In a unique agreement, the leaders of four architectural institutions have committed to sustainable design. The “

Barcelona Declaration on Sustainable Design” was signed at the Construmat Fair in Barcelona, Spain by Jaime Lerner, representing the International Union of Architects (and former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil); Paul Hyett, for... Read more

® landscape timbers, fencing, and pavers made from 100% post-consumer plastics, closed its doors in February. The Stamford, Connecticut company survived perennial capital shortages over its 15 years until an accident last April left owner Celeste Johnson unable to maintain sales streams, which plummeted more... Read more

by Angela Dean. Gibbs Smith Publishers, Layton, Utah, 2003; 136 pages, softcover, $24.95

Homeowners wanting to understand what a green home is and custom home builders wanting to introduce green home ideas to potential clients could benefit... Read more

Continuing a trend of rapid growth, the

U.S. Green Building Council announced in early February that it had accepted its 4,000th member. USGBC membership—which is open only to companies and organizations, not to individuals—hit 2,000 in September of 2002 and 3,000 in May of 2003.

11 liters) of diesel fuel each year, emitting over 350 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Facing a predicted 25% increase in these numbers by 2012, EPA launched a new program in February focused on making America’s... Read more

Please explain what makes “polyester yarn … impregnated with an acrylic-based material” fire resistant, as claimed in the article “PVC-Free Interior Shade Screening from Nysan” (

Vol. 12, No. 12). As far as we know, polyester and acrylics are both flammable.

Tim Burns, President

The Vinyl Institute

Arlington,... Read more

A recent design team solicitation from the Architect of the Capitol placed a whopping

25% of its selection criteria on the teams’ green design capabilities. “We believe this level of emphasis is a new high-water mark for the federal government,” said Terrel Emmons, FAIA, director of Planning and Programming. The project, being procured... Read more

™ vapor retarder, which changes permeability according to relative humidity, has been awarded an Innovative Housing Technology Award in the energy category from the NAHB Research Center and EH Publishing. CertainTeed is online at www.certainteed.com. See

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 11 for a review of MemBrain.

A new program is making it easier for Puget Sound residents to make their homes more efficient. Through a partnership with Efficiency Services Group (a division of Portland General Electric), HomeStreet Bank has started the

Mortgage Options for Resource Efficiency (MORE™) program. Participants in the program receive custom home energy... Read more

A study by leading global climate scientist Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Larissa Nazarenko of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies suggests that carbon black (soot) from the

burning of diesel, biomass, and other fuels may contribute more than was previously thought to global warming, especially in polar regions. Soot accumulation on... Read more

Last October’s issue of

EBN (

Vol. 12, No. 10) was another great one. My non-expert two cents on the filtration issue is that the best way to do HVAC in buildings (at least buildings other than single-family homes) is to separate space conditioning, which is an intermittent load, from ventilation, which is always present during... Read more

by Mark Francis, 2003, Island Press. Paperback, 90 pages, $25.

Another book about Village Homes? I have to admit to being skeptical when I picked up this new title, the first in a series of place-based case studies from the Landscape Architecture Foundation. But

Village Homes: A Community by Design is a real gem, and it does... Read more

Meanwhile, University of Georgia researchers have found that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)—including fluoxetine and other common

antidepressants—delay both development in fish and metamorphosis in frogs. The affected animals eventually caught up with their drug-free peers, “but we know that in water, timing is... Read more

In its Beyond 2000 Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) set a goal of reducing nonmunicipal solid waste by 88% by 2010. In order to reach that goal, the SWMP has proposed banning the disposal of construction and demolition (C&D) waste at both private and municipally owned landfills... Read more

Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC) has begun the aged-testing component of its product rating program. CRRC has been providing third-party verification of both initial solar reflectance and initial thermal emittance of roofing products since September 2002 (see

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 7), and this aged-testing component adds another... Read more

A recent study that compared development patterns to the health of over 200,000 people in 448 counties in major metropolitan areas around the U.S. found that

car-dependent suburbanites suffer from obesity and high blood pressure at a greater rate than city-dwellers. The report, “Relationship between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity,... Read more