All Teaching Resources

Carbon-Neutral Design Project

By SBSE Admin

The Carbon Neutral Design Project is a joint effort between members of SBSE, the AIA, and a private donor to provide practitioners, faculty, and students with the means to meet the 2030 Challenge.

The Carbon Neutral Design Project is a joint research effort between members of the Society of Building Science Educators (www.sbse.org), the American Institute of Architects (www.aia.org), and a private donor, the purpose of which is to provide practitioners, faculty, and students with the means to meet the 2030 Challenge  (www.architecture2030.org), that is, to be able to design and construct buildings to a state of carbon neutrality by th

Climate Consultant

By milne

Climate Consultant is a simple to use, graphic-based computer program that helps architects, builders, contractor, homeowners, and students understand their local climate.

Climate Consultant uses annual 8760 hour EPW format climate data that is made available at no cost by the Department of Energy for thousands of weather stations around the world. Climate Consultant translates this raw climate data into dozens of meaningful graphic displays.

HEED: Home Energy Efficient Design

By milne

HEED is a user-friendly energy design tool shows how much money you can save by making changes to your home.

This new easy-to-use Design Tool starts by automatically creating a reference house that meets California’s Energy Code. Then it creates a second home that is about 30% more Energy Efficient. You can design and compare up to nine different homes. HEED shows you graphics of how much energy and money and carbon you can save by trying various new Design options or by making Remodeling changes to your home. You can easily draw in the floor plan of your house, then click and drag windows to their best location on each wall.

OPAQUE 3

By milne

A U-value, Time Lag, and Decrement Factor calculator opaque wall or roof surfaces.

OPAQUE calculates the U-value, Time Lag, and Decrement Factor for wall or roof opaque surfaces composed of a single or multiple layers. These can be used to calculate the Heat Gain or Loss through the surface. Composite surfaces are constructed by the user from a library of materials and displayed in two or three dimensions. In addition, 2-D plots of Outdoor and Sol-Air Temperatures, Radiation variables, and Heat Gain/Loss through the envelope can be displayed.

Pilkington Sun Angle Calculator

By SBSE Admin

The Sun Angle Calculator is a handy tool that provides a relatively simple method of determining solar geometry variables for architectural design, such as designing shading devices or locating the position of the sun relative to a particular latitude and time.

Pilkington Glass has kindly granted permission to SBSE to reproduce and distribute the Pilkington Sun Angle Calculator. This is a fantastic graphical design and analysis tool beloved by thousands of architects and engineers. Information on ordering copies of the Sun Angle Calculator and accessing the online manual "Designing with the Pilkington Sun Angle Calculator" will be found on the

Sun Angle Calculator Page

Regeneration-Based Checklist for Design and Construction

By SBSE Admin

The SBSE version of the Malcolm Wells Wilderness-Based Checklist for Design and Construction is available in multiple languages. Environmentally sensitive construction is a global issue, perhaps an existential issue.

A Regeneration-Based Checklist for Design and Construction

If you would like to volunteer to translate the checklist into another language, download the original Excel version. Please send the translated version to Bruce Haglund for posting. Please have at least one other person check your translation to ensure accuracy.

SBEED: Small Building Energy Efficient Design

By milne

SBEED is a user-friendly energy design tool shows how much money you can save by making changes for a small (commercial) building .

This new easy-to-use Design Tool starts by automatically creating a reference small non-residential building that meets California’s Energy Code. Then it automatically creates a second building that is usually about 20% more Energy Efficient. You can then copy either one and revise its design and compare it with prior versions of up to nine different designs. SBEED shows you graphics of how much energy and money and carbon you can save by trying various new Design options or by making Remodeling changes or adding Additions to your existing building.

WUFI Passive - notes on every input for building a PHIUS+ 2015 or PHIUS+ 2018 energy model

By j.bean

An 11-page Word doc meant to help a novice to intermediate user identify and describe every input field and option in the WUFI Passive energy modeling software.

This is meant as an item-by-item inventory of every input required in WUFI Passive. I've added notes to help a new user understand the information that WUFI Passive and PHIUS require. This is very much a beta-quality resource -- there are probably a few entries that could use further clarification, if not outright correction, so please let me know how to improve it.

People Skills (Team Building)

By reichard

A set of lecture slides to introduce roles and behavior styles to form more effective teams.

I've learned over the years that I get better results from teams, if they know more about team building. I thus spend some time at the beginning of this course when forming teams explaining about effective team building. I follow the concept by the Effectiveness Institute, but there are numerous other systems equally effective.

Team Collaboration Agreement

By akwok

Frequently, we ask students to collaborate, but we do not give them the skills to do so. I use this Word document for student teams to develop good habits and patterns of collaborations such as: 1) scheduling, 2) how to communicate, 3) where to hold/work on files, 4) standard of work (how to handle work that isn't done as well as some members would like, 5) people skills, etc. etc. The students turn this document in and we look at this during grading period.

Whole Systems Design Video

By Holly Samuelson

Link to a 6-minute video from "Autodesk Academy" about "Whole Systems Thinking" or "Whole Systems Design". They go through the example of trying to design a more sustainable clothes dryer and what a designer should consider.

Link to a 6-minute video from "Autodesk Academy" about "Whole Systems Thinking" or "Whole Systems Design".  They go through the example of trying to design a more sustainable clothes dryer and what a designer should consider. Spoiler Alert:  if you think about the whole system, you find it's more important to design a good spin cycle on the washing machine.

Building Physics - Test II

By reichard

A test set with questions ranging from heating loads, heating systems, water systems, to acoustic performance

This is the second test of three in this course. In this test we have questions on heating loads, heating systems, water systems, and acoustic performance.

Energy Simulation Game

By Holly Samuelson

This is a game to allow students to experiment with energy saving design strategies in buildings. Faced with a $ spending limit, students make choices to upgrade a building and compete to achieve the lowest EUI. This version uses DesignBuilder, and it helps if you have students or Teaching Assistants who can run the software.

This is a game to allow students to experiment with energy saving design strategies in buildings.  The included game files can be run in DesignBuilder/EnergyPlus.  Also included are a Game Brief (rules for participants), Order Form, and Instructions for Modelers.  If the participants know DesignBuilder they can run the simulations themselves.  If not, they can turn in Order Forms to a small group of teaching assistants who can run the simulations for them.

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