BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

May 1, 2001

On Monday, April 23, The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) announced the winners of the Top Ten Green Projects initiative at the Forum 2001 Conference in Washington, D.C. Winners were selected for their success in the integration of architecture, technology, and natural systems. Contact... Read more

Op-Ed

May 1, 2001
Jerelyn Wilson

(who is married to Alex) helped to launch

EBN and build our readership in the early ’90s. Now she has returned as Outreach Director and will be working on new ways to familiarize the building community with

EBN and our other products.

Among other tasks, she is contacting workshop presenters and conference... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2001

At the 2001 Convention of The American Institute of Architects in Denver, AIA members reacted remarkably quickly to the Bush Administrations Energy Policy, which was released as the convention got under way. On May 19, 2001 delegates passed a resolution titled “

Design and Energy Efficiency Initiative-Committee on the Environment,”... Read more

Feature

May 1, 2001

Most of us have a general understanding that buildings and the process of development have a pretty big impact on the environment. But what are those impacts and just how significant are they?

For this article, we have attempted to track down a wide range of statistics on the impacts of buildings on the environment. Most of these are fairly... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2001

Advances in wireless communication and Global Positioning System

(GPS) tracking are improving mass transit. A system created by NextBus sends users automated phone alerts when a designated bus is nearing their bus stop. The system has been extensively tested in San Francisco and was recently installed in Vail, Colorado. For information... Read more

News Analysis

May 1, 2001
EBN

recently reported on sulfurous emissions from painted drywall (

EBN feature

Vol. 9, No. 11), but the actual source of the problem was a mystery. We now have some answers. According to Joe Lstiburek of Building Science Corporation, some painstaking investigation and very expensive chemical sampling has identified the problem:... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2001

by James Wines, edited by Philip Jodidio, 2000. Taschen; Köln, Germany. Paperback, 240 pages, $24.99

“Without art, the whole idea of sustainability fails.” With this principle at its core,

Green Architecture argues that technological approaches to reducing the environmental impacts of buildings are, in themselves, not enough to head off... Read more

Product Review

Made of 100% recycled EPS beads held in a cementitious matrix, Tech Block's new insulated concrete forms (ICFs) are similar in concept to the Rastra system.

May 1, 2001

There are quite a few insulated concrete form (ICF) systems on the market whose manufacturers make a variety of resource efficiency claims.

EBN came across an interesting newcomer, Tech Block, at this year’s Greenprints conference in Atlanta. Tech Block uses 100% recycled EPS in a cementitious matrix similar to the popular Rastra system... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2001

Beginning in January of this year, all new

homes sold in England and Wales have to display energy ratings. The ratings are required by the revised Building Regulations and Approved Inspectors Regulations 2000, which was formally approved last October. Home ratings are based on the Standard Assessment Procedure for Energy Rating of... Read more

Op-Ed

April 1, 2001

I have read your article covering the SB2000 Conference in The Netherlands (

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 1), and the response from Nils Larsson, executive director of the International Institute for a Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE) in the following issue. I appreciate Nils’ statement that iiSBE intends to cooperate with the World... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2001

According to the National Climate Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),

global temperatures in 2000 were 0.39°C (0.7°F) higher than the long-term (1880-1999) average. This makes 2000 the sixth hottest year on record (after 1998, 1997, 1995, 1990, and 1999). Land temperatures were 0.59°C (1.1°F) above... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 2001

They have become a part of too many American landscapes: abandoned or irreversibly declining retail malls. The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) has dubbed them “greyfields malls.” According to a recent analysis PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) conducted as a part of the CNU “Greyfields Mall Study,” there are more than 140 regional malls—sites... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2001
Locoshop Angus, an abandoned locomotive workshop in Montreal that has been redeveloped in a multifunctional industrial center for small and mid-sized businesses, won two awards at the

National Post Design Exchange Awards Gala, held on January 25, 2001 in Toronto.

The project won a Gold Award in the category “Built Environments, Grand... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2001

The worldwide

costs of climate change will reach $300 billion annually by 2050, predicts Munich RE, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies. These costs will result from more frequent tropical cyclones, land loss due to rising sea levels, and damage to fishing stocks, agriculture, and water supplies. In the U.S., an estimated... Read more

Feature

April 1, 2001
Long-time green architects Rob Harrison of Harrison Architects and George Ostrow of Velocipede Architects feel pretty lucky when it comes to specifying and obtaining green building materials. “We are in a unique position here in Seattle.

We have the Environmental Home Center—almost an ‘Eco-Home Depot’—where our clients can see and actually... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 2001

At a March 28–30, 2001 meeting in Racine Wisconsin, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) members and staff met to discuss coordination of the LEED™ Rating System’s various products (see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6). Participants at the meeting, which was hosted by the USGBC and The Johnson Foundation, were members of the overall LEED... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2001
EBN

is pleased to be honored by

Metropolitan Home magazine as one the

Design 100 Best of the Best: People, Places, Extraordinary Things in the “Design that Makes a Difference” category. Also recognized are architect (and

EBN Advisory Board member) Gail Lindsey, landscape architect Julie Bargmann, eco-designer Wendy... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2001

The

Architecture + Energy: Building Excellence in Sustainable Design awards program from the AIA/Portland Chapter recognizes the integration of design excellence with sustainable principles and conservation technology in commercial buildings. Historically restricted to buildings in the Northwestern U.S., this year the program invites... Read more

Product Review

April 1, 2001
The idea of an acoustic building panel made without binders from an agricultural waste material is highly attractive. Several years ago, such a product was available in North America from Stramit USA, LLC (see

EBN

Vol. 4, No. 3). That product was based on the British product Stramit, which was invented in the 1940s and has been in... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2001

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) are partnering to establish the

best available practices in

life-cycle assessment. The Life Cycle Inititative should go a long way toward harmonizing existing methods, databases, and life-cycle tools. This initiative... Read more