Zonda - Resource Library

This On Demand CEU is a recorded presentation from a previously live webinar event. Are you an architect seeking to enhance your client and project management abilities while securing long-term success for your firm?

The primary objective for every firm is to generate value. This value stems from the loyalty and trust you cultivate with your clients. From initial interactions with potential clients to delivering exceptional service through effective project management, your responsibilities extend far beyond the completion of a project.

This webinar reviews each step of the ideal project process and includes 10 strategies your firm can implement to achieve financial stability and increase profit margins, which will not only alleviate financial stress but enable your firm to recruit top talent, attract the right clients, and grow.

This On Demand CEU is a recorded presentation from a previously live webinar event. Culled from experiences working with more than 3,000 AE firms over 25 years, this session will examine the seven common denominators of every successful firm. Success comes in many flavors. For some, it’s money; for others, it is peer recognition, awards, or fame; for most of us, it’s having access to challenging or exciting projects.

Regardless of how you measure success, by adopting these Seven Pillars you will create the framework from which you and every member of your firm can achieve their professional goals.

Wood, in its natural state, is a highly sustainable material. But there are many factors that can either diminish or improve its sustainability, including how and where it’s harvested, how end products are treated and finished, and the lifecycle of the material.

This course will explore the sustainability of wood wall and ceiling systems, and considerations for specifying wood products that are sustainably sourced. We will cover different manufacturing and treatment processes, and environmental factors affecting wood, its lifecycle, reuse, and salvageability. We will also discuss applications for wood ceilings and walls, certifications available for projects specifying these materials, and insight into the world of sustainable wood systems.

Achieving carbon neutrality and protecting the world's water supply are vital to the AEC industry because of the significant impact buildings have on the environment and occupant health. The structures that we live, work, and commune in use a vast amount of the energy and water consumed on the planet for building operations and maintenance.

Over the past two decades more and more organizations, from private companies to federal governments, have taken steps to minimize their impact on the environment and, more recently, on society's wellbeing as a whole. This has been accomplished through sustainable building design, social accountability, and ethical economic practices. This course will discuss a Net Positive approach to design and business operations.

Presented by Fernando Pages, this presentation serves as a resource and primer for product specification and complements the book Architectural Design for Traditional Neighborhoods published by the Vinyl Siding Institute (VSI) in 2019.

This course aims to provide design professionals full control of the design’s aesthetic outcome with polymeric sidings, trim, and ornamentation, respecting the architectural style, target market, and project budget. These specifications will refer to traditional architectural features in the language of art.

This effort aims to put the power of good design details and recommended installation practices within the architectural designer’s easy reach.

This On Demand CEU is a recorded presentation from a previously live webinar event. Being a brilliant architect rarely translates into having a successful business. With all the years of education and training to make us experts in our profession, the skills needed to have a successful business were conveniently overlooked. This webinar will fill the void and provide you with the business management highlights that every firm needs to apply to achieve their full potential.

In this session, we will learn the fundamentals of all successful AE firms and provide the basis for making well-grounded business decisions. We will learn how firms can transition from being professionals providing services, to highly tuned businesses that can identify the needs of the marketplace and create services and products that are appropriately priced and yield consistent and greater profits.

Rather than seeking out new projects that merely build upon your current skills, you will start from a business-thinking mindset, where processes that are critical to building a thriving firm are examined and constituted in your firm. We will explore the importance of data within an architect firm and demonstrate how careful collection and interpretation can lead your firm into more exciting and profitable territory.

Architectural stone veneer has long been used to elevate the design of building facades, but more recently, it’s found its way indoors and is becoming a mainstay of interior design. “There’s been a real upswing in the number of projects on both residential and commercial when it comes to accentuating a space or an environment with stone,” says Sarah Lograsso, director of marketing for Eldorado Stone.

Hear about what’s behind this trend and the exciting options stone veneer can open up for architects and designers.

This On Demand CEU is a recorded presentation from a previously live webinar event. The built environment is responsible for an estimated 40% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions as well as a host of other global ecological and social impacts. By 2050, there will be 2.3 billion new inhabitants of global cities. Demand for new buildings and infrastructure will grow accordingly, placing an increasingly heavy burden on critical resources and vulnerable ecosystems. Resource deprivation will further disenfranchise an ever-larger segment of human populations.

This course utilizes insight from an internationally recognized architect, Alan Organschi, who calls for the re-formation of the Anthropocene and the reshaping of our burgeoning cities—the way we build them, organize them, distribute their services, and inhabit them.

This On Demand CEU is a recorded presentation from a previously live webinar event. This guest lecture presented by Susan Jones, FAIA, provides insight into an ecological journey of a decade-long search for sustainable design strategies. The course focuses on how mass timber can be used as a lower-carbon approach to building design while also maintaining the safety and well-being of the occupants.

The course depicts several case studies that demonstrate the architect’s lessons learned which enabled more sustainable building design opportunities in the future. The course discusses the process of changing regulations for the use of mass timber as a material of choice in a variety of buildings, particularly Type 4c, Type 4b, and Type 4a buildings, where it was not allowed previously in the United States.

Design and construction industries are vulnerable to natural disasters and manmade hazards that can result in everything from reducing the lifespan of infrastructure to loss of life and property. Professionals in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) can mitigate these vulnerabilities by having a fuller understanding of resilience as well as the building materials and construction and operational techniques that lead to stronger, more durable buildings.

This course will examine resilience in the built environment and provide several strategies to achieve resilience at the building scale for stakeholders. It will then assess continuous insulation, particularly mineral wool, as it relates to resilient design before reviewing ASTM resilience testing standards. Finally, this course will help learners evaluate resilience in current code and beyond as well as how to enhance structural systems through the use of mineral wool insulation.