Continuing Education Programs

Interior Doorways: Life Extension Through Design

Learning Objectives:

• Designer and Owner needs for commercial interior doorways.
• The pitfalls of traditional doorways and doorway protection.
• Industry guidelines and standards for performance.
• Doorway design solutions to increase durability.
• Specification tips to ensure longevity and quality.

Life Extension for Interior Surfaces

Learning objectives:

• Describe the kind of damage that occurs to building interiors, including the types of buildings in which wall damage is mostly likely to occur.
• Discuss wall protection options that help to ensure safety for building occupants and longevity of the building's interior.
• Define the different wall protection applications, including how to seamlessly incorporate them into a space to maintain aesthetics.
• Summarize how wall protection products contribute to satisfying LEED® V4 credits, as well as other green building program requirements.

The Evolution of Interior Wall Protection: From Functional to Inspirational Healthcare Spaces

Learning objectives:

• Understand wall protection and how it has evolved into a dual-purpose product that not only protects the building long term, but also aesthetically enhances the healthcare space.
• Discuss how reduced Medicare reimbursement for high HAIs and low HCAHPS scores have affected healthcare design and product selection.
• Examine trends in specialized healthcare and how the continued desire to improve patient safety and healing is driving product innovations in wall protection accessories.
• Explore new ways to use wall protection to create more inviting spaces which can increase patient well-being and minimize health and safety issues.

Interior Solutions: Mastering the Physical Movement of People

Learning objectives:

• Discuss the obstacles hindering entrance and building interior performance and safety.
• Explain the systems that support interior building performance and occupant health, hygiene, and safety.
• Recognize how aesthetic design can contribute to occupant comfort.
• Specify integrated entrance and building interior systems to enhance design and support the well-being of the occupants.

Combating HAIs in the Healthcare Built Environment Through Design & Product Selection

This course will educate about healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and the impact they have on the built environment. It will address the contributing factors and address the social and financial impact associated with these infections. The course will also offer solutions on how to design and select products to reduce HAI incidences in healthcare spaces, which ultimately improves patient and employee safety and wellness.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand what healthcare-associated infections are and how they impact the healthcare-built environment and affect the safety and welfare of patients.
• Identify the contributing factors to HAIs and the financial impact of these infections, which drives decisions for designing spaces to help mitigate bacteria and reduce HAIs.
• Understand HCAHPS scores and how they drive design decisions and product selection in healthcare facilities to improve patient wellness.
• Specify building interior systems that support cleanability, increase occupant safety and well-being, and reduce costs.

Entrance Mats & Grids: Design with the Elements in Mind

Participants will learn:

• What entrance flooring systems are and why they are needed.
• How to reduce maintenance costs and slip/fall accidents.
• How to properly design and integrate an entrance flooring system into design/building.
• Environmental considerations with focus on LEED® and Cradle to Cradle.
• How to make a great first impression.

Testing Facility Tour & Louver Seminar

Participants will learn:

• All LVR201 Content.
• About simulated testing at manufacturer’s facility.
• Tests simulated for attendees:
  - Air Pressure Drop testing
  - Point of Beginning Water Penetration test
  - Wind Driven Rain tests
  - Dade County/Florida Building Code
  - Missile Impact Testing

Mastering the Physical Movement of Air, Wind and Water Using Architectural Louvers

Participants will learn:

• How to manage wind and rain movement and to mitigate water entrainment using louvers.
• How to choose the appropriate louver for specific regions/climates and understand the testing requirements and certification processes.
• To build science vocabulary pertaining to louver systems that control the air in the building.
• To engage manufacturers early to ensure standards are met and desired aesthetics are achieved using louvers in creative ways.

Next-Gen Facade Design

Participants will learn:

• To discuss design trends driving commercial façade innovation and the future of creative façades.
• To describe considerations for ensuring that the process of creating commercial façades leads to a design outcome that is efficient, effective and safe for occupants.
• To examine real-life project case studies to understand façade challenges and the solutions that were created to not only provide protection from elements but also to elevate building design.
• To explain how to balance form and function in façade design to ensure that decorative elements are also structurally sound.

Exterior Sunshades - Mastering the Physical Movement of Sun and Light

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how to optimize the sun as a natural resource to decrease light and HVAC system demands and in turn improve building efficiency.
• Discuss external sunshade systems and their benefits including energy efficiencies and the positive impacts on the health, safety and welfare of building occupants.
• Understand how proper sun management contributes to LEED and IECC 2021 Zero Code™ standards to provide healthier and more productive spaces.
• Incorporate sunshades as both a functional system and aesthetically-innovative design element.
• Recognize construction methods and proper engineering for their design and selection of exterior product solutions.

Expansion Joint Solutions: Mastering the Physical Movement of the Building

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the multiple types of building movement and the risks they pose to the building, occupants and surrounding environments.
• Understand how architects, structural engineers and installers can work together to plan for building movement to protect inhabitants.
• Describe how the expansion joint cover system contributes to building resiliency and occupant safety.
• Communicate the role of expansion joint covers in protecting buildings from damage such as water and fire infiltration.
• Incorporate expansion joint cover systems for performance while minimizing aesthetic disruptions.

Improving The Human Experience in Behavioral Health Settings: How to Create Comfortable, Safe, and Inviting Spaces Through Smart Design

In this presentation, we will examine the current state of behavioral health in America and provide an overview of behavioral health facility types, therapy methods, patient safety considerations and guidelines for facility design. This course will showcase principles to guide design, including how to create safe social spaces, leverage biophilic design principles, and phenomenology. It will tap into color theory, textures and lighting to enhance healing. Additionally, this course features real-life examples of implementing these principles to assist in the healing process, preserve patient dignity and balance the safety of patients and staff.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize the heightened need for thoughtful design in behavioral health spaces.
• Investigate elements of human-centered design and how to create beautiful, safe and engaging spaces that preserve patient dignity.
• Understand design principles that contribute to a positive patient experience and support creating safe social spaces with biophilic design principles and tap into phenomenology.
• Learn how to balance design with safety through careful product and material selection.

Designing for the Learning Environment

This course will explore how design elements and materials can improve the overall learning experience for students and staff. Designing for higher education settings traditionally included classic elements that reflect a more stoic and conventional atmosphere; however, this approach does not reflect a more contemporary need for students to feel engaged in the learning environment. This presentation will discuss the architect’s ability to improve exterior elements like louvers, sunshades, and screens, to interior materials like artistic wall protection, doors, and privacy curtains.

Learning Objectives

• Discuss the importance that design can play in the learning experience of students and staff in higher education.
• Describe features on the building’s exterior that can create an inviting, safe, and attractive gateway for the educational experience.
• Explain how materials and design features, like privacy curtains and fire rated doors, on the interior positively impacts the health, safety and wellness of students, staff, and visitors to higher education locations.
• Recognize the elements of good design and its positive impact on student and faculty retention, first impressions for visitors, and other key benefits specific to the higher education institution.

Looping in Sustainability

This course will introduce the concepts and tools that will help consider the total impact of material selections. These include the five "impact areas" the AIA defines in the organization's Materials Pledge. Circularity - the idea of circularity - a methodology to reduce overconsumption and conserve natural resources - is a key component of these impact areas and will be examined in detail. 

Learning Objectives

• Define circularity in the context of building products and materials and explain why it’s important to consider product impacts at all life cycle phases, from extraction to end of life.
• Enumerate the five “impact areas” defined in the AIA Materials Pledge and why they should be considered for every product choice.
• Explain how design practitioners can use transparency documents and eco-certifications like EPDs, and Cradle to Cradle, to select products and materials that address multiple aspects of sustainability.
• Describe the Common Materials Framework and how it will streamline materials vetting for practitioners.
• Explain how design practitioners can reduce embodied and occupied carbon levels through design and material specification.

Why Sustainability and Material Health Matters to You

A concise overview of the foundations of sustainability and material health; giving contextual solutions and mitigations strategies essential to good design. Discuss origins and scope of contemporary sustainability in order to place its mitigation of environmental and human health issues into business/world view.

Learning Objectives

• Describe contextual sustainability in order to understand and integrate its beneficial impacts into the design.
• Overlay and relate design and materials selection to human health and environmental impacts.
• Engage others in discussions supportive of selecting healthy and sustainable materials.

Navigating The Material Health Landscape for Designing Healthy Buildings

This session will provide an overview of the foundations of sustainability and material health for the purpose of identifying contextual solutions and strategies essential for designing healthy buildings. Participants will learn how certifications and declarations can help them design healthy buildings. It shouldn’t be a battle for the best label, but rather the best products for your building.

Learning Objectives:

• Be conversant about the origins and scope of contemporary sustainability in order to place its mitigation of environmental and human health issues into a business/world view.
• Understand the design/materials connection to human health and environmental impacts.
• Meet the stakeholders' sustainable design requirements using multiple environmental and human health attributes to guide and determine the material selection and approval process.