Has anyone heard about batu or cumaru as substitutes for ipe? I am looking for a durable deckling material, and would appreciate your recommendations for sustainable choices!

Has anyone had experience working with Hyper Metro (http://hypermetro.co/)? If so, did you find this company to provide value especially in dense urban environments where on-site segregation poses challenges to manage multiple C&D material streams on site? Hyper Metro claims to be able to provide rebates and to pay us for our trash.

Our firm has had some clients that object to the term "Master Plan." We have removed "Master Planning" from our letterhead, where we list our capabilities and have replaced it with "Planning." Although we still find ourselves using it, old habits die hard, especially when we receive an RFP from a client asking for "Master Planning." Once we get... Read more

Engineered wood efficiently utilizes fast-growing, small-diameter trees.

When sourced from responsibly managed forests, engineered wood can store carbon that would otherwise enter the atmosphere, and can replace high-embodied-carbon concrete and steel in some structural applications.

Engineered wood products can also provide a... Read more

I am wondering how architectural firms plan to close the gap to zero in the next few years. 

Owner's dictate outcomes and the typical owner is not committed to zero - even when sustainability is a focus of the project. 

We can present solar-ready designs, all electric buildings, geothermal, etc. but there is still quite a gap to... Read more

Green gurus!

We're getting some interest from clients abroad on two specific materials which we don't have experience with here in the U.S.:

1) Cross Laminated Timber (CLT)

and/or 

2) CarbonCure concrete

Anyone willing to share lessons learned on these material either here in the forum or offline? Or point me... Read more

Sasaki seeks a Sustainability Coordinator for Planning & Urban Design Sustainability Coordinator with experience in planning or urban design for our Boston office, to work on a variety of college and university campuses, urban mixed-use districts, corporate campuses and resilience planning. You'll work me and with Alison Nash, our... Read more

P. U. L. Antelo, M.A.

Good Afternoon!

has anyone heard of this?  the program focuses on healthcare construction but i think it would be good for all construction sites to have a certified individual.  And for those of us that report to CDP, this would be a good risk management strategy to include.

https://greenadvantage.org/pcra-certificate-program... Read more

Hello friends,

We are embarking on calculations to quantify avoided embodied carbon from converting an old school building into a multifamily project and I wanted to vet our methodology with you.

Our idea is to first establish a benchmark for a new replacement multifamily building based on published studies. We have found a few... Read more

Welcome to the Sages forum! Some of us have been hanging out together for ages, but others might be new to this group (if not to sustainable design/construction). So let’s start by introducing ourselves, with some highlights from our career and history with the Peer Networks, and why we’ve now joined this one.

My career history is pretty... Read more

I am diving back into Sefaira for the first time in a while, and the program still seems to be missing the ability to account for automatic daylight dimming in energy savings. Previously I had used an LPD reduction equivalent to emulate the savings automatic dimming would provide. Has anyone done a similar work-around? 

Hi all-

We are dabbling in developing an official research component of our firm. We have collaborated with a class at a local university and are looking for ways to take our research to a higher level. I'm curious how some of the other firms doing design or building technology research approach the process. For instance, do you have a... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Certified Wood: How SFI Compares to FSC.

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:


1. Describe how forestry standards engage with pesticide use, protection of old growth forests and forest biota, and prevention of deforestation.
2. Discuss... Read more

SDLers – For one of our projects we are working with local tribes to procure timber. We would also like to get FSC certification, but haven’t found significant overlap between these two criteria in the Pacific Northwest. There appear to be two certification entities in our area: Northwest Natural Resource Group and Trout Mountain Forestry.  I’m... Read more

The Planning for Resilient Outcomes Working Group has had a few preliminary meetings and we would like to invite interested Green Gurus to join our group.  To give you an idea of what we are about, we have developed a purpose statement to guide our future work: 

The Planning for Resilient Outcomes working group will elevate the industry'... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of "Spec This, Not That: Avoiding Toxic Chemicals in Commercial Building Projects"!

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to: