Built Environment Education©
Created by architecture faculty and practitioners, BEEnow is a voluntary certification program that inspires architecture schools to emphasize the teaching of sustainability, preparing graduates to substantially contribute to low-carbon building design.
​Contact Us: 765.285.7104
Introduction
Vision
The BEEnow vision of the future is one where the widespread application of the 2030 Challenge and 2050 Imperative have transformed the built environment worldwide - leading to dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in both the construction and operation of our buildings and communities. This success was made possible because architects and related building professionals received the education necessary to create such a transformed built environment.
Architecture schools have altered their priorities so that all students graduate with the motivation and essential design skills required to create low energy- and low-water consuming buildings. These socially-responsible architecture schools emphasize designs that require the least energy and water, that consume the least amount of essential resources, and that conserve embodied energy by design and by reusing materials. Sustainable buildings and communities are now achieved through great design and innovation rather than 'add-ons' and the efforts of experts to fix poor designs.
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Philosophy
BEEnow is promoting very low-energy and low-carbon design for buildings and the built environment, but with the caveat that everything we do is about design, is about creativity, and is about the everlasting existential relevance that architecture holds in civilization.
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Our mission must at all times live and breathe architecture in the timeless sense: buildings that fill our dreams, form our places, and work better than ever before. We must reach beyond teams of engineers and consultants trying to correct what short sighted design has done wrong.
Architecture must once again stand for wondrous built environments that work through their design and not the shoring-up and gimmickry of technologists trying to reduce energy, water, and material waste.
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Mission
The primary goal of BEEnow is to greatly and quickly increase the number of architecture students who have the motivation, knowledge, and skills to contribute substantially to the design of sustainable low-energy buildings. This cadre of change agents will thereby help the design professionals to: (1) meet the goals of Architecture 2030 to make new buildings and major renovations carbon-neutral by 2030 and (2) to meet the Internation Union of Architects (UIA) 2050 Imperative goals to make all buildings and the built environment carbon-neutral by 2050.
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"2030’s mission is to rapidly transform the built environment from the major contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a central part of the solution to the climate and energy crises." - Ed Mazria
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