Green Building and Sustainable Design: High-Performance Envelopes, Biophilic Systems & Net-Zero Architecture — Student Guide

Green Building and Sustainable Design: High-Performance Envelopes, Biophilic Systems & Net-Zero Architecture — Student Guide is an open-access, comprehensive undergraduate-level engineering curriculum module designed for engineering students, architects, and sustainable infrastructure practitioners. Aligned with core ABET and CEAB architectural, civil, and environmental engineering syllabi, this module provides a rigorous systems analysis of building envelope thermodynamics, passive solar design, daylight harvesting, embodied carbon life-cycle assessment (LCA), and international green rating standards.

Curricular & Technical Highlights:

• Functional System Architecture: Employs an IDEF0 (Input-Control-Output-Mechanism) workflow to demonstrate how site climatology, occupant needs, and material selections are transformed under building codes and green standards (LEED, BREEAM, Green Mark, Living Building Challenge) into verified net-zero architectural designs.
• Building Envelope Thermodynamics: Rigorous analytical formulations for composite multi-layer wall assembly thermal resistance (R-values), overall heat transfer coefficients (U-factors), solar heat gain coefficients (SHGC), and Envelope Thermal Transfer Value (ETTV) calculations.
• Embodied vs. Operational Carbon Accounting: Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies contrasting virgin structural materials against recycled alternatives, bio-based mass timber (Cross-Laminated Timber), and on-site renewable energy microgrids.
• Biophilic Urban Integration: Engineering case studies and performance metrics covering tropical microclimate engineering, natural cross-ventilation geometry, vertical green facades, and extensive green roofs for urban heat island (UHI) mitigation.
• Comparative Systems Engineering: A multi-criteria systems trade-off matrix evaluating mass timber (CLT), conventional glass curtain walls, double-skin ventilated facades (DSF), rammed earth blocks, and extensive green roofs across thermal performance, carbon trade-offs, and failure modes.
• Worked Quantitative Engineering Problems: Step-by-step numerical calculations covering multi-layer wall assembly U-factor determination, commercial LED retrofit energy and financial payback, green roof rainwater harvesting volume sizing, rooftop solar PV annual yield, net-zero building energy balance, low-flow plumbing water conservation, and structural steel embodied carbon reduction.
• Self-Assessment & Concept Review Modules: Comprehensive interactive review questions, analytical scenario investigations, and quantitative problem sets.

Canonical web edition and interactive dynamic simulators: https://prep4uni.online/stem/physical-technologies/environmental-engineering/green-building-and-sustainable-design/