With the development of increasingly sophisticated software, energy modeling has become an integral part of commercial & institutional building design. Making energy performance a manipulable element at the earliest stages of building design is essential to sustainable building design. This course will provide an overview of energy modeling of commercial & institutional buildings, an introduction to the most popular energy modeling packages- including hands-on experience with at least one of them- and a discussion of how to make use of energy modeling results in the design process. The relationship of energy modeling to green building rating systems will also be explored. Students need to have a Windows based PC or a Mac that has Windows virtual environment (e.g. Parallels, VWware Fusion, or Oracle VM Virtual Box) and a copy of Windows 7 or Windows XP installed in order to run the eQUEST energy modeling program.