Sustainability Home

The College of Design, Construction and Planning is dedicated to demonstrating sustainable solutions in the built environment. We seek ways to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Please read further to learn more about our initiatives.

Our commitment to sustainability and the built environment focuses on understanding the interrelatedness of the social, cultural, and environmental contexts in which we build to ensure that our designs address the idea of “Sense of Place.” We believe that design must seek harmony with the environment by balancing human needs and wants with a minimal environmental impact. It is therefore essential to conserve, protect, and restore natural systems and biodiversity in all design schemes. With the assistance and guidance of our faculty and staff, our students are getting a first hand experience of what it truly means to “go green”.

About

Bachelor of Science in Sustainability and the Built Environment

Master’s Program in Sustainable Design, Singapore

Curriculum

Research and Publications

Walking the Walk

What You Can Do

A Word From Our Faculty

What is the Significance of Sustainability to the Built Environment?

“Architecture and Urbanism play a significant role in the consumption and distribution of resources in space. The design of the built environment plays a vital role in achieving equitable and sustainable consumption. Carbon emissions directly depend on how we design our cities and buildings. In order to sustain ourselves through the climate change crises, we need to design our buildings and cities with sustainable and equitable carbon footprints.” —Vandana (Van) Baweja (ARC)

“The built environment dominates humanity’s impact on nature and it is the major contributor to climate change, resources depletion, waste, over-consumption, diminished human health, and other significant problems. The best route to approaching a sustainable future is to make the built environment sustainable.” —Charles J. Kibert (BCN)

“Sustainability must be the foundation of all development and conservation planning in the future because human health and well being, and the health of our planet as a whole, is dependent on adopting sustainable practices.” —Tom Hoctor, Ph.D. (LAA)

“Sustainability is important to the built environment because it is conventional human habitation that has so seriously altered the environment and its impacts are serious and cumulative.” —Glenn Acomb (LAA)

“Sustainability is important to the planning, design, construction, and preservation of the built environment, because it helps these activities reflect multiple values and considerations. In fact, the arts and sciences of the built environment have traditionally integrated values and fostered creative expression, capabilities that can and should lead the sustainability movement as society seeks for ways to live in dynamic balance with its own diverse needs and the natural world. And given the growing impact of the built environment, humanity’s search for sustainability cannot succeed without this leadership.” —Kathryn Frank (URP)

“The only way to ensure the long term health of the natural and built environment is to ensure that development decisions are informed by the values associated with the sustainability movement. At the heart of these values is public education, a necessary first step in efforts to improve sustainability.”
— Dawn Jourdan (URP)

“Planning for sustainability in the built environment requires us to go beyond our individual disciplines to consider the variety of economic, social, and environmental impacts of our decisions in the long-term. A decision to build a green residential development in an isolated location may pass some of test of sustainability through its reduction in stormwater runoff, energy-efficiency, and ecological sustainability in the building but it may fail to be sustainable from a transportation perspective. The sustainability challenge in the built environment disciplines is to become multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary in our teaching and learning.” —Ruth Steiner (URP)