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED New Construction Reference Guide." See also my Summary and Critique of "LEED" 2009 Green Building Design & Construction Reference Guide and my Critique of Milstein Hall - Sustainability.
Copyright
2011–2020 J. Ochshorn. All rights reserved. First posted: 4 October 2015 | last updated: 14 November 2020
