Designing Low-Carbon Buildings

Designing Low-Carbon Buildings

By focusing on embodied carbon today, we can reshape the environmental legacy of the built environment for decades to come. Using real-world case studies, attendees will learn how early design interventions lead to low-carbon material choices and how to prepare and generate a Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment (WBLCA), including key inputs, available tools, and best practices for interpreting results. 

Presented by: 
Kara Strong, AIA, LEED BD+C
Senior Associate, Consulting Services
Sustainable Design Consulting, LLC

Brendan Collier, EIT, LEED AP BD+C, SITES AP 
Senior Consultant
Construction Administration
Sustainable Design Consulting, LLC

Drawing from her years in architectural practice, Kara Strong leads teams in the development of green educational facilities, institutional office buildings, and residential developments. She has helped project teams as widespread as the National Air and Space Museum, the American Society of Hematology, the Brendan Iribe Center at the University of Maryland, and DC Safe achieve their green building goals. Kara also leads trainings and workshops on a wide variety of green building topics, including several for DC’s Workforce Development Program, or Train Green.

Brendan Collier is a sustainability consultant with a background in green building, civil engineering, and construction. He supports architecture and construction teams in meeting sustainability goals, with a focus on reducing embodied carbon through whole building life cycle assessments (LCAs) and material selection. His work has contributed to low-carbon design improvements on higher education and federal building projects, helping teams make data-driven decisions to reduce their initial carbon footprint.