Ground- and water-source heat pumps move refrigerant or water through the ground or a body of water for use as a heat source (for indoor heating) or heat sink (for indoor cooling).

BuildingGreen-Approved Heat Pumps

BuildingGreen approves:

I am working on a new community development in St. Paul that is striving to achieve net-zero energy. We are able to get there mathematically by using the extra generation on light industrial rooftops to offset medium-density housing energy use (all buildings are anticipated to have different, private owners). However, this puts us over... Read more

The BuildingGreen Guide to Thermal Insulation provides detailed guidance on insulation products and practices, including recommendations on what insulation to use and what to avoid. It's a treasure trove of information for architects and designers, builders, and anyone who is actively considering the impact of insulation on the quality of your... Read more

Hi SDL Group - 

Our firm has been presented with a potential opportunity to share with USGBC National Representatives details about a few of our voiced concerns in the context of specific project administration efforts.

For us, these relate to two specific factors:

Hello fellow Green Gurus! 

I am very thrilled to share this news. "Global architecture, design and planning firm HLW is pleased to announce BEYOND, a cutting-edge sustainability consultancy working across the built environment to drive higher standards for sustainability, resilience, and building performance."

Please click here to... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Existing Buildings Are Architecture’s Future!

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:


Huge shout out to Patty Lloyd, Luke Leung, Janet Olsen, and Sarah Gudeman for their webinar on the Power of Peer Networks. They share lots of insights into the value of participating in BG Peer Networks and many others. Ten bucks to Illinois Green gets you access to the recording--I loved it. What would you have said that they didn't?

Hi everyone,

Happy new year!

The FIRST First Friday Fika* of 2024 is happening this Friday, January 5th from 11am to 12pm ET, hosted by Candace Pearson.

Here is the registration link for the Fikas, or if you've registered previously, you can use the same link for this week.

We look forward to seeing you Friday!

Hi Everyone, just as governors are regionally deciding how to reopen their economies, it's probably time we started thinking about what getting back to work looks like for us.  And, just as governors are leaning on each other for ideas and coordination, we can benefit from discussing strategies as a group.  To that end, I wanted to get your... Read more

Is there a list of which number corresponds with each Best Practice? E.g. "03 Energy Audit & Planning."

Southface will need a procedure for adding and assigning SMEs to the BITuser site. Normally you could just create the user in BITuser and assign the role right there, but we have the added complication of Salesforce SSO, which means the sequence will have a few extra steps.

Here's the basic outline:

Keith Hempel, Julie Hiromoto, and Billie Faircloth have been elevated to the AIA College of Fellows - I'm sure I'm missing others but congratulations! Can't wait to celebrate in person - I still rememer Lance Hosey in his tux and Beth Heider in a full ball gown at the AIA Fellows dinner in Chicago (the only one I ever attended. . .) 

Board insulation has good thermal performance ranging from about R-4 to R-8 and is used as an integral part of a building envelope’s continuous insulation system.

Because board insulation is used on the building exterior, it is not always subject to the same material health and emissions requirements as batt insulation used inside the... Read more

I was sitting in on the USGBC's monthly Advocacy call this afternoon and heard about a state-local policy proposal to use property tax incentive for GHG reductions.  Through a state-local partnership, owners of existing residential and commercial buildings who invest in qualifying outcome-based improvements would receive a property tax... Read more

This is specifically to Chris but also to anybody who is interested in the topic - which Chris raised on our SAL call today, regarding how to influence change:

From this article, which i thought was good but had a great paragraph pulled below.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/business/Steve-Mollenkopf-Qualcomm-corner-office.html... Read more

We have a client for whom we are designing a very high performance manufacturing facility, and they want to communicate their building's performance both dynamically and in real-time within their lobby for guests and staff.

We would like to mine the wisdom of this group to see what recommendations we can muster regarding high quality... Read more