Sustainable architects are finding new ways to reduce waste and help the planet. One of the steps they are taking is helping create passive homes. These homes are more energy efficient and otherwise good for the planet.

Like other professions, house architects should consider taking up Continuing Professional Development (CPD), allowing them to enhance their professional skills and stand out from their competitors. In fact, CPD is a vital part for house architects and design professionals, as many professional institutes now require their members to undergo a certain number of CPD hours every year.

Here are the top five CPD ideas for passive house architects.

What is CPD for Architects?

Continuing Professional Development or CPD refers to the activities architects undertake to ensure their professional skills are updated with the latest developments in the industry. Generally, the CPD for architects is divided into three categories – structured, reflective, and self-directed. Architects often acquire new information through CPD training activities to meet their professional development objectives and improve their capability in the workplace.

These standards are becoming more important, especially for architects focused on sustainability. They are helping architects meet the needs of clients seeking to be part of the $81 billion market for eco-friendly buildings.

Architecture is an evolving field, and it often evolves at a rapid pace, creating more sustainable and efficient building solutions. In order to keep up, architects should stay abreast of these rising trends. They must have an excellent grasp of the latest developments that could reshape the future of architecture. Ongoing education through CPD is crucial for an architect’s career growth.

1.      Training New Employees 

New architects must receive proper mentoring and training when they come into the firm. It’s an essential step for their learning and professional development. Architects play an important role, making it necessary to equip those new to the profession with the knowledge and skills they need to carry out their responsibilities.

A mentor can be anyone who has practiced the profession for several years and has handled various projects. They can partner with a new architect during the first few months of employment. The mentor can provide guidance and advice to help promote and foster the professional development of the new architect. As someone who knows the ropes in the profession, the mentor can be an effective source of encouragement and advice. They can offer assistance through training and integrating the new architect into the firm. With an expert mentor, the new architect can quickly become a contributing member of the firm.

Mentoring can benefit both the mentor and the new architect. The mentor will feel like they are helping the firm by sharing their acquired knowledge and experience in architecture. By helping others, they gain a better understanding of their profession. Meanwhile, the new architect can greatly benefit from the mentoring by having easy access to helpful guidance and advice, not to mention encouragement, which they need the most, especially during the first few months of being an architect.

2.      Working at Heights 

Like other professions that often deal with danger, especially when working in tall buildings, architects should prioritize their safety at all times. They must ensure that the building they are working on has fire exits that meet the regulatory standards and that they are working only with non-hazardous materials. For these reasons, they should consider booking onto the available online health and safety courses.

Working at construction sites is dangerous, even if you are not directly involved in constructing the building. As an architect, you are sometimes required to make a site visit and personally visit the construction area, which would sometimes require them to climb to the top of the building. According to the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) data, one of the top causes of fatalities in construction is falling from heights.

Thus, one of the CPD Ideas for architects is to take a safety course about working at heights. While taking up the training cannot entirely guarantee that you will not meet any accidents, it can, no doubt, mitigate the risks involved in working at heights. Architects are fully responsible for protecting themselves and the people they work with.

3.      Learn about Listed Building Compliance 

There are about 400,000 listed buildings in the UK. So, if you’re an architect based in the UK, you must be skilled in Listed Building Compliance. Performing work on listed buildings can be challenging since these buildings are considered of special significance or historic interest. 

Whether you need to restore, retrofit, or extend a listed structure, you must be very careful not to cause damage to the property’s original character. Therefore, architects must clearly understand the significance and nature of the listed building. In addition, they should have sufficient knowledge of the laws that protect these historic structures.

Training courses on Listed Building Compliance is highly recommended for architects if they want to advance their professional career. The course will teach them important things like how to get consent or permission to carry out work on a listed building. They will also learn if these types of buildings need to have disabled access and other facilities. It also teaches them how to comply with energy-efficient laws when working with listed buildings.

4.      Learn about Passive House Architecture 

Architects nowadays should also be knowledgeable about passive house architecture. Passive house refers to a high-performance standard on building construction, which dramatically reduces the building’s energy needs. Passive houses are believed to deliver energy savings of up to 90%.

The Passive House design requires the integration of super insulation, airtightness, advanced window technology, and efficient ventilation to provide occupants with clean air and a suitable temperature. While a Passive House’s biggest benefit is providing healthy and comfortable living conditions, its most admired characteristic is its ability to significantly reduce the consumption of electricity and natural gas, which essentially helps to cut down carbon emissions.

But the adoption of Passive House is not mainly about caring for the environment or preventing the dangers of climate change. Even if you do not care much about the planet, Passive House buildings can benefit you in many ways. A passive house is often less costly to maintain because they use a small amount of energy and requires fewer repairs. But perhaps, the biggest benefit it can give is keeping the homeowners healthy. With a passive house, you can enjoy better sleep quality and breathe fresh air daily.

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As an architect in 2021, you have to think about the environment. This is why many architecture firms are leading the way in helping the environment. After all, if you can’t rely on sustainable practices, you risk further pollution, which can lead to a huge number of problems in the future. For that reason, as well as many others (e.g., saving money), contemporary architects are turning to zero waste business practices. But how can you apply zero waste policies within your own architectural projects? Well, this article is here to help you find out.

Describing Zero Waste

People online, especially business owners, tend to run into the term ‘zero waste’ and a whole host of questions follows. What is zero waste? Who started zero waste movements and why? Is it something that I should consider?

Zero waste is exactly what its name suggests. It’s a method of conserving all resources without the need to burn or discard any excess materials. There are several ways we can achieve that goal. Generally speaking, it requires responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of everything, from raw materials to finished products and even product packages. In short, everything that doesn’t have to become waste must be used or reused in some way.

Various different industries are already using the zero waste approach. For instance, you have zero waste restaurants popping up across the world. Zero waste shopping malls are also becoming increasingly popular. And yes, even some of the biggest corporations on the planet are looking into implementing zero waste practices.

But how does zero waste apply to architecture, exactly?

LEED Certification

Since the early 1990s, experts have been trying to come up with a green building certification program that can be applied to any architectural project worldwide. The result of their efforts was the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, also known as LEED.

LEED certification generally covers everything regarding a construction project. Some of the categories include: water efficiency, sustainable sites, atmosphere and energy, indoor environment quality, materials and resources, and design innovation.

Levels of certification range between 0 and 100 points, with 40 being the lowest for certification. Said levels are ranked as follows:

• 40‒49 — certified
• 50‒59 — silver
• 60‒79 — gold
• 80 and above — platinum

Currently, the LEED rating system is grouped into five overarching categories:

• Building Design and Construction (BD+C)
• Interior Design and Construction
• Building Operations and Maintenance (O+M)
• Neighborhood Development
• Home design and construction

As of August 2021, there are roughly 96,000 LEED-certified projects around the world, in 167 different countries. This number clearly shows just how interested people are in green architecture, and the upward trend will definitely continue in the decades to come.

Key Points to Consider in Zero Waste Architecture

In order to maintain a zero-waste policy, an architect needs to consider the so-called four R’s of circular economy: rethink, reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Rethink

Rethinking is the initial step to every zero-waste project. As an architect, you need to look at your project and start thinking outside of the box. For example, consider the materials you will need. Can you use an alternative, and if so, can your alternative materials be locally sourced? That way, you will save money on transport and shipping, as well as reduce your working hours. Furthermore, you’ll need to think about potential design constraints and how best to tackle them. Innovative architectural practices like passive solar design can also help you achieve your zero-waste goals if you start to implement them as early as the planning stage.

Reduce

There are several ways you can look at on-site reduction when it comes to architecture. Here are several examples:

• Resizing the level of concrete, metal, or any other raw material
• Designing lightweight systems that use up fewer resources than usual
• Decreasing on-site waste via different building and designing practices
• Eliminating the need for excess drying or cooling during construction
• Lowering the carbon footprint by eliminating the need for transport as much as possible
• Reducing the size of the urban living space
• Figuring out sustainable transport systems from one location to the next in an urban area.

Reuse

Just like reducing, reusing can also be viewed in more than one way when it comes to sustainable architecture. More specifically, we will look into two types of reuse:

• Material reuse
• Reuse of entire buildings

Reuse of materials is rather straightforward. During construction (or post-demolition), you can take the raw materials and, instead of sending them to the landfill, use them for your new project. Anything from structural steel meshes, solid wood, concrete, brick, stone, glass, metal coatings, and partition walls can and should be reused whenever possible.

Reusing an entire building might sound like a novel concept, but it’s actually something we’ve been doing for centuries, if not millennia. If a building still has structural integrity, tearing it down would be a massive waste. Instead, as a project supervisor, you can convert the building into something new. For example, you can turn an old factory or a prison into a museum, an art gallery, an office space, or even a hotel. Many architects are following similar strategies to lower the carbon footprints of their homes as well. The only real limit, other than potential budgetary constraints, is your imagination.

Recycle

One of the new concepts that entrepreneurs are embracing with open arms is urban mining. In short, it’s the practice of going to abandoned buildings or post-demolition landfills and acquiring secondary raw materials that we can convert into something else. That way, instead of polluting our land, water, and air, these materials are finding a new purpose and follow the circular model of green architecture. As a modern architect yourself, you can greatly benefit from recycling construction material, whether as an urban miner or as a provider of the materials themselves.

Conclusion

If applied effectively, sustainable architecture practices can make our lives easier in many different ways. Not only will they save our time, money, and effort in a tangible way, but they will also contribute to keeping our planet safe. And of course, no construction project can ever be safe enough if our very own environment is too dangerous for us to inhabit.

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From contemporary design practice to natural history, these are your next sources of inspiration, whatever your project.

1) Frank Lloyd Wright: Natural Design, Organic Architecture: Lessons for Building Green from an American Original, by Alan Hess and Alan Weintraub

Frank Lloyd Wright, who produced most of his famous works in the early and mid-20th century, may have come from an era where green design and sustainability carried the importance, they do in the 21st century. But that fact makes Hess and Weintraub’s re-examination of Wright’s legacy all the more fascinating, and the authors argue persuasively that Wright’s architectural principles align with today’s green values. This book explores how light, space and nature all impacted his work and will provide plenty of inspiration for those working today.

2) Vitamin Green by Joshua Bolchover

In Vitamin Green, Bolchover provides contemporary readers with an updated exploration of how sustainability is being incorporated into design. “Concerns about sustainability are changing design at every level, and Bolchover has collected well-illustrated examples from every industry, demonstrating how sustainability is impacting the design of everything from skyscrapers to spectacles,” says Gladys Jones, an editor at Essayroo. “Seeing how designers are taking sustainability on board in creative ways will motivate your own spirit of innovation on the next project.”

3) Biomimicry in Architecture by Michael Pawlyn

During 3 billion years of natural history, it’s safe to say that nature has created some pretty spectacular designs. Architects have long been imitating nature’s spirit in their constructions – such as incorporating the golden ratio into every aspect of design – and as green architecture grows, more of us than ever before are looking to nature for inspiration. In Biomimicry, Pawlyn looks beyond the aesthetics of nature to question how nature can inspire us to design buildings with sustainability in mind, reducing energy consumption and utilizing innovative materials.

4)  Micro Green: Tiny Houses in Nature by Mimi Zeiger

One of the most radical ways in which we can bring sustainability into our lives is by rejecting the notion of consumption and growth which are so tied up with ways of living which damage the natural world. In Micro Green, we are offered an alternative to ever larger, sprawling homes. By minimizing the space, we require we take the first steps towards a conceptual shift which restructures our relationship with the world – the tiny homes from all over the world presented in this book serve as an example of how architects have the power to change how we exist in the world.

5) The New Net Zero by Bill Maclay

As an innovative architect working to sustainable principles, Maclay is an oracle of wisdom on how to design sustainable homes. In The New Net Zero, he presents a vision for homes that are not only energy efficient but actually carbon neutral and produce as much energy as they consume. This is a model with the scope to radically affect our climate trajectory, and Maclay reveals it as a realistic vision of design. In covering both construction and renovation, and providing a range of case-studies, Maclay shows us the road to a carbon neutral future.

6) The Eco-House Book by Terrance Conran

Architects applying sustainable methods to new construction is an important step but what about the tens of millions of homes already built under unsustainable models? Thankfully, Conran’s accessible and insightful book provides evidence that sustainable renovation has as much scope for impacting the environment as sustainable design and construction, if not more.

“From minor tweaks to significant renovations, there are tips in this book that can apply to every project no matter how big or small,” says Douglas Clark, a sustainability writer at State Of Writing. “Architects interested in green models of design will learn something on every page.”

These Books Are Great Resources for Sustainable Architects

These books offer so much inspiration for sustainable design and green architecture, packed with eco-friendly tips and beautiful photography of carbon neutral projects. Impress your clients with sustainable ideas that demonstrate your finger is on the political pulse.

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