Minimizing Embodied Carbon by Design

This class will be taught by Larry Strain and Chris Magwood, two thought leaders in the field of embodied carbon. Both, unusually, have careers combining research and practice. Larry, co-founder of the award-winning Bay Area architecture firm of Siegel & Strain, for decades has infused his design practice with applied research as a means of creating buildings that are both beautiful and green. Larry will share his recent work, focused on analyzing the relative carbon impacts of low-carbon renovation of existing buildings versus construction of new, low-carbon/net-zero buildings. Chris, a natural building pioneer, serves as executive director of the Endeavour Centre, a not-for-profit sustainable building school in Ontario, Canada, where he applies his research via teaching and construction of low/no-carbon buildings. Chris will present his recent work on construction methods that maximize carbon sequestration.

Learning Objectives

After completing this class, participants will be able to:

• Describe the significance and scale of embodied carbon within the context of building lifecycle emissions.
• Articulate the carbon value of reusing and retrofitting existing buildings as compared with constructing new ones.
• Incorporate carbon-sequestering construction methods into building designs.
• Enumerate the non-energy, non-climate benefits of both building reuse and adoption of the illustrated building methods and strategies.

2 AIA|HSW LU’s are available for this course