Buildings consume about two-thirds of the United States’ power supply and produce about 40 percent of carbon emissions. Buildings that are being constructed now will have a considerable impact on our region’s energy use 50 to 100 years from now. Thus, the built environment, including residential, commercial, and public structures, presents an opportunity to drastically...

Climate change is increasingly exacerbating existing population health hazards, as well as resulting in new negative health effects. Flooding is one particularly deadly example of its amplifying and expanding effect on public health. This systematic review considered evidence linking green building strategies in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design® (LEED) Rating System with the...

Modular buildings are those built using prefabricated volumetric units called modules. Due to modules being connected to each other at discrete locations, discontinuous structural systems are formed, where diaphragm discontinuity is a key issue and could result in diaphragms that are flexible. Multi-story modular buildings with flexible diaphragms are susceptible to higher mode influences when...

Level(s) is a voluntary reporting framework to assess the sustainability of buildings. Using existing standards, Level(s) provides a common EU approach to the assessment of environmental performance in the built environment. On the 4th of December 2017, 80 pioneering organisations committed to test Level(s) joined a workshop organized by the European Commission, to learn more...

This policy framework addresses the potential opportunities presented by increasing the energy efficiency requirements for mid-tier buildings.