News Brief
The American Institute of Architects convention in Boston this past June was the setting for a changing of the guard in the American architectural establishment. The Institute’s first woman president took the reins, the Committee on the Environment became its largest and fastest growing committee, and the first installments of the Environmental... Read more
Feature
Ozone depletion and global warming are two of our most serious environmental problems—and foam insulation materials containing CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) contribute significantly to both of these problems. The environmentally concerned builder or designer should make it a highest priority to avoid them. Even many of the non-CFC alternatives... Read more
Feature
Susan Maxman is the first AIA president to make sustainable design a priority.
Q.Where would you say architects as a group stand on environmental issues?
A.Architects tend to be reactive rather than proactive. It is important that we take the lead on these environmental issues. The architecture schools in particular tend to be conservative. They just aren’t... Read more
Op-Ed
Introducing the first issue of our newsletter.
Buildings have a tremendous impact on the environment. In North America, buildings and the building industry account for about 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, 35-40% of ozone depletion, 20-30% of municipal solid waste, vast quantities of natural resource consumption, and dramatic loss of open space each... Read more
Quiz
This pre-summit workshop was pre-approved for 6 AIA LUs and 6 GBCI CE hours.
Please complete the survey question to confirm your attendance and receive your CEUs.
By providing your credential numbers in your profile, you will enable us to automatically report these CEUs to the organization. Please check your profile to be sure... Read more
Forum topic
I wanted to make sure that you didn’t miss this fun event. We can all use some fun right now.
Built Environment Plus is celebrating the arrival of spring with a fun competition to get people out and about safely. A digital Scavenger Hunt will allow teams of 4 (or larger families) to complete a series of photo, video, and text missions... Read more
Forum topic
Hi all,
I'm looking for critical mass here. Do any of you have or know of clients who are requiring Just labeling for their consultants? I've heard that Google is asking this, and wondering who else might be on that course. Thanks!
Forum topic
Hey there hive mind,
We went looking through LEEDuser to try and find some direction and didn't find much so I thought I'd bring my team's question here to all of you smart people. We're working on a non-combustion central plant tied to a geothermal field and grid electricity. The project has cooling towers and their associated chemical... Read more
Forum topic
Hi all - passing on this request on behalf of Alan Scott. He is looking specifically for someone from the Gulf Coast region to round out the panel:
I am putting together a panel for a virtual session during Design Museum Week in April (Thursday, April 28). The description below outlines the conversation I am hoping to curate. I am... Read more
Product Guide
Wall and corner guards increase durability, but these products are typically made of PVC.
BuildingGreen-Approved Guards
BuildingGreen approves products that avoid the use of PVC and are made with recycled content, FSC-certified wood, other biobased materials, or less-problematic plastics.
Health and Environmental... Read more
Forum topic
Greetings!
Back again re: the work we're doing with City of Cambridge, in their great leadership efforts to develop EC policy/regs/incentives and reporting requirements.
Thanks to those who responded earlier about the effort it takes you to conduct WBLCA - now we're diving into it in more depth and wanting to get together a focus... Read more
Quiz
Welcome to the quiz portion of Doing Daylighting Right.
Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:
1. Explain occupants' needs and habits when it comes to daylighting.
2. Recognize at least three recent mistakes in daylighting design and their respective alternatives going... Read more
Forum topic
CALL for applications: national COTE Leadership Group
We need you! Or the dedicated, enegetic people you know ...
Please consider encouraging applications (or applying yourself) for the the COTE Leadership Group.
We have 2 1-year slots this year ... plus 3 3-year slots ... and we are looking for a diverse slate (diversity... Read more
Forum topic
Hi folks,
As you may know, this network is part of a family of Sustainability Leader Peer Networks that BuildingGreen hosts. They each have their own private forum, and there is also a shared cross-network forum called "Green Gurus."
Those of you have already paid in to be part of this network moving forward have automatically... Read more
Forum topic
Hi Fellow SD Leaders: This webinar from the AIA and the Building Resilience Coalition looks highly relevant and with some great speakers. It's free and open to all (I think...not sure how AIAU works for non-members.)
Free climate change risk webinar 10/23
Join members of 52 organizations of the Resilience Building Coalition for... Read more
Forum topic
Hello everyone! There hasn’t been much activity on this forum in recent months, so we wanted to give an update about what’s been happening and things coming up.
Firstly, we are very excited for the upcoming inaugural SCL Summit the day before Greenbuild. We currently have about 20 people signed up for the Summit and we are expecting a... Read more
Forum topic
Wondering if we can have a dialog on HVAC load calculation software... we are currently still using Trane Trace 700, but with the future migration to Trace 3D+ coming are looking into other options. Never used HAP but I haven't heard great things, and we dabbled in IES VE for a while, but went back to Trace since at that time there was no... Read more
Forum topic
The Center for the Built Environment (CBE) at the University of California, Berkeley is conducting a survey to understand current practices and outlooks among design practitioners: architects, engineers, energy modelers, and related professionals. Our goal with this work is to improve climate change adaptation guidelines that support building... Read more
