NC Sustainable Building Design Competition
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Registrants: Please put ATTN: Dr. Pam Carpenter when sending in your registration so that it is placed in the correct box.
North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition - 2010
It is now time for students and professors to begin working on designing a home which utilizes sustainable technologies. The USGBC will be working this year with The Salvation Army in gathering student and young professionally designs for homes to be built in New Orleans, LA. The neighborhood where the homes are to be built is the Broadmoore Neighborhood. Designed homes are required to be LEED for Home certified at the Platinum Level and to be between 720 and 880 square feed of living space. The primary demographic of the Broadmoore Neighborhood are elderly individuals and couples so homes should meet needs that may come across with such a population.
Detailed Information can be found at USGBC Design Competition or also at the NCSBDC Site
The N.C. Sustainable Building Design Competition [NCSBDC] began in 2000 as a way to engage students in universities, colleges and community colleges to learn and apply the lessons of sustainable design and construction. Each year statewide winners see their design built as part of the grand prize. The program is currently administered by Advanced Energy and began as a collaboration with the Triangle Emerging Green Builder Natural Talent Design Competition in 2006.
Growing crises in water and air quality call for vast changes in building design, materials and methods of construction. It is imperative that the retrofit of existing buildings and design of new buildings embody the innovation needed to forge an ecologically sustainable future — that is a future which is healthy and viable for the planet and all its inhabitants. The North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition [NCSBDC] emerged to address the growing concerns over ecological sustainability and the role of the design building industries for a healthy, viable future. The NCSBDC’s goals lead toward this future by:
- Developing student competency in sustainable building design
- Fostering meaningful exchange between industry and academia
- Ushering innovation into the design and building industry relative to sustainability
It is our desire that all new and remodeling construction projects employ sustainable guidelines. It is hoped that these practices will spur the development of guideline specifications for four zones in North Carolina (coastal, coastal plain, piedmont, mountain), and, this model (based on geographical zones) will spread throughout the United States and the world.
Sustainable building design strives to integrate old and new technologies with ecological and cultural values. The design/build industry is discovering the importance of making a minimal negative environmental impact. Sustainable technologies are also emerging that address energy and water use, indoor air quality, building durability, renewable energy and more. By intertwining sustainable concepts in education and existing design/build businesses, communities will use a “whole systems” approach to develop North Carolina’s sustainable industry.
The North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition [NCSBDC] believes that cooperation among all interest groups and academic disciplines is a prerequisite to innovation leading to a sustainable future. Teams in the past years have discovered an advantage of involving students outside the design and construction fields. The interdisciplinary approach tends to give full consideration of all effects of construction rather than focusing on isolated interests. While providing a demonstration and collaborative project, the competition helps students enter the workforce with more experience and expertise in sustainable design.
The NCSBDC was established in 2000 by L. Phillip Mayrand Jr., in honor of his deceased father, L.P. Mayrand Sr. In NCSBDC’S first year, Mayrand partnered with Appalachian State University to encourage its students to compete. To date, new schools enter the competition each year with over 1,420 students participating to date.
Students participating in the competition are given the opportunity to design a residential structure that is later constructed. The students, in collaboration with industry professionals, create a home for a family that is also used as a model sustainable building. Each, year students are given the design challenge for a specific family profile in a specific region of North Carolina.
Student involvement begins with a Spring kick-off informational event at each school to learn about the design challenge. This includes a description of the client [a family profile], the lot [chosen earlier in the year] and the design elements and requirements. Following the kick-off event, students spend the remainder of the semester working with their professor/mentor designing the home.
Students must receive course credit for participating, but it is not required that they be in an academic field typically associated with construction or design. Interdisciplinary and cross-school teams are strongly encouraged and professors or industry professionals help guide student teams through the academic semester.
The student design must incorporate features and technologies addressing areas such as:
- Energy efficiency
- Renewable energy
- Building science
- Indoor environmental quality
- Water efficiency
- Material selection
- Hazard mitigation
- Community and historic preservation
- Universal design
- Affordability
Each school hosts a local competition to determine which teams advance to the state competition. Cash prizes are awarded to winning teams. Following the annual state competition, the winning student team, mentors/professors, builders, professional architects, building scientists and housing experts gather for a post-competition charrette to bring the winning design into working plans.
In addition to the chance to see their design constructed, statewide winners will represent the Triangle Emerging Green Builders in the Emerging Green Builder Natural Talent Design Competition during the Greenbuild conference. The team will have the opportunity to gain national exposure and compete for additional prizes.
North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition - 2009
Students from community colleges and universities across the state had the opportunity to compete in the 9th annual North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition at Earth Day in Downtown Raleigh on April 18th. This year’s competition was facilitated and managed by Advanced Energy and the North Carolina Solar Center in the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University with sponsors that include Progress Energy, Duke Energy, Advanced Energy, The NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Community Alternatives for Supportive Abodes (CASA), and the United States Green Building (USGB). The competition was open to the public and displayed skills and efforts of students designing a nine apartment residential complex.
The complex was designed with the idea of integrating sustainable living technologies and energy efficiency into the building. Specified requirements were in place in order to insure top quality designs as well as for a challenging event. Teams were provided a budget in addition to requirements such as in SystemVision and LEED version 2.2. Twenty-one teams from eight schools competed in the local competition held in their local communities and nine of those teams moved forward to the state competition at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. During the competition, judges and other volunteers examined every detail of the designs in order to establish the winning group. Team Phoenix from Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington won first place in the competition.
The first place design will be reviewed and potentially built by CASA for individuals living with disabilities. In addition to that, Team Phoenix will have the opportunity to participate in the national competition USGB Greenbuild Expo held in Phoenix, Arizona. USGB will provide Team Phoenix the chance to share their designs with national sustainable technology industry leaders from across the country. Second place was awarded to Team KISS from Appalachian with third going to another Cape Fear Community College group, team Full Circle Design.
During the competition there were also two honorable mentions which included teams enHabit and 409, both from Forsyth Technical Community College. As a result of students' sustainable living designs, people from all throughout Raleigh and surrounding areas had the chance to examine types of sustainable designs that employ the concepts of energy efficiency and green and sustainable building.
The following resource links are a starting point for you to begin your research. This list is not meant to be an exhaustive reference list.
- American Lung Association Health House
- Earthcraft House [Southface]
- Energy Star [U.S. EPA]
- Environments for Living [Masco]
- Green Building Initiative [Home Builders Association]
- Green Communities [Enterprise]
- LEED [USGBC]
- N.C. Healthy Built Homes [N.C. Solar Center]
- SystemVision [Advanced Energy]
| Building Science |
| Hazard Mitigation |
| Aging |
| Disabilities |
| Education |
| Floor Plans and Home Design |
| Government |
| Landscape Design |
| Locating Accessible Housing | National Accessible Apartment Clearinghouse |
| Product Design |
| Products | Visualizer Design Product |
| UD and Home Modification |
| Champion |
| Partners |
| Friends |
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Dr. Pam Page Carpenter, director, 919 515-5689
pam_carpenter@ncsu.edu
Maria Mauceri, technical advisor, 919 857-9053
mmauceri@advancedenergy.org
Brandon S. Anderson, national competition coordinator
