The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Navy are sponsoring a student design competition, Breaking Through Barriers: Balancing Ecology and Economics, to help identify options for what to do with a military base being decommissioned. A key requirement of the competition is that teams must be interdisciplinary, including (at a... Read more

James McElvenny has left his long-time position as assistant vice president of research and development with Wood Recycling Incorporated of Woburn, Massachusetts to become Director of Recycling Projects for the Wood Products Division of the J.M. Huber Company (508/524-8804). In his new position McElvenny will continue his ongoing efforts to... Read more

The field of practitioners and researchers dealing with issues of building and the environment has various factions. Many people have arrived at green building as an extension of their commitment to energy-efficient construction, while others are more focused on occupant health and well-being—the indoor environment. In recent years these... Read more

Expanding on its four-year-old carpet testing program (see

EBN

Vol. 3, No. 6), the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) has launched a similar program to test emissions from carpet adhesives. Initiated on March 31, 1996, the new program will test samples of participating product lines quarterly. Products that meet program guidelines... Read more

The NAHB Research Center is seeking applications for the 1997 EnergyValue Housing Award, a national award for builders who integrate energy efficiency into the design, construction, and marketing of their new homes. Applications are due August 2, 1996, and winners will be announced at the 1997 NAHB Builders Show. For information, contact:... Read more

The eco-shake™ shingles have heavily textured wood grain to mimic the look of wood shakes. They are 22 inches (250 mm) in length, packaged in random widths of 5, 7, and 12... Read more

Advisory Board member Michael Nicklas received the American Solar Energy Society’s (ASES) highest award on April 22, for his contribution to ASES and to the field of solar energy. The 1996 Abbott Award is the first to go to a practitioner in the use of solar energy, rather than to a researcher. In his acceptance speech, Nicklas noted that... Read more

The March 1996 issue of

Energy Design Update reports that fire tests at a laboratory in California have demonstrated that spray-applied cellulose insulation can be a more effective fire stop than conventional wood firestops in a 2x4 wall. The testing was done as part of an effort to gain Uniform Building Code (UBC) approval for the... Read more

Are our buildings making us sick? Yes, say an increasing number of indoor air quality specialists in government agencies, academia, and the emerging industry working to solve these problems. By some estimates, direct medical costs associated with IAQ problems in the United States are as high as $15 billion per year, with indirect costs of $60... Read more

is cosponsor of the upcoming conference Use of Recycled Wood and Paper in Building Applications, which will be held on September 9-11, 1996 in Madison, Wisconsin. The conference should be the best forum to date for the exchange of information relating to use of recycled wood and paper in building applications. For information, see the... Read more

I read your lead article “Transportation Planning” in the January/February 1996 issue with great interest. A couple of years ago I and seven others entered and won the Grand Prize for a competition entitled “The Electric Vehicle and the American Community.” The programme was to imagine life in some date in the future when electric vehicles... Read more

William McDonough Architects, of Charlottesville, Virginia was awarded a contract for design of a new environmental studies building at Oberlin College with extensive green design goals.

Builders and designers committed to energy- and resource-efficient construction strategies have long struggled with building codes that mandate conventional practice, even when alternatives might be more sensible. A new addition to the Lake County, Illinois building code offers one solution to this problem—in a complete, take-it-or-leave-it... Read more

Amoco/Enron Solar Power Development plans to build a four-megawatt photovoltaic (PV) generation plant in Hawaii in 1997 with a $1.14 million award from the Utility PhotoVoltaic Group (UPVG). The facility will use thin-film PV cells made by Solarex, which since January 1995 has been a subsidiary of the partnership between Amoco and Enron. Upon... Read more

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, 55 Murray Street, Suite 330, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 4M3, Canada; 613/241-3600, 613/241-5750 (fax). Published bimonthly, 20 pages per issue, $79 per year (Canadian dollars in Canada, U.S. dollars in the U.S.), $59 for Green Building Information Council members.

Hemp,

Cannabis sativa, can be grown again in Germany with the recent lifting of a ban on hemp cultivation. Germany will join other European countries that cultivate hemp as a quality fiber source, which can reduce demand for forest products. A fiber-cement building block using hemp is already being produced in France. The states of... Read more

40 pages; $8.00 postpaid from the Center for Resourceful Building Technology, P.O. Box 100, Missoula, MT 59806; 406/549-7678.

You’re on the cutting edge again! We’ve been grumbling for the last couple of years about “Eco” homes carved out of the forest whose residents are forced to drive cars every day. Yours is the first article I’ve seen in green building literature that tackles transportation. Congratulations.

Energy Outreach Center

Olympia... Read more

A group of evangelical Christians is urging support of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), according to a January 31 article in

The New York Times. Dr. Calvin DeWitt, who helped found the Evangelical Environmental Network, said in the article that the Endangered Species Act is “the Noah’s Ark of our day” and that “Congress and special... Read more