Page 23 - The Engineering Guide to LEED-New Construction Sustainable Construction for Engineers

6 Cha pte r O n e

FIGURE 1.1.3 Preston College building at the University of South Carolina, built in 1939. Similar
architecture to the new green West Quad Facility opened in 2004 (as shown in Fig. 1.1.2).

There are also many website resources from which sustainable education materials can
be accessed. One of note is the ImpEE (Improving Engineering Education) Project
website developed by the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and another
is the Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon.
There are a plethora of current publications in journals based on how universities
and other institutions are implementing sustainability into the curricula. For instance,
The International Journal of Engineering Education focused Part I of its vol. 23, no. 2, 2007
issue on “Educating Students in Sustainable Engineering.” Later in 2010, the ASCE
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice also put out a call for a
special issue on sustainability education.
Two very important references which should be highlighted here are the LEED-
NC 2.2 Reference Guide and the LEED Reference Guide for Green Building Design and
Construction, 2009 Edition (referred to as the LEED 2009 Reference Guide in this text),
as developed by the USGBC. This text in sustainable construction is intended to
supplement the subject Reference Guides. The Reference Guides, just like building codes
and legislation, present the parameters and suggested practices for implementation of
the rating system that other entities can adopt to facilitate building in a more sustainable
fashion. The Reference Guides also expand upon the environmental, societal, and
economic principles used in the determination of the various prerequisites and credits,
and present many excellent examples, case studies, and references which can be used to
aid in the implementation of the LEED system. This text takes the basic parameters and
principles of the subject Reference Guides, particularly with respect to many of the civil
and environmental design issues, and further expands them into equations and teaching
formats which may be helpful in a classroom situation. It is with gratitude that the
author acknowledges the USGBC in allowing her to use most of the USGBC rating