|
Home::Georgia
Tech's SFI Program::Program History
The SFI Program was initiated
in 1997 with a Faculty Research Leader Grant from the Georgia Tech
Foundation. This grant was used to fund program development activities
under the direction of Dr. Annie Pearce. Additional internal funding
for program development included curriculum development grants from
GT Continuing Education, shared appointments with GT College of Architecture
and School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and collaboration
with GTRI colleagues on projects sponsored by the US EPA, GA food
processing industry, and the Army Environmental Policy Institute.
Key program development activities included:
-
Developing a set of
core sustainable facility information resources,
including physical resources such as books, videos, and software
-
Developing an assessment
method and prioritization technique for allocating resources to
improve sustainability
-
Developing a seven
part continuing education certificate series on Sustainable
Facilities & Infrastructure
-
Developing graduate
and undergraduate curricula in green building, sustainable
problem solving, and environmentally conscious design and construction
-
Building relationships
with partners and sponsors by
providing introductory training, participating in sponsor activities,
and establishing an ongoing dialogue about research and outreach
needs in sustainable facilities & infrastructure
-
Participating in national
and international workshops, conferences,
expositions, and training events to promote SFI capabilities
and services
To date, our focus has
been on two specific sectors of the total BES market: single-family
housing, and military general purpose facilities (i.e., not including
industrial or heavy facilities). We have also provided technical assistance
to selected commercial, institutional, and multi-family housing projects.
Within our sector scope, we have provided both formal and informal
training to architects, engineers, planners, construction managers,
contracting officers, owners, and representatives of government who
support the application of sustainability.
In seeking to expand our
program focus, we have begun to develop support tools and processes
for implementing built environment sustainability. Key pursuits in
this area include:
-
Development of new
ways for organization, transfer, and retrieval of contextually
appropriate information for the solution of specific problems
-
Development of methods
for assessment, evaluation, and diagnosis of built facilities
with respect to their sustainability, and for structuring those
opportunities in a way that facilitates finding effective BES
solutions
-
Development of models,
inventories, and support tools for facilitation of organizational
change, and use of captured data streams from our other activities
to develop new methods for facilitating change toward sustainability
-
Development of new
models and tools for sustainability knowledge transfer in the
context of curriculum modification and lifelong learning
|
