Spring 2025 BCT Lecture Series Announced

Spring 2025 BCT Lecture Series Announced

The start of a new semester brings with it a new series of public lectures. We are happy to announce the four speakers mentioned below, who will present on various current topics in the built environment as part of our Spring 2025 BCT Lecture Series. All lectures are open to the public and are held on Mondays from 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm in the Olver Design Building Room 170. Attendees can get continuing education credits (AIA/USGBC). Zoom options will be available, too. Want to get notified when these are? Sign up for our email list. Speakers Residential Construction: It’s Not Like Other JobsPatrick McCombe, Senior Editor, Fine Homebuilding Magazine02.10.25 | 4:00-5:15pm | John W. Olver Design Building Room 170 (or Zoom) The Pretty Good House: Simplifying High Performance HomesDan Kolbert, General Contractor03.03.25 | 4:00-5:15pm | John W. Olver Design Building Room 170 (or Zoom) Manage Energy & Moisture with Equal IntensityPeter Yost, Building-Wright03.31.25 | 4:00-5:15pm | John W. Olver Design Building Room 170 (or Zoom) Locally Grown Homes: Buildings As A Climate SolutionGreg...
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Sign up now for our Summer 2025 Pre-College Programs: BCT’s Building Lab & BCT’s Sustainability Lab

Sign up now for our Summer 2025 Pre-College Programs: BCT’s Building Lab & BCT’s Sustainability Lab

BCT is this year again offering summer pre-college programs for high-schoolers that are interested in construction and in finding out how to make buildings sustainable! Rising 10th–12th graders get a feel for what college is like while earning two (2) college credits that can be applied towards the Building Construction Technology Program (BCT) at UMass, or others. Enroll NOW to save your child’s spot in these exciting programs! NEW this year: We are now offering TWO PROGRAMS. Both are two-week courses that can be taken as residential (including housing) or commuter options. The BCT BuildingLab is a two-week immersive pre-college program for high school students interested in exploring construction, building science, sustainability, engineering, building design, technology, and discovering related career paths. This program includes build projects, use of emergent technologies (drones, infrared cameras, air quality testing, AR/VR), and construction site tours.This program is offered July 13 – 26, 2025. The BCT SustainabilityLab is a two-week program on the UMass Amherst campus dedicated to investigating sustainability...
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Hammer Time: How Students, Faculty, Local Businesses and Holyoke’s Community Development Corporation Are Teaming Up to Fight the Housing Crisis

Hammer Time: How Students, Faculty, Local Businesses and Holyoke’s Community Development Corporation Are Teaming Up to Fight the Housing Crisis

They call it “Paper House”: a modular, 500-square-foot, high-performance, net zero, low carbon house designed and built by the students in UMass DesignBuild, a joint effort between the Building and Construction Technology Program and Department of Architecture at UMass Amherst and the Five College Architectural Studies program. DesignBuild is in its second year, and it seeks to address major problems, both in the educational world, and in the broader world at large. “A builder might go through their whole education and never see the work involved in designing a house,” says Carl Fiocchi, a lecturer and professional master’s program coordinator in the Building and Construction Technology Program. “The reverse is true for architects, too, who might never get any experience actually building their designs.” The DesignBuild class seeks to bridge this gap between the builders and designers with a two-semester sequence. In the spring semester, students are given a set of design parameters—the house’s overall footprint, budget, materials, etc.—and with those in place, design the...
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UMass Design-Build “HyggeHaus” at the Green River Festival

UMass Design-Build “HyggeHaus” at the Green River Festival

Residents of western Massachusetts have long marked the start of summer by the opening of the Green River Festival. Now in its 35th year, the three-day music festival held in Greenfield, Massachusetts draws a large crowd hungry for food, fun and dancing. This year, thanks to students and professors in UMass Amherst’s Building and Construction Technology Program, as well as the collaborative efforts of the UMass Department of Architecture, the Five College Architectural Studies program, and East Branch Studio, festival-goers were able to rock out at the HyggeHaus, a modular, 350 square foot, high-performance, net zero, low carbon accessory dwelling unit that served both as an auxiliary stage and as a model of sustainable living addressing both equity and the national housing shortage. Hygge, pronounced “hyoo-guh,” is a Norwegian term that signifies “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.” This DesignBuild project was started begun by a group of UMass students and instructors in 2020, but the build was postponed due...
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Wesley Stanhope & Ken Neuhauser Present on Building Commissioning

Wesley Stanhope & Ken Neuhauser Present on Building Commissioning

Synopsis Buildings are comprised of potentially competing systems that are expected to work in harmony with each other. Commissioning is a living and adaptive process that can be implemented at any point throughout the lifespan of a building, ensuring that the building systems are reviewed and tested for optimum performance. Wes & Ken shared lessons learned from projects to explain why the most successful building Commissioning starts before design has begun.   https://youtu.be/zbeDksdTxU8   Links Building Evolution Corporation...
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