GREEN CONSTRUCTION:CONTRACTOR EXPERIENCES,EXPECTATIONS,AND PERCEPTIONS

As the benefits of green building continue to change the Architecture/Engineering/Construction industry and the num-ber of green projects rises in the United States due to market changes,more constructionfirms are gaining experience with this new way of building and changing their expectations for new hires from degree-granting construction pro-grams.This paper documents a baseline study of contractor experiences,expectations,and perceptions associated with green building conducted in Fall 2006.The study was based on detailed survey results from 87 different companies re-cruiting from three major university construction programs in the eastern United States(Auburn,Purdue,and Virginia Tech).The survey collected data regarding current experience levels and capabilities of companies with regard to green construction,corporate expectations of new hires in terms of green construction knowledge and skills,and respondent ex-pectations and perceptions about the future of the industry with regard to green projects.Thefindings of this study sup-port the growing importance of green building as a component of the whole construction market and provide a bench-mark against which to measure future changes in the industry over time.

DESIGNING SUSTAINABLE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS:LOWERING ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN A K-12 FACILITY

The construction industry is embracing sustainable building practices that boost the“triple bottom line”,namely the building’s ecological,social,and financial performance.Since more than 55 million US students spend a significant part of their day in K-12 schools,it is vital that these facilities should provide healthy,comfortable,and productive learning environments.Here we present an in-depth literature review of how educational facilities affect student school performance,comfort,and health,and we examine the role of sustainable design and construction strategies in influencing the physical learning environment in schools.Significant barriers to implementing sustainable strategies are examined,particularly the first cost premium of a sustainable building.A systematic decision strategy is described that incorporates sustainable design strategies,lowering energy consumption and improving indoor environments.A case study describes the process of incorporating sustainable strategies in a K-12 education facility in North Carolina to lower annual energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.Ways to reduce the first cost premium and minimize operating costs over the facility’s life while providing healthy and comfortable learning environments for students and teachers are discussed.The case study school also functions as an experimental learning tool for teaching sustainability to K-12 students,having the potential to improve their attitudes and behavior with respect to sustainability.

DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS FOR GREEN BUILDING:FACILITATING SELECTION AMONG NEW ADOPTERS ON PUBLIC SECTOR PROJECTS

Green building is becoming more mainstream in the public sector,especially in federal agencies such as the U.S.Depart-ment of Defense,in a large part due to federal policies requiring more sustainable outcomes in the design and construction of public sector projects.These policies challenge contracted design professionals by adding new demands to a process already constrained by limited budgets,multiple objectives,and short time frames.The purpose of this research is twofold:(a)to inventory decision support tools available to aid the green design process,and(b)to investigate approaches for organizing these tools to facilitate tool selection and adoption by designers new to green building.The research ap-proach is based on principles of innovation adoption theory,specifically the constructs of relative advantage and trialability of innovations.The 275 design-related tools examined here address the spectrum of green building concepts and represent a range of applicability to different design tasks.Thefindings of this research indicate that while considerable investment has been made in developing freely available web-based tools to support design,a relatively small number of those tools are immediately applicable to the task of making Leadership in Energy and Environment Design(LEED)credit determinations for specific projects.The two characteristics of innovations explored in this research provide a basis for explaining some of the anecdotal observations of tools employed in practice,suggesting a need for further research to confirm and extend the findings.