AIA Courses for Architects

Pragmatic Professional Engineers offers a variety of Continuing Education course to help professional licensed architects stay up-to-date.

Courses Qualified for AIA CEUs

Energy & Electricity (1 LU)

This course discusses the definitions of standard units of energy, power, and electricity. It provides a history of prime movers, fuel types, and how they have changed over time. Finally, the course discusses modern-day electricity generation, transmission, and distribution.

HVAC Basics (1 LU)

This course presents the fundamental concepts of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) and offers practical knowledge to architects for understanding how these systems contribute to the comfort and energy efficiency of a building. The course has three sections dealing with Air Delivery options, System Types, and ending with a description of how energy modeling can help architects design sustainable buildings. The course concludes with pragmatic directions on when to offer it and what alternatives there are.

HVAC Systems & Equipment (1 LU)

This course provides an overview of split/packaged, air-side, and water-side equipment. Presentations touches upon the most common types of HVAC equipment and describes how, where, and why they would be specified on a project. Diagrams are provided to allow attendees to easily understand complex mechanical systems and equipment.

Fire Protection Basics (1LU/HSW)

This course discusses codes, standards, and statistics related to fire protection of buildings. It also discusses how people respond to situations where smoke is present, the probability event trees used by insurance companies to determine the risk of fire from a monetary perspective, and, finally, a high level view of the functions of smoke/heater detectors, automatic fire sprinkler systems, and wet/dry standpipes.

A&E Project Management (1 LU)

This courses discusses project management ideas and techniques that can be utilized by architectural and engineering (A & E) firms to increase profitability. Topics such as estimating fees, the Waterfall methodology, Kanban Boards, and task lists are discussed.

2022 Building Energy Efficiency (1 LU/HSW)

This course explores the major mpdates of the 2022 Building Energy Efficiency Standards

HVAC High Rise Design Process (1 LU)

This course presents the fundamentals of the steps that a mechanical engineer takes in designing a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system for a multi-family high-rise residential building. The course explains the benefits of certain types of systems and the design decisions that must be made by the entire team in order to meet the owner’s projects requirements. A description of the steps required to select and size a make-up air system, a space conditioning system, and an exhaust system are included. The various factors involved in selecting air outlets and louvers are discussed as well.

HVAC Basics for Multi-Family Projects (1 LU/HSW)

This course presents an overview and exploration into HVAC systems for mixed-use, multi-family vertical construction from a design, code, and safety standpoint.

Focusing on your convenience, we will come to your office to offer our courses and provide lunches to all attendees.

Other Courses

Basics of HVAC Systems

This course describes the major types of HVAC systems. Water-side, air-side, and direct-expansion systems are discussed along with common system water-side and air-side system configurations such as variable-volume, constant-temperature air systems and variable-primary water loops.

Atmospheric Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Testing

This course presents the fundamental concepts of atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel (ABLWT) testing and offers practical steps to architects on when to consider this kind of testing. The course opens with two examples of how wind tunnel testing can contribute to a building’s design and then moves on to explain the definitions and means/methods of testing. The course concludes with pragmatic directions on when to offer it and what alternatives there are.

Commissioning Basics

Building Systems Commissioning is a growing industry within the building delivery scope of work. This course will define what commissioning is, describe how it's implemented, and discuss how LEED v4 and California Title 24 requirements for commissioning affect architects.

Solar Thermal Cooling Case Study

This course introduces the concept of cooling a facility primarily by harnessing energy from the sun using solar thermal in lieu of photovoltaic technology. The introduction is in the format of a case study of the Crow Canyon Medical Center in San Ramon, California. The Crow Canyon Medical Center is one of the only functioning solar-thermal cooling systems in the world. When the solar resource is not sufficient for cooling or the facility doesn’t require cooling, the solar thermal energy is used to offset the comfort or domestic hot water heating loads. The system was installed as a supplement to a conventional system already existing in the building; therefore, the layout is applicable to many facilities across the country. The course presents an in depth look at the mechanical systems as well as a lessons learned portion. The course includes pragmatic directions on when to offer a system retrofit like this.

Focusing on your convenience, we will come to your office to offer our courses and provide lunches to all attendees.