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Learning Resources

 Web resources

Advanced Buildings, Technologies, and Practices - a building professional's guide to more than 90 environmentally-appropriate technologies and practices.

Australian Greenhouse Office: Buildings - information and resources for housing and commercial buildings.

American Institute of Architects (AIA) - details about the annual top ten projects.

Archicentre - distribute free technical advice to home buyers across, through property inspections, Architect's Advice line, and seminars.

Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO) - provides a range of free publications.

Building & Construction Industry Royal Commission - the final report is available on line in .PDF format.

Building & Construction Toolbox - an online learning resource.

Building in a Saline Environment - An Awareness Course for NSW - an on-line Learner’s guide to support the NSW Local Government Salinity Initiative (Phase 2)

BuildingGreen.com - resource for environmentally sensitive design & construction.

Buildsoft - develops and markets software for the building & construction industry.

Case Law NSW - provides judgments & decisions of NSW courts & tribunals.

C & D Recycling - information on the disposal of construction and demolition (C&D) debris from the California Integrated Waste Management Board.

Chemdata -  a database which provides advice to emergency responders for incidents involving chemical spillages, fires and contamination incidents.

Chemicals Management - information from the Department of Environment & Water Resources includes a section on Scheduled Waste Management.

CSIRO Manufacturing & Materials Technology - provides an extensive range of online brochures.

CSIRO: Waste Management - provides information on projects being undertaken.

Daylighting Collaborative - promotes the human, environmental and economic benefits of the daylighting approach to building design.

Efficient Windows Collaborative - provides information on the benefits of energy-efficient windows & how they work, with recommendations for selection & use.

Environmental Resources Information Network (ERIN) - explore Australia's environment through a series of databases.

Firetactics - provides a wide range of fire-fighting information.

Fire Safety Information - includes newsletters, datasheets & technical bulletins.

GreenClips - summary of news on sustainable building design and related government and business issues. You can also receive these by email.

Greener Buildings - a resource to help companies understand & address building design, construction & operation in an environmentally responsible way.

High Performance Building Guidelines - outlines strategies and techniques for sustainable large city development (published by New York City).

Lead Reference Centre - provides are wide range of information, resources & links.

NATSPEC - a comprehensive national building specification system endorsed by government and professional bodies.

NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) - provides a wide range of information & resources.

Recycling & Waste - information from the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

Saftek - offers a wide range of safety information resources from the US.

SAI Global: Building - access the latest Standards Australia publications (for sale).

Smart Communities Network - information on sustainability.

Spatial Sciences - Virtual Online Learning (VOL) modules from the Curtain University of Technology are available on CD - see details on the About VOL page.

Sustainable Construction - information & resources from the Department of Environment & Water Resources for the building & construction industry.

TAFE Studylinks: Building & Construction - access additional websites.

TAFE Studylinks: Hazardous Materials - access additional websites.

Waste Minimisation Guidelines - a series of free guidelines (in Acrobat PDF format) for people who work in the building industry. 

Waste & Recycling - extensive information from the Australian Department of the Environment & Water Resources.

Your Home Technical Manual - a guide to environmentally sustainable homes.

 Other information

Additional information for this area may available via the wide variety of social software (link to Wikipedia) & other Internet services where people share their knowledge and connect/collaborate/communicate with others around the world who have similar interests. Some of these services (with main links to Wikipedia articles) are: 

• Wikis where information is published online through the collaborative input of many people - this information is then available for all to access & edit.
    • wikipedia  - an encyclopaedia with versions in a number of languages
    • wikispaces - used by individuals, education & special interest groups   
   
• Blogs (or web logs) are essentially online journals or diaries presented in reverse chronological order. Groups often use them to promote informal discussion on particular topics or issues.
    • blogger - search for relevant blogs with keywords of your choice
   
• RSS - this is a way of having a summary of information (or feeds) 'delivered' to your web browser or aggregator as it becomes available from online newspapers, magazines or special interest websites.
    • bloglines - an excellent way of managing your RSS subscriptions or Feeds
    
• Social bookmarking sites where users post their list of bookmarks (or favourite websites) for others to search and view. There are specialised services for particular interest groups.
    • del.icio.us is perhaps the best known general social bookmaking service
   
• Newsgroups & mailing lists are older types of Internet services (or forums) which are mainly used these days by special interest groups.
    • tile.net allows you to do keyword searches of these services

To find out more about these and the many other online information services available, explore Wikipedia further as well as its related Wikimedia Foundation projects.

For this program area the following may be of interest:

• Architecturewiki - an Australian site
• Yahoo: Architecture - chats and forums directory

 Teaching resources

Curriculum Centres provide information and resources for TAFE NSW educational staff relating to this area on their Intranet website - this is only accessible to staff from within the TAFE NSW computer network.

Last updated: 12 February, 2008

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