Following five years of litigation, Arizona courts have upheld residents’

right to install solar water heaters and photovoltaic panels. When residents of an Avondale, Arizona master-planned community installed solar panels to heat their swimming pools, Garden Lakes Community Association retaliated by filing a lawsuit requiring removal... Read more

EBN mourns the death of Jeffrey Cook, Regents Professor of Architecture at Arizona State University in Tempe and a pioneer in low-energy, passive solar design, who died of colon cancer on March 27. He chaired several early Passive Solar Conferences, was the founding editor in 1980 of the

Passive Solar Journal, and was a founder of the... Read more

is seeking volunteers and donations as they prepare for a

Middle East refugee crisis stemming from the war in Iraq. Iran, bordering both Iraq and Afghanistan—and already estimated to house more refugees than any other country—is bracing for the possible influx of over one million additional Iraqis in coming... Read more

The Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, will offer a course in

International Sustainable Building and Urban Design this September. The course, intended for mid-career professionals, will include expert workshops, excursions in Germany and Belgium, and participation in the... Read more

Robert Fox has left his position as senior principal with Fox & Fowle Architects to open a new firm:

Robert Fox Architect. At his new firm, Fox intends to focus on “environmentally responsible, high-performance buildings for a select group of clients in New York City.” “So far, the response has been terrific,” Fox reports, “and it... Read more

Vol. 11, No. 11), designers pursuing LEED™ Indoor Environmental Quality Credit 4.4 have been at a loss for fire-retardant panel products. This credit requires that composite wood and ag-fiber products contain no added urea-... Read more

The Bush Administration has rolled out the Integrated Sequestration and Hydrogen Research Initiative, a $1 billion partnership between government and industry to design, build, and operate a coal-fired electricity and hydrogen production plant. The 275-megawatt prototype plant, known as FutureGen, will rely on coal gasification to produce... Read more

Ren Anderson of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory wins this month’s award for finding a hidden error in the water heating feature article in our October 2002 issue (

Vol. 11, No. 10). He astutely noted that in our text and graphic on page 9, explaining water-heating system efficiency losses, the percentages of heat loss and end-... Read more

Several new developments at the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning (ASHRAE) reflect the Society’s growing focus on issues of sustainability. These include the creation of a new technical committee (TC) on the topic, the signing of a partnering agreement with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and the... Read more

Clearview Elementary School in Hanover,... Read more

San Mateo County Green... Read more

Whether or not Iraq’s mammoth oil reserves have anything to do with our war to oust Saddam Hussein, our dependence on foreign oil is indisputably bad for this country. We spend over $100 billion annually on petroleum imports, accounting for roughly 20% of our balance-of-trade deficit (2002). The entire U.S. economy shudders whenever temporary... Read more

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clean water regulations, demanding that construction sites larger than one acre (0.4 ha) obtain a

National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, became effective March 10. (The rule has applied to sites larger than 5 acres/2 ha since 1990.) The regulations were not enacted... Read more

Both the number and the severity of droughts and storms are on the rise, according to a new report by the World Water Council. These and other manifestations of global climate change have contributed to a

tenfold increase in economic losses from weather-related catastrophes over the past five decades. The 1990s saw more significant... Read more

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has announced a call for papers for its ninth

Performance of Exterior Envelopes of Whole Buildings conference, to be held December 5–10, 2004 in Clearwater Beach, Florida. The conference will be organized along two tracks: “principles” will be devoted to research, while “practices” will explore applications... Read more

is a free resource from the Feds that provides information on technologies and processes for improving the sustainability of large buildings. We at BuildingGreen edited the 2nd Edition (see review, EBN

Vol. 10, No. 7/8).

The

Autoclaved Aerated Concrete Products Association (AACPA) offers a wealth of information about autoclaved aerated concrete and its structural and insulating capabilities. The organization aims “to promote the AAC industry in all aspects,” with the eventual goal of mainstreaming AAC in American construction. For more information on... Read more