BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

June 1, 2005
Jeffrey Johnson, executive director of the nonprofit New Buildings Institute, Inc., died in a mountain biking accident near his home in the Columbia River Gorge in May 2005. Johnson was instrumental in expanding the organization’s focus on such issues as daylighting, productivity, and regional and international codes and standards. Memories of... Read more

News Analysis

June 1, 2005
Are occupants more satisfied in LEED® buildings than in conventional buildings? This would seem to be a critical question for LEED users, if not for the green building community as a whole, given the connection between occupant satisfaction and the much-touted economic benefits of productivity and well-being. Yet occupant satisfaction isn’t easy... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005

Ecotone Publishing has announced plans to publish

Who’s Green?, envisioned as “the preeminent resource book for locating firms, organizations, and institutions that are actively participating in the growth of the sustainable design and construction field,” according to Ecotone. It will include architecture, engineering, interior design... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has revised its estimate of the size of the global market for FSC-certified products. Previously believed to fall somewhere between $3 billion and $5 billion (see

EBN

Vol. 13, No. 10), the market is now believed to be “in excess of $5 billion.” The revision is based on the results of a global... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005

The organizers of the Rethinking Sustainable Construction 2006 (RSC06) conference, set for Sarasota, Florida, in September, are calling for “creative content” proposals, ranging from research papers to problem-solving workshops. The international conference is intended to “produce an agenda for the future of green buildings,” as described in... Read more

News Analysis

June 1, 2005

A bill being debated in the California legislature would ban both bisphenol-A and certain phthalate plasticizers in baby products. Bill AB 319, introduced in the California legislature in February 2005 by Assemblywoman Wilma Chan of Oakland, would ban, effective January 1, 2007, the manufacture, sale, or distribution in commerce of any product... Read more

Product Review

June 1, 2005
Specialty plastic films have been used for decades as a retrofit measure to reduce solar heat gain through windows. Many early aftermarket films were better at stopping light than heat, however. Applied to the interior glazing surface, tinted films were designed to prevent solar gain by absorbing the full spectrum of the sun: both light and heat.... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005
Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) has announced the 2005

Lewis Mumford Award winners. The award for Peace went to Architecture for Humanity for its “passion and dedication connecting architects and designers with communities in need around the world.” The award for Development went to United Indian Health... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005
SmartWood, the sustainable forestry program of the Rainforest Alliance, has audited and certified Potlatch Corporation’s 473,000 acres (190,000 ha) of Arkansas forestland according to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards. Additionally, Potlatch’s pine sawmill in Warren, Arkansas, has achieved FSC chain-of-custody certification, allowing the... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005
Chris Schaffner, P.E., a member of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED® advanced faculty, has started his own consulting firm, The Green Engineer. He will continue his work as an elected member of USGBC’s LEED-NC Core Committee and as a member of the LEED Indoor Environmental Quality Technical Advisory Group. Prior to founding The Green... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005
The Portland, Oregon, city council has strengthened the city’s four-year-old green building policy (see

EBN Vol. 10, No. 2) to require that all new municipal facilities achieve LEED® Gold certification (joining only Scottsdale, Arizona, and Vancouver, British Columbia, in calling for Gold). Major retrofits and existing occupied buildings will... Read more

News Brief

June 1, 2005
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has announced the third annual Green Roof Awards of Excellence “to recognize green roof projects which exhibit extraordinary leadership in integrated design and implementation.” Intensive green roofs have more than 6" (152 mm) of planting medium, while extensive have 6" or less. More information about green roofs and... Read more

Feature

Greening the Design and Construction of Healthcare Facilities

June 1, 2005

What we do to our environment, we do to ourselves, the saying goes. Nowhere is this principle played out more dramatically than in our hospitals, where doctors and nurses work the front lines against environmental illness, treating patients for cancers caused by exposure to toxic materials, asthma triggered by breathing dirty air, and heat... Read more

Feature

May 1, 2005
Building materials have undergone a breakneck evolution in the past century. Standard dimensions and shapes, predictable qualities, and manufactured precision make it quicker and easier to design and construct new buildings with laser-flat walls, straight and sharp corners, and glass-smooth floors. For most people, the more crisp, precise, and... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2005
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected eight

Green Projects and one

Special Recognition from among more than 60 entries. This year’s jury included Bob Berkebile, FAIA, of Berkebile Nelson Immerschuh McDowell (BNIM) Architects; Daniel Nall, FAIA, of Flack & Kurtz, Inc.; Henry Siegel, FAIA, of Siegel & Strain... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2005

U.S. net imports of petroleum reached a record level in 2004, coming in at 57.8% of all petroleum used, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. Just over 19% of those imports came from the Persian Gulf countries. EIA is online at www.eia.doe.gov.

News Brief

May 1, 2005
by John Abrams; Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, VT, 2005; 328 pages, $27.50, hardcover

South Mountain Company, cofounded by EBN advisory board member John Abrams, has been a pioneer in democratizing the workplace. The Martha’s Vineyard design-build firm, founded in 1975, became an employee-owned company in 1987. Not only is... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2005

The North Carolina State Energy Office named Raleigh-based Innovative Design, Inc.,

North Carolina’s Energy Champion in March 2005. Led by Michael Nicklas, FAIA, Innovative Design has been incorporating active and passive solar design, energy efficiency, and other green features into its buildings since its beginnings in 1977. More... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2005
The Boulder Community Foothills Hospital, designed by Boulder Associates, Inc., and OZ Architecture, has been given the

Vista Award for excellence in the design and construction of environmentally sustainable healthcare facilities from the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE). The Boulder Community Foothills Hospital became the... Read more

News Brief

May 1, 2005
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dropped a pending requirement that only certified contractors using workers trained in lead-safe practices be allowed to remodel or renovate buildings constructed before 1978, when lead paint was banned. Voluntary compliance is more cost-effective, especially in light of the decentralized nature... Read more