CONTINUING EDUCATION FOR ARCHITECTS, SPECIFIERS, and design professionals
As an AIA Continuing Education Provider, we proudly help architects stay on top of their field and grow in their profession by offering a continuing education curriculum that helps them fulfill AIA membership requirements.
We’re here To help Educate
As part of our commitment to becoming a partner in your specification journey, we offer a growing list of insightful, thought-provoking AIA CES courses for architect and design professionals. They are offered to you at no cost, and can be taken for AIA continuing education credits.
We believe well-built products speak for themselves. Rather, our courses provide the opportunity to start a conversation, for us to provide advisory support in the specification process, and for architectural and design professionals to integrate changes in perspective into their specification approach.
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Details: Length: 60 mins. Credits: 1 AIA LU | HSW
Course Description: The modern architect faces a sometimes-overwhelming challenge that defies intuition: how to balance building performance and strict carbon targets against cost. Buildings are one of the largest end users of energy, consuming a third of global final energy and creating a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions. Research from AIA (American Institute of Architects) reveals that 80% of architects want to specify more sustainable materials, but only one in three feels they are meeting that goal. This course will outline challenges faced by specifiers trying to contribute to healthy building, how small choices can help them integrate sustainability into their specification process, and the role building product manufacturers can play in helping them bridge the gap between sustainability and specification.
Learning Objectives: 1) Analyze challenges architects face when trying to integrate sustainability into their specification process. 2) Summarize sustainable window treatment products that contribute to building wellness and occupant welfare. 3) Discuss how small, calculated choices in sustainability can precipitate meaningful refinements in specifications. 4) Illustrate key lessons in sustainable specification by applying them to three specific settings
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Details: Length: 60 mins. Credits: 1 AIA HSW/ CE Hour & 1 GBCI CE Hour for LEED Professionals
Course Description: In this course, we will discuss the health and economic benefits of light harvesting. We will explore how natural daylight can reduce artificial lighting and influence thermal comfort. We will examine how solar window coverings and green fabrics can control light. Finally, we will review how window coverings can contribute to LEED v4 Daylighting credit.
Learning Objectives: 1) Identify the healthful, physiological, and economic benefits of light harvesting. 2) Discuss how harvesting in sustainably designed buildings collects and utilizes natural daylight to reduce the need for energy-consuming artificial lighting. 3) Explore interior solar window coverings and fabrics that best control light and thermal comfort to reduce the need for energy-consuming artificial lighting. 4) Explain how automated window coverings, as compared with manual systems achieve greater light and energy savings and review how window coverings can contribute to LEED v4 Daylighting credit.
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Details: Length: 60 mins. Credits: 1 AIA HSW/ CE Hour & 1 GBCI CE Hour for LEED Professionals
Course Description: In this course, we will delve into the concepts of Biomimicry and Biophilia, which explore the ways in which design can draw inspiration from nature, and how our innate biological connection with the natural world can contribute to our well-being. Through these lenses, we will examine the breadth of inspiration that nature offers us, and the fascinating relationship between contemporary shading designs and the solutions that nature has developed for managing light, heat, and glare.
Learning Objectives: 1) Define Biophilia and Biomimicry; 2) Identify Biophilia and Biomimetic designs in Nature; 3) Explore the healthful, physiological, and economic benefits of including nature in design in various settings; 4) Explain design application for shading based on the principles of biomimicry
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Details: Length: 60 mins. Credits: AIA 1 Learning Unit with HSW | GBCI 1 CE hour | RCEP/ACEC 1 Professional Development Hour | IDCEC 1 CE hour
Course Description: This course will provide an understanding of innovative design trends including current market drivers, comparing high performance glass vs. high performance shading and how to increase visual and thermal comfort by automating the balance of natural and artificial light. This course will build the connection between the influence of current design trends, on building performance using automated facades. We will discuss design strategies using automated solar management and its impact on these design trends.
Learning Objectives: 1) Discover construction market sustainability drivers and automation examples. 2) Understand automation of building envelopes/façades using innovative and sustainable design strategies. 3) Relate sustainable building design with the benefits of automation. 4) Promote design based on the value of automation.
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Details: Length: 1 hour. Credits: AIA 1 Learning Unit with HSW | GBCI 1 CE hour | RCEP/ACEC 1 Professional Development Hour
Course Description: This course will provide an understanding of innovative design trends including current market drivers, comparing high performance buildings and how to increase visual and thermal comfort by automating the balance of natural and artificial light. This course will build the connection between the influence of current design trends and advances in technology, on building performance using automated facades. We will discuss design strategies using power and data distribution to create higher performing buildings with increased functionality at a lower cost.
Learning Objectives: 1) Understand how construction costs effect project planning and designs. 2) Project planning to overcome main obstacles to creating smart buildings considering power distribution. 3) Compare and contrast the layout of building systems with the integration of advanced power and control options. 4) Identify the environmental benefits of using smart building technology.