BuildingGreen Report

Product Review

April 5, 2007
Lighting Science Group (LSG) has introduced a number of LED lamps and fixtures that will help to advance the rapidly evolving LED lighting field. (For more on light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, see EBN

Vol. 15, No. 7.) LSG’s line of LED lighting products (see table below) incorporates the company’s proprietary Optimized Digital Lighting (ODL)... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the recipients of its first WaterSense labels for landscape irrigation certification programs. The Irrigation Association’s programs to certify irrigation designers and contractors have been recognized by EPA for their ability to teach principles of water-saving irrigation design.... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007
The American Institute of Architects College of Fellows awarded its 2007 Latrobe Prize to a research group studying New York City’s harbor. The $100,000 grant will support research of future development in the area, looking at urban ecology, parks, transportation infrastructure, as well as possible rising sea levels from global warming. The study... Read more

Product Review

April 5, 2007
The AutoMotion Parking System creates a fully automated parking garage. Park your car at the door and swipe your credit card, and the machine transfers your car onto a lift on tracks that shuttles it into an available slot. AutoMotion touts the benefits of avoided human contact (reducing risk of damage or theft) and of increased parking capacity—... Read more

News Analysis

April 5, 2007

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) seem to have reached widespread acceptance: large retailers such as Wal-Mart are encouraging their customers to purchase the energy-saving lamps, Chinese manufacturing has significantly reduced costs, and rebates are available for them in some areas. Now there are several initiatives to ban the sale and use of... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

A McGraw-Hill Construction study, the

Education Green Building SmartMarket Report, suggests that green schools represent a growing sector of the construction market. The $53 billion education sector currently represents over 27% of the construction market by value, and the study suggests that the green portion of this market will be... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

The Bank of America (BOA) has announced significant additions to its environmental initiatives, unveiling $20 billion in loan programs, market encouragement, and consumer products. For its commercial customers, BOA will launch a carbon emissions trading system and offer favorable consideration to loans for companies focusing on environmentally... Read more

Feature

April 5, 2007
Indoor plumbing is closely associated with advanced western civilizations such as Rome as well as withmodern industrial economies. Bringing clean and reliable supplies of freshwater into homes and workplaces and safely transporting wastewater from buildings to treatment facilities have been credited with taming outbreaks of infectious disease that... Read more

Op-Ed

April 5, 2007

Thank you for your recent review of Cradle to Cradle certification (see

EBN

Vol. 16, No. 2), and the more general look at nascent attempts to understand and assess the thousands of materials we put in our buildings. As usual, the article was thorough, clear, and complete, and I salute both

EBN and all those about whom... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

Great Britain is the latest to join the growing portfolio of countries with their own green building councils. The U.K. Green Building Council (UKGBC), headed by Paul King, will be the official British affiliate of the World Green Building Council and will promote and represent green building throughout the country. UKGBC has officially adopted... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

New Resource Bank, a San Francisco bank founded by a group of green entrepreneurs, is offering financial incentives for green building projects. The bank will offer a higher loan-to-value ratio and a 1⁄8% discount on rates for loans to commercial or multiunit residential green projects. Open since November 2006, the bank has financed several... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced its Honor Awards for 2007, recognizing 11 buildings for excellence in architecture, interior design, and urban design. Among the winners are several green buildings:

• The

World Birding Center Headquarters in Mission, Texas, designed by Lake Flato Architects, is an integral part of... Read more

Product Review

April 5, 2007
Anyone who has used a laptop computer has probably benefited from cold-cathode fluorescent lighting. Now the same technology that back-lights those computer screens is making its way into decorative and area lighting with the Micro-Brite line of cold-cathode compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) from Litetronics.

In conventional CFLs, a

hot... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007
The Center for Heath and Healing at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon, is the first medical center to achieve a Platinum rating in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System. The 16-story, 400,000-ft2 (37,000-m2) building features a chilled beam and displacement ventilation system, a membrane bioreactor for... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

The American Institute of Architects has announced the admission of 76 architects to its College of Fellows for 2007. Elected to the position by a jury of their peers, fellows are recognized for their design achievements and for their service to the profession and the public. Among the fellows recognized were several who specialize in green... Read more

Product Review

With the durability of cement backerboards but with a carbon footprint closer to gypsum, Green E-Board panels are an intriguing new drywall option.

April 5, 2007

With the durability and moisture-resistance advantages of cement and a carbon footprint closer to that of gypsum, Green E-Board panels are an intriguing new option for tile backerboard, wallboard, and potentially even exterior sheathing. The panels are manufactured from magnesium oxide (MgO) cement (also known as oxychloride cement), which is... Read more

News Analysis

March 6, 2007
InterfaceFLOR®, LLC, a division of Interface, Inc., announced recently that all of its commercial products are certified by the Climate Neutral Network as climate neutral. Some of Interface’s product lines had previously been climate-neutral as part of its Cool Carpet™ program (see

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 10); the company has expanded that... Read more

News Brief

March 6, 2007

A report released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggests that power generation from enhanced geothermal systems (EGSs) could provide 100 gigawatts of electrical capacity within 50 years, or 10% of the current U.S. capacity. EGS uses forced water to fracture hot rock deep under the Earth’s surface, opening reservoirs that... Read more

Feature

March 6, 2007
While most green design strategies work at the scale of individual buildings, some of the most exciting opportunities avail themselves only when we look at the larger scale. Building for mixed uses can reduce automobile dependence, for example, and compact development can be coupled with the permanent protection of open areas. We should add to... Read more

News Brief

March 6, 2007

The federal Energy Star™ program has announced that homes built with structural insulated panels (SIPs) are no longer required to undergo a blower-door test to qualify for an Energy Star rating. Instead, homes built using SIPs for all exterior walls and roof construction can choose to qualify for Energy Star through a visual inspection by a... Read more