You and your boss don’t really collaborate. Neither do you and your employee, or you and your supplier.

You might work collaboratively, but ultimately one of you has power and authority over the other. Real, substantive collaboration—getting people to cooperate without power and authority—takes a lot of work, and so you only want to collaborate on challenges that need it.

Insider, eyes-only info on the AIA Top Ten is enclosed. A retinal scan will initiate, using your computer’s built-in camera. Do not look away.

Brief provided by Agent Malin. Code name: El Presidente.

By Candace Pearson

Peter Yost lives and breathes by the motto “There’s no hygrothermal free lunch” (a phrase borrowed from his friend and mentor Joe Lstiburek). Any student of Peter has that phrase as fundamentally entrenched in their brain as ’I’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.

Hygro refers to water, and thermal refers to heat. In buildings, you really can’t manage heat without also managing moisture. For example, if you increase how much insulation is in a wall, you may also be increasing the risk of moisture and mold problems.

There are four ways that buildings can get wet:

Looking for the greenest updates at Convention this year? Here is our quick roundup.

A new round of online BAC Sustainable Design courses is starting up soon. Going out in the polar vortex is not a prerequisite.

Until we stop talking about water as if it’s a clone of energy, water won’t get the respect it deserves or the attention it needs. Two sessions at NESEA’s BuildingEnergy ’15 conference, “Reinventing the Water Grid” parts one and two, are out to change that.

Want help researching and screening products for LEED v4 or the LBC Red List? Use this forum to share your questions and frustrations as well as your successes and advice.

Not really, of course. But after five-plus years I’m ending my weekly Energy Solutions blog to focus more on the Resilient Design Institute and re-making Leonard Farm back into a farm.

The divide between the worlds of design and sustainability is persistent, but returning to core values can bridge it.

For me, the creative tension between beauty and green performance came to a head in 2006, when I began working with the staff of Architectural Record on their new magazine: GreenSource. (GreenSource is no longer a separate magazine; it’s now an insert in the products magazine SNAP. And I’m no longer involved with it.)

State-of-the-art testing chambers show that liquid-applied barriers outperform more typical weather barriers comprised of flashing, tape, and membranes. BEA's building assembly test chamber in Clackamas, Oregon.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

I’m just back from Portland, Oregon where I attended the annual Living Future Conference.

The Living Future Conference was created by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) initially to provide a networking and learning venue for designers and builders involved in creating buildings that are being certified through the Living Building Challenge.

Our 12 kW PV system going in on the roof of our restored 1812 barn.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Among the energy-related features of our new house in Dummerston, Vermont, is one parked in the garage.