News Brief
Following on the heels of a growing concern over mold contamination comes
Mold Dog™, a group that trains dogs to find and sit on 18 of the most common toxic molds. For details, visit
www.mold-dog.com or call 1-800-Mold Dog.
News Brief
by Joseph W. Lstiburek, Ph.D., P.Eng.; Energy & Environmental Building Association, Minneapolis, MN, 2002. Available from EEBA, 952-881-1098,
www.eeba.org. Spiral-bound, 42 pages, $18 ($15 members).
TheEEBA Water Management Guide is a clear, concise booklet about preventing rain and groundwater entry into houses and light-... Read more
Product Review
EBN
Vol. 11, No. 10 and
Vol. 6, No. 8). We recently discovered another such product—made by Bricor Analytical, Inc. in Colorado Springs, Colorado. While quite different from the ETL products technologically, Bricor... Read more
News Analysis
A manufacturing facility built with great green hopes is now spending most of its time making a more conventional product. Great Lakes MDF, LLC has purchased the Lackawanna, New York medium-density fiberboard (MDF) plant formerly owned by The CanFibre Group, Ltd. The plant initially relied on phenol-formaldehyde binders in place of conventional... Read more
News Brief
CD-ROM released in 2003 by ASTM International, 100 Barr Harbor Dr., PO Box C700, W. Conshohocken, PA 19428; 610-832-9585,
www.astm.org. Stock No.: Green03, $175 in North America, $193 elsewhere.
At the behest of its Committee E06.71 on Sustainability, ASTM has released a volume of its “Standards on CD-ROM” series focusing on... Read moreNews Analysis
News Brief
The Environmental Council of Concrete Organizations is crisscrossing North America this August with a
“Road Show” on the role of concrete in sustainable design. The faculty includes two lecturers from the U.K. and one American, representing expertise in urban planning, architecture, engineering, and materials research. The speakers,... Read more
News Analysis
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Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities, the first national conference on green roofs, was held May 29–30 in Chicago, drawing more than 500... Read more
News Brief
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The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) awarded this year’s
Environmental Sensitivity Awards to two architecture firms that specialize in... Read more
Feature
Water in all forms threatens buildings.
I am continually surprised by how little emphasis the green building movement places on building science. As we examine the many priorities of green building—from land-use planning to energy efficiency, material selection, and indoor air quality—the basic science of how we design and build structures to ensure long life and healthy indoor... Read more
News Brief
The IRS has approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit status for the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Until now, USGBC has been a 501(c)(6) “trade association,” but in October 2001 the Board decided to pursue a shift in status. President and CEO Christine Ervin believes the new designation ”will communicate to the public and potential funders that our... Read more
News Brief
In late May 2003, winners of the first annual Green Roof Awards of Excellence were announced during the first national green roofs conference (see page 3). Award recipients and their projects are described below:
• Katrin Scholz-Barth Consulting, green roof consultant – Montgomery Park Business Center, Baltimore, Maryland: 30,000 ft2... Read more
News Analysis
PPG Coil and Extrusion Coatings has released a variant of its Duranar® coatings for metal roofs that contains special pigments to reduce solar gain. With these new “Duranar SPF” coatings, 98% of PPG’s standard colors meet the EPA Energy Star steep-roof threshold of 25% total solar reflectivity, whereas with standard Duranar coatings about half... Read more
News Analysis
News Brief
SunPower Corporation has announced that their new A-300 crystalline-silicon solar cell converts over one fifth of the sunlight hitting it into electricity. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has verified a
20.4% conversion efficiency for the 125-millimeter, single-crystal A-300 cell, making it likely to become the most efficient... Read more
Product Review
Growing its collection of innovations in the flooring industry, Interface, Inc. has introduced FLOR™, a modular flooring system designed for use in homes. FLOR’s ten product lines represent a variety of fabrics, colors, textures, and patterns. According to Chip DeGrace, InterfaceFLOR’s vice president of marketing, “FLOR bridges hard surface and... Read more
News Analysis
On May 9, 2003, the Board of Directors of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) unanimously passed a resolution titled “Support for Green Building.” The resolution lays out a number of issues and goals, which boil down to two primary objectives: to acknowledge and support the interest in green building among many builders and local... Read more
News Brief
The
University of Cincinnati invites applications for a tenure-track position in the School of Architecture and Interior Design (SAID) in the area of environmental technologies. For further information, contact: David Lee Smith, Professor of Architecture, david.smith@uc.edu, 513-556-5291.
News Brief
One hundred thousand homes have earned the Environmental Protection Agency’s
Energy Star® designation. Each home that meets the voluntary criteria uses an average of 30% less energy for heating, cooling, and water heating than a conventional home, saving homeowners about $200 to $400 annually. According to EPA, the program saves... Read more
News Brief
, a Martha’s Vineyard design/build firm, seeks a residential architect and/or designer committed to ecological design. For details, visit
www.somoco.com or e-mail John Abrams at jabrams@vineyard.net.




