TCM 5330 · GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY
Dr. Tommy Tafazzoli
Sustainable construction connects decisions about sites, buildings, and infrastructure with the resources they use and the people they serve. These lectures examine design choices, building performance, and the role of communities throughout a project’s life.
EXPLORE THE LECTURES
Start with the language and frameworks of sustainable design, examine site and building strategies, then extend the discussion to technology, communities, and infrastructure. Select a week to read its materials below.
Introduces sustainable design through environmental responsibility, social equity, and economic performance. Connects the triple bottom line with impact assessment, life-cycle thinking, resource conservation, and examples of sustainable buildings.
Builds a shared vocabulary for discussing sustainable projects. Explores climate-responsive and resilient design, carbon footprints, circular material use, social equity, and the role of communities and building users.
Compares green building certification systems and examines how project performance is assessed. Introduces LEED scorecards and prerequisites, while distinguishing building certification from individual professional credentials.
Examines rating systems for different project types, from building design and operations to homes and communities. Guides students through scorecards, credit intent, requirements, and documentation.
Connects project location and land development with transportation demand, habitat, and stormwater. Reviews site-selection and management strategies, including redevelopment, reduced hardscape, heat-island mitigation, and rainwater harvesting.
Compares low- and high-performing buildings and organizes water use into indoor, outdoor, and process demands. Examines efficient fixtures, irrigation, metering, rainwater harvesting, and nonpotable water reuse.
Follows building energy use from supply and demand to efficiency and ongoing performance. Examines passive design, building envelopes, mechanical systems, renewable energy, monitoring, maintenance, and commissioning.
Examines material selection through environmental impacts, health considerations, and life-cycle thinking. Connects purchasing decisions with reuse, recycled content, waste prevention, and construction waste management.
Connects indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting, and acoustics with occupant experience. Reviews ventilation, low-emitting materials, construction-phase air protection, occupant controls, and performance verification.
Introduces innovation and exemplary performance in the LEED framework, then examines materials and systems used in green buildings. Discusses implementation challenges alongside examples of vegetated roofs, passive solar design, and high-performance building systems.
Extends sustainability from individual buildings to neighborhoods and cities. Uses urban design principles and the Dockside Green case to connect green infrastructure, mobility, social equity, biodiversity, and water-sensitive design.
Surveys technologies that support resource efficiency across design, construction, and operation. Examples include BIM, 3D printing, modular construction, solar integration, water recovery, smart controls, and climate-responsive systems.
Examines how communities, project stakeholders, and building users influence sustainability. Reviews participatory design, education, incentives, feedback, and ways to evaluate engagement, alongside examples of emerging building technologies.
Introduces the stages of life cycle assessment and their use in material and construction decisions. Extends the discussion to drainage, water reuse, pavements, bridges, tunnels, renewable energy, and resilient infrastructure planning.
READ & REVISIT
LECTURE MATERIALS · WEEK 1
Introduces sustainable design through environmental responsibility, social equity, and economic performance. Connects the triple bottom line with impact assessment, life-cycle thinking, resource conservation, and examples of sustainable buildings.
PDF · 33 pages · 1.4 MB
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TEACHING DESIGN
Question-led lectures connect sustainability concepts to building decisions. Definitions, comparisons, visual examples, and linked videos provide several ways to revisit each topic.
The opening weeks establish design terminology before introducing certification. Weeks 3 and 4 ask students to examine LEED scorecards and distinguish prerequisites, credits, and project-specific rating systems.
Week 6 contrasts low- and high-performing approaches to water use. Later lectures examine material choices, indoor environmental quality, and the benefits and implementation challenges of green building systems.
Project examples, including Dockside Green in Week 11, connect the discussion to neighborhood design. Weeks 13 and 14 bring stakeholder participation, user behavior, and life-cycle assessment into the broader construction context.
Dr. Tommy Tafazzoli developed these lecture materials for TCM 5330, Green Building & Sustainable Construction. His original instructional organization, explanations, and teaching prompts appear alongside third-party standards, certification resources, photographs, diagrams, and videos. Those external materials remain attributable to their original creators.
The original PDFs, acknowledgments, and links are preserved. The photograph and diagram displayed on this page are excerpts from the lectures; the supplied slides do not identify their original creators. Certification terminology is presented in the context of the supplied teaching materials.