Sustainability In Action Fall 2010

Green Buildings and Innovation

Final Paper Guidelines

Overview
The final assignment is your opportunity to formally gather and present the knowledge you’ve
learned about the issues you’ve been studying for the semester in your recitation sections, and,
where related, in lecture. The final deliverable is a 15-20 page paper defining the problem the
recitation project tries to solve, benchmarking existing conditions, designing measures of
progress, and documenting the efforts and outcomes of the project. Use the material you’ve been
gathering and studying this semester: the readings, materials from your work, and anecdotes.
Also, consult the syllabus for additional readings and materials; there is a great deal of resources
listed there that might help you to think through this final assignment.

Final papers for SIA will be due 5 pm, Wednesday December 15th to the Architecture
office, Meyerson 210.

Part 1: Define the problem

In the first part of the paper, describe the problems that the works in your sections have been
working to solve. Consider what you did in Building Profiling and Marketing. Describe how the
issue you are working on connects up to larger ideas of sustainability in Philadelphia or
worldwide. How does this issue relate to other issues discussed over the course of the class?

Part 2: Benchmarking Existing Conditions

What are existing efforts to problem solve around this issue? How did your work connect in to
these programs? What are these at the city, regional, national or global level? Have these efforts
accomplished what they set out to? What are the critiques (others, and where applicable, your
own), and what is missing? Perhaps your work has shed light on new paths to take and ideas
about how existing solutions are falling short.

Part 3: The Recitation Project

Describe the project, the ambitions, the effort, and the learning. Describe how you would design
the project differently if you were to have another semester to do similar work. In other words,
how would you redesign the project if you had the opportunity?

You may use excerpts of your building profiles or marketing materials (not simple
copy/paste) incorporated in any of the three parts of the paper. This should not be more
than 50% of your paper combined, and the excerpts may include relevant images. Use your
discretion.

University of Pennsylvania Fall 2010

Sustainability in Action provides an introduction to Sustainability through a weekly lecture
series drawing on scholars from across the university and city and a semester long small group
that addresses a real problem confronting an institution in Philadelphia.