BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

December 4, 2007

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon takes place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., with collegiate teams constructing solar-powered houses, demonstrating the homes’ functionality to judges, and giving tours to the public. In 2007, for the first time, first prize has gone to a team from outside the U.S.; the team from... Read more

News Analysis

December 4, 2007

On November 17, 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth “Synthesis Report” along with a “Summary for Policymakers.” The latest report integrates the findings of reports released earlier in 2007 by each of the three IPCC working groups, which dealt, respectively, with the underlying science of climate change... Read more

News Brief

December 4, 2007
In March 2007, the Research Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) released a report finding that only 0.2% of federally funded research, about $193 million per year, is aimed at green building topics; USGBC then committed $1 million to green building research in June 2007 (see

EBN

Vol. 16, No. 6). In November 2007, the... Read more

News Brief

December 4, 2007

Douglas Farr, AIA; John Wiley & Sons, 2007; 304 pages, $75

www.greenplaybook.orginfo@greenplaybook.orgCombine walkable, transit-served urbanism with high-performance building and infrastructure and, according to author Douglas Farr, AIA, you’ve got

Sustainable Urbanism. Beyond just developing a concept, however, the book acts as a... Read more

Product Review

December 4, 2007

BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of the

GreenSpec Directory and

Environmental Building News (

EBN), announced its annual Top-10 Green Building Products during the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild Conference and Expo, held in November 2007 in Chicago. The Top-10 consists of the ten most exciting products added to... Read more

News Brief

December 4, 2007

In July 2007, the New Buildings Institute (NBI) released its Advanced Buildings

Core Performance Guide, which outlines cost-effective ways to achieve 20%–30% energy savings in new buildings (see

EBN

Vol. 16, No. 8).

Core Performance replaced the Advanced Buildings

Benchmark, which was cited in LEED for... Read more

News Analysis

December 4, 2007

With its dominant position defining green building in the North American market, the LEED Rating System is a popular target for critics with a wide range of axes to grind, some justified, others less so. One of the more valid concerns is that LEED’s promises of energy savings (and therefore carbon reductions) are just that—promises. With the... Read more

News Brief

December 4, 2007

GE Real Estate is among the world’s larger real estate investment companies, with $72 billion in assets in 31 countries; its investment business generates more than $30 billion in transactions annually. Joined by President Bill Clinton at the Greenbuild conference in Chicago in November 2007, the company announced that it would not only make... Read more

Feature

December 4, 2007

Wireless technology has been in development for decades but has blossomed in recent years with the proliferation of cell phones and wireless computer networking, enabling greater communication and connectivity among electronic devices. The technology has affected telecommunication, transportation, and consumer electronics and now offers new... Read more

News Analysis

December 4, 2007
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) currently has over nine LEED rating systems covering commercial and residential buildings, interiors, and exteriors, all the way up to entire neighborhoods, and several more systems are on the way. Even as LEED continues to proliferate, however, a movement continues among USGBC leadership to make it more... Read more

News Brief

December 4, 2007

International architecture firm Perkins + Will has strengthened its healthcare design practice with the acquisition of Guenther 5 Architects, a healthcare-focused firm based in New York City. The firms have not disclosed the terms of their merger. Guenther 5, headed by founder Robin Guenther, FAIA, is known for its work designing green... Read more

News Analysis

December 4, 2007
In the last ten years, nearly 30 million American homes have undergone renovation or remodeling projects. Assuming the trend continues, the next ten years will produce at least 30 million more renovated or remodeled homes. Only this time, residential designers and contractors, as well as homeowners, will be armed with a dynamic new information... Read more

Blog Post

December 3, 2007
"Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost." —James Thurber

We talk a lot about energy efficiency here at Environmental Building News. If we follow Thurber's lead and add environmental humor to our concerns, what do we get? The green building light bulb... Read more

Blog Post

November 30, 2007
Frank and I are going to tag-team on this post. We attended a presentation at Keene State College in New Hampshire yesterday about solar-hydronic radiant space heating, given by Jack Mann of Nobis. It was arranged by BuildingGreen's pal Joseph Cincotta of LineSync Architecture as part of the "Sustainable Design and Building Science" course he... Read more

Blog Post

November 30, 2007
I'd like to call your attention to the "Editorial Radar" box on the right-hand navigation column—that brown stripe next to these posts. You may have to scroll down (or up) a little. The editors of Environmental Building News use del.icio.us social bookmarking to share links to interesting articles and other information on the internet with each... Read more

Blog Post

November 27, 2007
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... Read more

Blog Post

November 21, 2007
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... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2007
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. During the '06 show in Denver, I spent some time learning about the VRTX—say it "vortex"—sidestream "hydrodynamic cavitation" and filtration system. The... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2007
So, this is it. The shoe has dropped. The Fourth (and final) Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is out, and people seem to be paying attention. It got prominant coverage in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and a zillion other places—would have had even more impact if it were not on a Saturday, but... Read more

Blog Post

November 19, 2007

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.

I want to show off something that we have been working on that I'm really excited about. Working with the Department of... Read more