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Course Title

SDCB 305 -
Beyond Green: Adaptive, Restorative and Regenerative Design

Course Description

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and other building environmental assessment methods have provided Canadian building design professionals with both focus and guidance on what constitutes current green building practice. Innovative design teams, however, continue to push beyond current notions of best green building practice and are asking more fundamental questions and establishing more demanding performance goals.

A transition to an environmentally sustainable future will invariably parallel the rate and extent to which we restore previously degraded ecosystems and model all human enterprise – including buildings, infrastructure and settlement patterns – on natural systems and processes. Indeed, this has been a key focus for leading edge practice. The emerging science of “biomimicry,” for example, has already highlighted the potential for nature’s wisdom to guide industrial production and for its operational principles to offer a source of both inspiration and direction for building design. Similarly, the notion of regenerative design seeks to embody intelligence in buildings by infusing them with the ability to respond, adapt and change positively over long life spans. Finally, the need for buildings to be invested with greater adaptability to cope more effectively with the future uncertainties associated with climate change, national security and technological advances, is equally evidenced in this debate.

This one-day course will present the theory and a series of case studies to explore the following topics:

• Current Green Design
• Industrial and Construction Ecology
• Biophylia and Biomimicry
• Adaptive, Restorative and Regenerative Design

Participants will:

• Develop an understanding of the difference between “green” design, “sustainable” design and “ecological” design by reviewing current practice to identify the ways and extent that natural systems and processes are evidenced;
• Gain an understanding of the notions of adaptive, restorative and regenerative design and their differences from green design;
• Gain a critical understanding of relevant natural systems and processes and the lesson that can legitimately be drawn to guide design

Duration

One full day (6.5 hours)

Course Presenters

Ray Cole

Provincial / Territorial Association credits:   > PDF