Sustainable Design and Construction

Course Description

Sustainable Design and Construction introduces the basic theories and practices of ecology as they relate to construction and interior design products. Students examine how material selections affect environmental conditions, with emphasis on green design, renewable resources, pollution mitigation, and resource preservation, positioning sustainable practice as an emerging field for interior design and architecture.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, BCN is the Building Construction prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered fall, giving approximately 45 contact hours consistent with the published BCN2241 and BCN2560 in this repository.

Buildings are a substantial share of energy use, material consumption, and waste generation, which makes this a subject with real leverage rather than a values statement. It is also a field where marketing has run ahead of evidence, and one of the genuinely useful things this course can teach is how to distinguish a substantiated environmental claim from a decorated one.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe basic ecological principles and their relevance to the built environment.
• Describe the environmental impacts of construction across a building's life.
• Describe life cycle assessment and apply its logic to material comparison.
• Distinguish operational energy from embodied carbon and describe why both matter.
• Evaluate building materials for environmental impact, durability, and health effects.
• Describe renewable, recycled, reclaimed, and rapidly renewable materials and their trade-offs.
• Describe indoor air quality, volatile organic compounds, and low-emitting material selection.
• Describe material health, product transparency, and disclosure documentation.
• Describe energy efficiency strategies in building design and construction.
• Describe the building envelope and its role in energy performance.
• Describe HVAC efficiency, ventilation, and their interaction with envelope design.
• Describe daylighting and efficient lighting design.
• Describe water efficiency measures in buildings and on sites.
• Describe site selection, stormwater management, and landscape considerations.
• Describe construction waste reduction, reuse, and recycling.
• Describe green building rating systems and their certification processes.
• Describe energy codes and their role in setting minimum performance.
• Describe the economics of sustainable construction, including first cost and life cycle cost.
• Evaluate environmental marketing claims critically and identify greenwashing.
• Describe resilience and its relationship to sustainability.
• Apply sustainable principles to a design or construction problem.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe renewable energy systems applied to buildings.
• Describe building commissioning and performance verification.
• Describe adaptive reuse and historic building retrofit.
• Describe circular economy concepts in construction.
• Describe post-occupancy evaluation.
• Prepare for a green building professional credential.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Ecological principles and the built environment
• Environmental impacts of construction
• Life cycle assessment
• Operational energy and embodied carbon
• Material evaluation and selection
• Renewable, recycled, and reclaimed materials
• Indoor air quality and VOCs
• Material health and product transparency
• Energy efficiency strategies
• The building envelope
• HVAC efficiency and ventilation
• Daylighting and lighting design
• Water efficiency
• Site, stormwater, and landscape
• Construction waste management
• Green building rating systems
• Energy codes
• First cost versus life cycle cost
• Greenwashing and claim evaluation
• Resilience and sustainability
• Application to a design problem

Optional Topics

• Renewable energy systems
• Commissioning and verification
• Adaptive reuse and retrofit
• Circular economy in construction
• Post-occupancy evaluation
• Green building credentials

Resources & Tools

• Sustainable Construction: Green Building Design and Delivery (Charles Kibert) — the standard text and unusually rigorous.
• Green Building Illustrated (Yudelson & Meyer) — accessible and visual; good for interior design students.
• U.S. Green Building Council (usgbc.org) — LEED rating system documentation; substantial free reference material and student pricing on the LEED Green Associate credential.
• Green Building Initiative (Green Globes) and the Living Building Challenge — alternative rating systems worth knowing exist.
• Florida Building Code — Energy Conservation (floridabuilding.org) — free to view, and the operative minimum performance standard in this state.
• ENERGY STAR and DOE Building Energy Codes Program — free tools and guidance.
• Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Health Product Declarations, and Declare labels — free databases for material transparency; see the flag below.
• Cradle to Cradle and GREENGUARD — free certification directories for material health and indoor air quality.
• FTC Green Guides — free, and the federal standard for what environmental marketing claims may say. Directly relevant to the greenwashing content.
• Florida Solar Energy Center (fsec.ucf.edu) — free, Florida-specific building science research on hot-humid climate performance.

Career Pathways

• Interior designer — material specification with environmental and health criteria; see this repository's IND guides on Florida registration.
• Construction manager and estimator — sustainability is increasingly part of the specification and the bid.
• Sustainability consultant — LEED and rating system documentation, energy modelling support, and certification management.
• Energy auditor and rater — residential and commercial; separate credentials exist and Florida demand is real.
• Building commissioning agent — verifying that systems perform as designed.
• Facilities and energy management — institutions, hospitals, and large employers.
• Green building product sales and specification — manufacturers employ specifiers.
• Local government sustainability and permitting — Florida municipalities have growing programmes.
• Architecture and engineering — with further study.
• SOC codes 11-9021 Construction Managers, 27-1025 Interior Designers, and 13-1199 for sustainability specialist roles.

Special Information

⚠ In Florida, sustainability and resilience are the same conversation

The regional content that most changes what "green building" means here.

A building that is destroyed does not perform well environmentally, however efficient it was. Florida's hazards make durability and resilience part of sustainability rather than a separate topic:

• Wind. The Florida Building Code is unusually demanding on wind resistance, and post-Andrew code strengthening is credited with measurably reducing losses — a documented case of regulation paying for itself. Building to survive is the first sustainability requirement here.
• Humidity and moisture are the defining building science problem. Florida's hot-humid climate drives vapour inward, which means wall assemblies that work in northern climates fail here — an interior vapour barrier that is correct in Minnesota traps moisture in Florida and grows mould. Assemblies must be designed to dry.
• Mould is a health and liability issue, and it follows directly from moisture management failures. Indoor air quality in this climate is inseparable from envelope design and HVAC sizing.
• Oversized air conditioning is a common failure. An oversized unit cools quickly, short-cycles, and does not run long enough to dehumidify — producing a cold, clammy, mould-prone building. Correct sizing matters more here than in dry climates.
• Solar gain and shading do more for cooling load than insulation thickness in this climate, and orientation, overhangs, and glazing selection are the high-leverage decisions.
• Flooding and sea level affect siting, elevation, and material selection in coastal and low-lying areas, and insurance and lending increasingly reflect it.
• Water — as this repository's water guides describe, Florida has genuine supply constraints despite abundant rainfall, so efficiency and reuse are locally consequential.

Rule 11 applies — the Florida Building Code, including its energy provisions, is revised on a cycle. Verify against the current adopted edition.

⚠ Greenwashing is the professional literacy this course should build

The critical-thinking content, and it is genuinely useful because the marketing is pervasive.

• "Natural", "eco-friendly", and "green" have no defined meaning in this context. The FTC Green Guides set out what environmental marketing claims may say and require substantiation, and vague unqualified claims are precisely what they caution against.
• Ask: compared to what, and measured how? A material that is "80% recycled content" may still have high embodied carbon; one that is "locally sourced" may be manufactured energy-intensively.
• Single-attribute claims mislead. Bamboo is rapidly renewable and may be shipped across the world and processed with formaldehyde adhesives. Life cycle assessment exists because trade-offs are the norm.
• Look for third-party verification. Environmental Product Declarations report life cycle impacts to a standard format; Health Product Declarations and Declare labels disclose ingredients; GREENGUARD certifies low emissions; FSC certifies forestry. Self-declared claims are weaker than certified ones.
• Certification is not equivalence. Different labels measure different things, and a product certified for low VOC emissions has said nothing about its carbon footprint.
• Rating systems are point-based and gameable. LEED and its peers are useful frameworks and they measure design intent and documented features rather than actual performance — certified buildings do not always outperform, which is why commissioning and post-occupancy evaluation matter.
• Follow the money. Trade associations, manufacturers, and advocacy groups all produce material, and the funding shapes the framing.

The professional posture: a specifier who asks for the documentation is doing their job. "Can you send me the EPD?" is a reasonable, normal question, and the answer is informative either way.

⚠ Embodied carbon changed the conversation — and it is front-loaded

A genuine shift in the field that older material does not reflect.

• Operational energy dominated green building thinking for decades, and codes and rating systems reflect that emphasis. As buildings and grids have become more efficient, the emissions embodied in materials and construction have become a larger share of a building's total impact.
• Embodied carbon is emitted up front, at construction, whereas operational savings accrue over decades. That timing matters if near-term emissions are what count.
• Concrete and steel dominate embodied carbon in most structures — cement production in particular is a very large industrial emissions source — which is why substitution, mix optimization, and material efficiency have become active areas.
• The greenest building is frequently the one that already exists. Adaptive reuse and renovation avoid the embodied carbon of new construction entirely, which is a genuinely underweighted option.
• Durability is a carbon strategy. A material that lasts fifty years instead of fifteen amortizes its embodied impact — which connects directly to the Florida resilience point above.
• Design for disassembly and material recovery is the circular-economy response, and it is beginning to affect specification.

⚠ The economics are real — and first cost is not the whole cost

The practical argument a graduate will need to make to clients and contractors.

• Sustainable features frequently cost more up front and less over time. The professional skill is making that case with numbers rather than values — life cycle cost analysis is the tool.
• The split incentive is a real barrier. A developer who builds and sells does not pay the operating costs, so efficiency investments benefit someone else. Understanding this explains a great deal about why obviously sensible measures do not get built.
• Some measures pay back quickly and some do not. Lighting, controls, envelope air sealing, and correct HVAC sizing generally have short paybacks; some renewable installations and premium materials do not, and honesty about which is which builds credibility.
• Non-energy benefits are real but harder to quantify — occupant health, comfort, productivity, and reduced maintenance. The research on daylight and indoor air quality effects is suggestive rather than conclusive, and overstating it is a form of greenwashing.
• Incentives change the arithmetic — utility rebates, tax credits, and financing programmes vary by jurisdiction and by year, and knowing what is currently available is part of the job.
• Insurance and lending increasingly price resilience in Florida, which is becoming a direct financial argument for durable construction.

Career note: the LEED Green Associate credential is inexpensive, has no experience requirement, and is a concrete signal on a résumé — worth taking while the course material is fresh.

⚠ Only about three Florida institutions carry this number — hedge accordingly

This course appears at roughly three institutions statewide. Content, credit value, and emphasis vary more than they would for a widely taught course. Read your own institution's catalog description and syllabus rather than assuming this guide describes your section exactly, and have any transfer evaluated in writing.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

BCN2049 is a lecture course, 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours, offered fall, matching the published BCN2241 and BCN2560. Expect material evaluation and specification exercises, case analysis of certified buildings, and frequently a project applying sustainable principles to a design problem. Build the project around a real local building if you can — Florida's climate makes generic sustainability guidance misleading, and local application is where the learning is.

The course transfers on the ordinary lower-division basis. Note that construction and interior design A.S. degrees are applied and do not carry the A.A.'s guaranteed junior-status transfer, though Florida institutions publish B.S. pathways in construction management and related fields designed for that population.