PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

The Sustainable Buildings Consortium seeks to accelerate the widespread adoption of sustainable building best practice by researching and developing elegant design solutions. Two such products are outlined here.

The Consortium, in collaboration with D-lab Products, Manasc Isaac Architects, and Visionwall, developed an extruded aluminum sunshade product. This innovative, fixed-blade curtain-wall with integrated sunshade has since been used successfully in a number of sustainable building projects. The project was part funded by the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP).

The consortium identified the need for a dry-wall-free product and worked with an innovative design team at Manasc Isaac Architects to design a building using strawboard in an entirely new way. Straw-board is a rapidly-renewable material that reduces waste. D Lab went on to create another innovative application of straw-board in it's design of a demountable partition system, also with the aim of reducing waste and ease of installation.

RESEARCH

Research initiatives include an Alberta Ingenuity research project with Manasc Isaac Architects to develop better integration between design practice and energy modeling technologies to enable architects and engineers to predict building performance at the early design stage.

A number of other research initiatives have been completed over the years.

TEACHING

Recent Teaching and lecturing include invitations to address:

• The Glass Trades Association

• The Manitoba Association of Architects

• BC Buildings Corporation

• The University of Calgary School of Architecture

• Ryerson University School of Architectural Science

ADVOCACY

The consortium started the Alberta Sustainable Buildings symposium and was involved in initiatives to bring sustainable Buildings policies to the Cities of Calgary [2002], Edmonton [2008] and others

Members of our Board also serve on the Boards of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), the Alberta Chapter of the CaGBC and the Alberta Building Envelope Council and continue to influence public policy in the area of green building research, design and construction.