NCARB MiniMonographs

I am sure I have already posted about these in the past, but to reiterate, if you are an NCARB record-holder, you should really take advantage of the free mini-monographs made available to you. I just read the last one that I had downloaded and took its corresponding quiz. I am not sure how often these mini's come out, but hopefully they have another one coming out soon.

The one I just read was Accommodations for Seniors, which was relatively informative. I used to work in a senior community, so this kind of design has always been interesting to me (I saved this mini for last for this reason). The most resonating points for me were the fact that the senior population is growing tremendously, so this market is going to really start to take off in the next couple of decades. Particularly since, not only are the senior populations growing in size, but growing in strength, as folks who are older today are also more active (in some cases). So basically accommodations for seniors are going to have to provide more programmatic elements than just spaces for eating, sleeping and congregating.

It's a market I definitely have in the back of my mind for now.

I should say that to get IDP credit for NCARB monographs, you have to be an AIA member. Once you take the online quiz for the monograph, NCARB will send your score to the AIA, who will then put the credits on your AIA transcript. Then you can download your AIA transcript, upload it to NCARB and get the credits in supplemental education. It's a lot of roundabout work for something that probably doesn't really enhance your IDP. I just realized that all my prior mini monographs I read were completed before I joined the AIA, so on Monday I'll see if I can just send the AIA my certificates of completion (I can only find 2 on my hard drive - blast!) and let them go from there.

Hidden Risks of Green Buildings (NCARB)

I just completed the reading and passed the quiz for this particular NCARB Mini-Monograph.  I have to say I had not thought about LEED in this way.  Of course, I don't know much about LEED other than the few instances we "applied" its score system in our academic assignments.

Obviously nothing in this world is perfect, so it is foolish to assume that following LEED guidelines will result in a flawless building.  However, I think the way the monograph states it, "combining LEED certification with the best practices," is a great summarization.  LEED is an attempt to standardize one aspect of building design.  There are numerous aspects of building design that also require consideration, with varying degrees of precedence.  Moisture penetration and mold prevention are obviously some of the big ones in this category.

I originally thought the flaws with LEED were with its own system - the fact that you can get points for specifying certain energy efficient lightbulbs, which the owner can then replace months after the building has received its LEED award.  However, I had not realized that other non-green areas could suffer if a designer or architect were to design solely with LEED guidelines.

If you haven't already downloaded a copy, I'll save you 30 seconds:

http://www.ncarb.org/Publications/Mini-Monographs/Hidden-Risk-of-Green-Buildings.aspx

This quiz was easier to me than the Ethics and Professional Rules of Conduct one.  I found that particular reading challenging in and of itself!  I don't know if it is because architects are poorly trained in the art of diction, or if it is because it is simply a difficult subject to eloquently discuss.  Whatever the case, I am finding that I have to reread certain nuggets of text to get the gist of the sentence or paragraph.