BuildingGreen Report

Blog Post

April 11, 2008
Smith & Fong's bamboo plywood panels are now available with FSC-certified bamboo.

If you're a regular reader of the posts here on BuildingGreen.com LIVE, you might remember that we had a couple folks from Smith & Fong in our offices back in January. That was when we first got wind of their pending FSC certification — for bamboo.... Read more

News Analysis

In an industry first, Smith & Fong now offers bamboo plywood panels certified to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council.

April 11, 2008
Bamboo has been used as a construction material since prehistoric times. Now that it has become an international commodity in the form of strip flooring and plywood-like panels, pressure on the bamboo forests of eastern Asia is greater than ever, leading environmentalists to question whether all bamboo products are still a good ecological choice... Read more

Blog Post

April 8, 2008

Brent is the products and materials specialist at BuildingGreen, where he researches and writes about green building products, materials, and their health and environmental impacts. He also leads a team of editors who select industry-leading products for the company’s green building product database. A LEED AP BD+C, he has been researching and... Read more

Blog Post

April 8, 2008

One summer day a few years ago I was standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon expecting to look down and across at light and shadows melding with multicolored layers of bedrock, the whitewater from the Colorado River calmly glistening a mile below as it carves through rock and time itself... etc etc. Instead, I found my gaze drawn to a line of... Read more

Blog Post

April 7, 2008

Last week was great for learning about positive approaches to solving our collective climate change problems. First, I attended the MassImpact: Cities and Climate Change symposium at MIT on Friday (March 28, 2008). Then I got to see Michael Singer present some of his work at the down2earth event in Boston on Saturday. Pretty jam-packed. Jaime... Read more

Blog Post

April 6, 2008
"Can a four-level house with a three-car garage and a kitchen full of energy-hungry Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances truly qualify as a model of environmental responsibility? Photo by Douglas Healey

for The New York Times

NRDC is trying to prove that it can, by applying for LEED certification." NRDC?! The Natural Resources Defense Council... Read more

Blog Post

April 3, 2008

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Blog Post

April 2, 2008
A beta version of the Energy Design Plugin for Google SketchUp has been released by the Department of Energy. From the Energy Design Plugin website: Designed to integrate seamlessly with the SketchUp environment, the plugin allows you to use the standard SketchUp tools to create and edit EnergyPlus zones and surfaces. You can explore your... Read more

Case Study

Setting Down Roots: A new building raises a botanical garden’s profile as an institution focused on environmental stewardship.

April 2, 2008

By Joann Gonchar

The Queens Botanical Garden (QBG) may not be as well known or as large as its counterparts in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but a new visitor and administrative center should raise the garden’s profile, especially as an institution focused on environmental stewardship. The 16,000-square-foot center, completed in September... Read more

Case Study

Building on Aldo Leopold’s Legacy: The Aldo Leopold Foundation aims to uphold the land ethic in its new headquarters.

April 2, 2008

Joel Krueger, AIA, hates it when people call the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center one of the greenest buildings in the world. To be fair, the project embodies the modern environmental movement’s conception of green: the net-zero-energy, carbon-neutral project earned 61 points, a new record, in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system. But... Read more

Case Study

April 1, 2008

Joel Krueger, AIA, hates it when people call the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center one of the greenest buildings in the world. To be fair, the project embodies the modern environmental movement’s conception of green: the net-zero-energy, carbon-neutral project earned 61 points, a new record, in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system.... Read more

Blog Post

April 1, 2008
Down To Earth Building Bee (Vancouver, BC, Canada) had a shake test on a half-scale model of a cob structure done at the UBC Earthquake Engineering Research Facility. It happened a while ago, but they just posted video:

The model was of a circular structure with a shed roof, described as "about 6 ft diameter and 5 ft high"... not... Read more

Feature

April 1, 2008

Chief among factors determining the sustainable performance of a building are the amount of energy it consumes and how much of that energy is from renewable sources. Architects have long relied on engineers to perform the complex energy consumption estimations and select mechanical systems. This reliance is now transforming into collaboration... Read more

Product Review

March 31, 2008
Composite Panels Poised to Meet CARB’s Formaldehyde

Emission Caps

On January 1, 2009, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is scheduled to begin enforcement of its “Airborne Toxic Control Measure (ATCM) to Reduce Formaldehyde Emissions from Composite Wood Products.” Adopted on April 26, 2007 (see

EBN

Vol. 15, No. 7 and... Read more

Op-Ed

March 31, 2008
While staying with friends in western Connecticut recently, I got in a conversation with a real estate agent there. She told me that the high cost of building materials was leading some builders in her part of the state to shift from 2x6 construction back to less-energy-efficient 2x4 construction. These builders tell her that most potential... Read more

News Brief

March 31, 2008

A new study performed by University of Texas–Austin doctoral student Chi Phuong Hoang shows preliminary evidence that some green and biobased materials—often touted as low-emitting—may react with low levels of naturally occurring ozone to create “secondary” emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are harmful to human health. Hoang... Read more

News Analysis

March 31, 2008
Can you construct or operate a building without emitting greenhouse gases? Probably not, but the voluntary carbon-offset market offers an alternative: pay a fee to finance reductions of greenhouse gases or sequestration of atmospheric carbon, elsewhere. In 2007, the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center earned an innovation point in LEED on its way to a... Read more

News Brief

March 31, 2008
The new headquarters for the 12,000-member International Interior Design Association (IIDA), located in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, is considered by IIDA to be “an illustration of green ideas at work, featuring products and materials that demonstrate how sustainable design can be both beautiful and functional.”The design association earned a Gold... Read more

News Brief

March 31, 2008
A leading green design firm doing business in Seattle for nearly 60 years, Mithun is expanding into California and increasing its staff to include Sandy Mendler, AIA, as a principal in its new San Francisco office. “I am so excited to join such a strong group,” Mendler told

EBN, “and to have the opportunity to help build a San Francisco-based... Read more

News Analysis

March 31, 2008
Having built one new LEED Platinum home (see

EBN

Vol. 16, No. 6), Richard Renner, AIA, shifted his attention to retrofitting an existing building and attaining the same “lofty” level of certification. His own 1,400-ft2 (130-m2), two-bedroom live/work loft, located in a mixed-use neighborhood in Portland, Maine, is the first gut rehab in... Read more