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PREFACE
After years of simultaneously practicing architecture and teaching it, I recognized a signi-
cant gap between what architects were required to know in the ever-emerging and evolving
eld of sustainable design, and how this was being taught to our new generation of aspir-
ing young professionals. It was quite different. I endeavored to design a new type of class
to address this issue.
The heightened international focus on LEED and other green building assessments
within colleges and universities drew a natural pairing of learning and applying learned
knowledge. Academic curricula was a logical solution to bridge this divide; creating a
course dedicated to applying learned knowledge to an actual building provided a platform
for action research. It simultaneously provided students with an opportunity to become
impact-catalysts on their own campuses.
LEED Lab is a novel approach to a student’s understanding of sustainable design by
evaluating existing buildings through green assessment. Culminating in improvements of
operations, maintenance, efciency, function, occupant health, and a reduction in using
natural resources on actual campus facilities, the course offers institutional benets to not
only a student’s learning, but also to faculty, staff, external trade and technical consultants,
and of course, to the facility being assessed.
After ten years of teaching and developing LEED Lab, I began to observe certain unique
issues within its implementation: the LEED O+M v4 Reference Guide was far too technical
for the beginner taking the course; facilities personnel simply did not have a grasp of the
extent of the systems which impacted theirs, thus saw sustainable operations in their build-
ing only within a narrow perspective; faculty were not knowledgeable of the way that green
policies actually impacted the entire protocol of facilities staff. A different approach was
warranted. Besides a few articles introducing LEED Lab, brochures explaining how to start
LEED Lab at an institution, tips to facilitate the course, and websites with successful LEED
Lab stories, there was no direction for actually running the course with its technical content.
This textbook serves as a resource for LEED Lab students, faculty and staff to navigate
the complex process of green assessment through the LEED Operations and Maintenance
(LEED O+M) rating system, and is designed to accompany the LEED O+M v4 Reference
Guide. More specically, it provides the insight for students in LEED Labs at universities
across the world to gain the experience of performing various resource tracking, writing
green policies, and collaborating with multiple realms of professionals on buildings imme-
diately available to them on their respective campuses. Campus faculty and administrators
likewise benet from this publication by better comprehending the measures necessary for
a thorough existing building evaluation of their facilities. Government, military or hospital
personnel and other organizations interested in maintaining sustainable efciency on their
campuses can use it as well for internal technical training, to launch a LEED Lab course, or
refer to it as a method of self-evaluating their built infrastructure.
A signicant amount of research was dedicated to producing this publication. Resources
used in this publication include foremost the LEED O+M v4 Reference Guide, and my
extensive experience of teaching the course to interpret its contents into LEED Lab’s scho-
lastic platform. LEEDuser was also invaluable, as it provided existing templates and rec-
ommendations. Since the methodology underlying this publication may be universally
adaptable to other rating systems, categories and metrics of the most frequently used
O+M international rating systems such as Green Globes, CASBEE, DGNB and many more,
were carefully evaluated and compared to provide a platform for LEED Labs and similar
courses at universities around the world. The book also applies national and international,
governmental, and local green non-prot and for-prot organizational recommendations
and explains how they relate to credits. Manufacturer and trade websites are referenced to
PREFACE
xviii
help explain technical jargon, equipment and systems. The book also streamlines complex
steps and technical procedures necessary to accomplish credits, and provides tools and
techniques specic to LEED’s curricular and campus implementation so that they are coher-
ent to the novice.
It is my strong belief that architecture students particularly, but students of other dis-
ciplines generally, require a real-world venue of exploration for their technical knowl-
edge prior to entering today’s green competitive work force. It is no longer sufcient to
understand what global warming means, or to advocate for energy reduction. Rather,
understanding how a collection of refrigerant leaks in a majority of HVAC units on a
campus contributes towards that warming, or where to facilitate methods of reducing EUI
on campus, respectively, provides an emerging professional credibility in today’s world of
environmental alliance.
Issues which I encountered in my research and execution of this book include the fre-
quency of updates to formal green assessment systems which reect the rapid evolution
of the sustainable building industry as a whole. It is nearly impossible to keep track of the
daily changes to building energy codes and standards as they impact assessment – as
evidenced by the amount of addenda to the LEED rating systems issued by the USGBC on
a regular basis. In fact, as this publication was being written, the organization launched an
updated beta version of the LEED O+M rating system! Fortunately, this book serves as a
foundational guide for curricular application of green assessment, even if links, resources
and metric thresholds continue to evolve.
The work which culminated in this publication is extensive but not conclusive. It has
the possibility of branching into other scholastic and professional applications such as
vocational training schools, military facilities, and various corporate campus applications.
Its dynamic content which integrates many environmentally related disciplines, trades and
professional organizations into a cohesive team through academic curricula makes it a
premier instrument for market transformation in the green building industry.
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