In February, the Virginia legislature rejected a bill that would have allowed local officials to

control development through restrictions on home building and infrastructure fees for developers. The measure was supported by a coalition of communities in high-growth parts of the state but strongly opposed by the development and real... Read more

On May 9, 2000 the

NextGen factory-built house developed through the U.S. government’s

Partnership for Advanced Technology in Housing (PATH) will be unveiled in Danbury, Connecticut. NextGen was designed with support from Steven Winter Associates, Inc. of Norwalk, Connecticut, and built by New Era of Strattanville, Pennsylvania... Read more

I always read

EBN all the way through, but I look for the best parts and go to them first. After leafing through the whole magazine, I started on the “Structure as Finish” article (

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 3), thinking at first—“not so interesting.” By the time I was into the third... Read more

Solatube International, the Australian company that launched the tubular skylight industry in 1989, has acquired the Phoenix-based SunLight Systems, Inc. and their SunStar product line. SunStar tubular skylights are among the most advanced in the industry and include an extra layer of glazing to boost energy... Read more

On March 9, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new regulations designed to reduce

pollution from small power equipment, such as lawnmowers, chainsaws, and weed trimmers. The regulations, to be phased in over seven years, are expected to reduce the emission of smog-causing pollutants by 350,000 tons (320,000 tonnes... Read more

2nd edition, 2000. Austin Energy, PO Box 1088, Austin, TX 78767-8844; 512/505-3700, 512/499-2859 (fax). 3-ring binder format, 266 pages, $60.

The

Sustainable Building Sourcebook came out in 1993 (see

EBN

Vol. 3, No. 1) as one of the leading resources on green building, providing... Read more

Flooring, paneling, and other wood products from Green Mountain Woodworks (GMW) in Southwestern... Read more

In December 1998, Hurd MillWORK agreed to a $5.3 million class-action settlement relating to claims about R-value in gas-fill windows that were shipped with breather tubes installed. Andersen Windows devotes a full page in this year’s residential product catalog to “High Altitude Glass Considerations.” The window industry is struggling with the... Read more

Liverpool High School, near Syracuse, New York, has become the first high school to install a fuel cell. The school’s ONSI PC25 fuel cell will be used both as a power source and a teaching tool. Funding was provided, in part, from the state of New York and the U.S. Department of Defense.

A call-for-entries has gone out for the 2000 Aurora Awards competition for residential design and construction (both single- and multifamily) from the Southeast Building Conference. Projects located within the 11 southeastern states are eligible for the Awards, which cover a whopping 75 categories, including water conservation, energy... Read more

Steelcase, the office furniture manufacturer, is set to break ground on a new wood furniture plant in Gaines Township, Michigan. The new facility, designed by William McDonough + Partners, will be the first manufacturing building of its size rated by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program. Projected emissions reductions of 70% as... Read more

Visionwall Technologies, Inc., a leading manufacturer of high-efficiency curtain-wall glazing systems (see University of Victoria Engineering Laboratory case study in

EBN

Vol. 6, No. 7), went into receivership on February 24, 2000. Customers should see little effect from this action, however, as Visionwall Corporation has taken... Read more

The Metropolitan Forum Project of Los Angeles is seeking to reshape the way the city designs and builds public schools. Instead of huge schools serving 5,000-plus students, the “New Schools, Better Neighborhoods” project is proposing neighborhood-scaled schools serving around 500 students. Along with reducing the extensive public school... Read more

Black and Vernooy Architects of Austin, Texas won a Southern Home Award for new construction from

Southern Living magazine. The long back porch of the May residence, located at Lake Austin, was carefully designed to follow the sun, and indigenous materials from the surrounding Texas landscape were used for interior and exterior... Read more

Version 4.0 of the popular E Build Library CD-ROM is now in production, with copies expected to ship starting in early May. The comprehensive archive features all 57 back issues of

Environmental Building News from the first, in 1992, through 1999. The text is fully searchable using Adobe Acrobat® text search or via hotlinks from the... Read more

On March 3, 2000 Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson announced $133 million in support for state weatherization programs to improve the energy efficiency of low-income households. Services that might be provided or subsidized under the various state and tribal programs include insulation, sealing ducts, adding weatherstripping, installing... Read more

The carbohydrate economy is moving a little closer to reality with the announcement in January that Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc. and Dow Chemical are teaming up to build the first large-scale “renewable” plastics plant. Completion of the 140,000 metric-ton, $300 million plant in Blair, Nebraska is scheduled for late 2001. Natural plant sugars... Read more

I was not so convinced by the case for building commissioning as I expected to be when I began reading the article in

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 2.

After several years of sporadic publication, the newsletter Building with Nature: Placemaking that Supports Life has seen its last issue. Editor Carol Venolia was an original

EBN Advisory Board member, and her newsletter was an excellent complement to

EBN, addressing more of the spiritual and intuitive aspects of environmentally... Read more

Despite the

cooling expected from the weather phenomenon La Niña, 1999 was still the fifth hottest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In related news, NOAA scientists suggest in an article in the March 1 issue of

Geophysical Research Letters that the string of record... Read more