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Is LEED/BREEAM certification worthwhile?

Non-ASD Jequitarchitectur

Is it worthwhile to obtain a LEED/BREEAM certification?

Also, what level and and experience should someone have ideally in order to benefit from this training?

In other words, is this beneficial to senior architects?

Will obtaining this certification improve employment opportunities for a junior architect?

 
Nov 11, 16 2:59 pm
citizen

So many E's!

Nov 11, 16 4:59 pm  · 
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BulgarBlogger

I'm a LEED AP along with thousands of other architects. Having a certificate doesn't mean jack shit if your bosses won't allow you the opportunity to use your knowledge skills. At larger firms, they hire specific people for specific projects. If you have a certificate great. If not- it doesn't matter in terms of your day-to-day activities. There's probably someone who has that certificate AND a decade worth of experience just doing LEED projects. The reason you may want that certificate is threefold:

1. Purely and simply- because the corporate world is all about getting the most committed people to this profession and the more certificates you have under your name, the better you may sound on a response to an RFP or an RFQ where your name may show up. To some finance guy who knows nothing about architecture, seeing those extra few titles after your name makes him/her more secure that his architect, and his team, is qualified to do a project. In other words, its about superficial legitimacy.

2. If for some reason, the guy who has that certificate and or 10 years of experience is the only guy in the office who has that certificate and some circumstance prevents him from exercising his duties (he gets fired, gets sick, dies, etc), you may be his replacement. The more people an office has with those certificates, the less time the office has to look for a replacement.

3. When working on a project in a team, having a certificate establishes some baseline of knowledge that would make team leaders more comfortable in delegating tasks that are associated with the work you are certified to do. You don't have to be the main LEED AP, but knowing about LEED and other systems, may come in handy in the sense that your colleagues may have to spend less time training you.

At the end of the day, I don't think you really need it, but the above reasons demonstrate why having those certificates may come in handy. Instead of thinking about it in terms of why it would come in handy for others, think of any certification as an investment in yourself. One day you may have your own practice ;)

Nov 11, 16 5:15 pm  · 
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Rbsm

LEED is a scam for people to buy specific hvac systems and products that the organization dictates in order to award more points and have a "sustainable building"

Nov 12, 16 9:23 pm  · 
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BulgarBlogger

Are u a LEED AP? Your argument would be much more compelling if you are, bc if you are not, then you sound like those unlicensed architects talking about how the licensing exams are a dumb idea....

Nov 12, 16 11:54 pm  · 
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