Over lunch today I was reading the current issue of one of my favorite publications: The Owner Builder—"The Australasian Home Builders Magazine." You can get a taste of the magazine (which is much better looking than its website) from their Sample Articles page. In publication since 1982, the first 25 issues have just been released on CD. I'll be wanting to get one of those.
As the editor who collects all of the press releases, rumors, news tidbits, and blog posts for the editorial team to consider for the EBN news section, I tend to have a broad picture of what's going on in the green building world. In the last several months, green schools have been everywhere.
I'm not entirely sure why schools are the latest building type to push for green, but I think it has something to do with the fact that we care an awful lot about our children, and want what's best for them.
It's not all about magnets. Two other nonchemical water treatment systems that have exhibited at Greenbuild for at least the last couple years are worth noting... for one reason or another.
Update: it has come to our attention that the U.S. Department of Energy is no longer supporting this Google Earth layer. We've created a Google Documents link where you can download the KMZ file for use in Google Earth.
Sometimes it's hard to suspend disbelief enough to make an unbiased judgement about a product, particularly when it's from an industry with a history of charlatanry, if not outright chicanery. For instance, chemical-free water treatment—which most people associate with sticking a speaker magnet on a pipe under the kitchen sink. The systems I'm talking about, though, are industrial-sized... used for cooling towers, boilers in big buildings, even large fountains.
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I had an interesting conversation while waiting for Robert Murray's presentation on the construction outlook. A senior associate from one of the leading architectural firms pointed out that the concept of integrating sustainable design into a plan has, until now, been initiated largely by the designer/architect. One client of theirs, a box store, required a payback of three years or less, and that's what's held them back. Tough, I would imagine.
A very interesting lunchtime presentation at Build Boston by Robert Murray, Vice President, Economic Affairs at McGraw-Hill. Some notes of interest related to the sustainable building, green building, and building trends/predictions in general:
Green building as a part of construction trends is starting to effect the macroeconomic picture. This earned a few slides in the Powerpoint. Great to hear!
Mark posted earlier about David Eisenberg and his organization, DCAT, getting USGBC's Organization Excellence Leadership Award at Greenbuild 2007. David has certainly been a great friend and mentor to many of us here at BuildingGreen.
I'm still clinging to the notion that the Integrated Project Delivery paper from the AIA is worth a look-see. (You may also see desperate beads of sweat on my forehead if you look closely.)
In a brilliantly cruel stroke of scheduling irony, the morning after our party with the GreenSource folks at the Funky Buddha, we held a breakfast for our BuildingGreen Suite firm-wide subscribers: organizations that have an account for every person in their operation.
I haven't yet posted from Greenbuild, mostly because this was my first time at the conference, and it took most of my mental energy just to sort through the experience of 22,000 people and all of the information I was taking in. Not posting, however, has given me some space to start thinking about some of the big-picture themes of the conference. The most striking is the influence of social justice and social movements on green building, and vice versa.
While there were lots of highlights at Greenbuild, the only way I can really be productive at such a big conference is to narrow my focus. I'm researching water conservation and water efficiency for an upcoming EBN feature article, and I made great progress on that in Chicago.
