Sustainable Design

by Jonee Kulman, AIA and Joel Schurke, March 2001. National Council of Archi-tectural Registration Boards (NCARB), 1801 K Street, NW, Suite 1100K, Wash-ington, DC 20006; 202/783-6500,

www.ncarb.org. Paperback, 150 pages, $195 ($125 with NCARB certificate).

Sustainable Design is the latest in a series of monographs from NCARB’s Professional Development Program. These monographs are used by architects to meet the requirements of architectural registration boards in many states as well as The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) continuing education requirements. Completion of this monograph’s study program provides ten Health, Safety, and Welfare contact hours or ten AIA Learning Units. Within the monograph’s textbook-style format, Kulman and Schurke provide a direct and comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of sustainable design.

The monograph begins with an introduction to sustainable design that is highly conceptual and thus is likely to appeal to some readers more than others. Among the many points included here is the insight that as long as sustainability is perceived as one aspect of architecture, it will never be truly integrated the way it is when architecture is seen as a means to sustainability. The authors also introduce “The Seven R’s” (see diagram), which are used as an organizing principle throughout the text.

The main body of the monograph consists of sections on the topics of energy, site, air, water, and materials, followed by guidance on implementation. Within each subject area is a short introduction followed by an extremely detailed case study focusing on that particular aspect of a project. These case studies, including a discussion of water conservation at the Real Goods Solar Living Center in Hopland, California and site design at the Phillips Eco-Enterprise Center in Minneapolis, are real gems—using the actual projects to illustrate many practices and technologies. On the whole, this monograph represents sustainable design well to architects who come to it via NCARB’s educational programs, and it will serve as a useful reference for others.

– NM