Dutch publishers of a simplified guidebook for choosing environmentally preferable materials are being sued for suggesting that zinc roofing be avoided. An English translation of the book has just been published in the U.K. under the title

Handbook of Sustainable Building (James & James Ltd., March 1996), but will not be distributed... Read more

A hotly contested contract to provide green design services for a 200,000 ft2 (18,000 m2) science building at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont has gone to a team led by

EBN Advisory Board member Bob Berkebile of BNIM Architects in Kansas City. This green team includes engineers Greg Allen and Marc Rosenbaum, another

EBN... Read more

by Guy Sternberg and Jim Wilson. Chapters Publishing, Ltd., Shelburne, Vermont, 1995. 288 pages; paperback $24.95.

The Minnesota legislature is considering a statewide carbon tax of $50 per ton on all fuels and electricity consumed in the state, according to the 8 March 1996

Global Environmental Change Report. The law, which is given little chance of passage this year, would tax nuclear-generated electricity but exempt renewable energy sources. The... Read more

by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia and Philadelphia, 1996. 160 pages; hardcover $39.95, paperback $14.95.

In spite of tight construction budgets, the Raleigh, North Carolina-based architecture firm Innovative Design, Inc. has convinced several regional school districts to incorporate roof monitors for... Read more

As always, your dossier on windows was very informative. Below are a few other points to look for.

Manufacturers argue that, properly installed and operated, these heaters pose no threat, but the many warnings and cautions in the installation manuals suggest that... Read more

Energy consumption in the U.S. during 1995 totaled 87.2 quads or quadrillion Btu (92 x 1018 J), according to the March 1996

Monthly Energy Review, published by the DOE Energy Information Administration. This record level represents an increase of 1.8% over 1994 consumption.

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

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.

In a move that would appear to reinforce the National Association of Home Builders’ anti-environmental policies, the Association’s Committee on Energy was voted out of existence at the January 29 Board of Directors’ meeting. Ironically, the decision was made just a day after the First Annual Energy Value Housing Awards were presented, with the... 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

Thank you for the review you gave WWPA’s

Eco-Profile of Lumber Produced in the Western United States: Life Cycle Inventory of WWPA Western Lumber. Your comments on the study were both thorough and fair.

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

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

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

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