Forum topic
What is your favorite, tangible example of an EUI?
I find it easy for individuals to undervalue the power of a single EUI and curious what useful parallel the creative folks in this forum have used to illiterate its compounding value?
Cheers!
DiAnn
Quiz
Welcome to the quiz portion of In-House Daylight Modeling.
Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:
1. Explain general daylighting theory and design.
2. Simulate towards better daylighting design.
3. Demonstrate how daylight modeling is used in practice.
4.... Read more
Product Guide
Sheathing should be designed for durability, but some sheathing materials can be toxic or may contribute to moisture issues inside the building envelope.
BuildingGreen-Approved Sheathing
Sheathing approved by BuildingGreen contains recycled content, rapidly renewable materials, or otherwise provides exceptional performance, such... Read more
Forum topic
Small Firm Sustainable Design Leaders –
I find it hard to believe calls for session proposals are already out for next year’s AIA Conference on Architecture. I feel like I just got back!
At my firm, we try to have all principals and associates to submit a proposal each year. I had a couple of take-aways from this year’s... Read more
Author
Products & Materials Specialist Brent Ehrlich excels at deep, unbiased, and nuanced technical research on the health and environmental impacts of green building products and materials. Some areas of focus include:
product and material constituents, including their risks
product certifications
third-party product... Read more
Forum topic
Know any awesome sustainability leaders within GC or CM firms? They can be at mid-sized or large construction companies—any firm in the ENR top 400 qualifies for sure, others might need some vetting. The key is people who have sustainability as the focus of how they spend their time--either formally by title or otherwise.
We want to... Read more
Forum topic
Hey Gurus:
I have a client who is interested in reporting to their superiors on the status on energy codes in different states across the US. They are hoping to find some kind of summary that might show relative costs for HVAC systems under the various energy codes in effect across states. They are also interested in data that is... Read more
Spotlight Report
Biophilic design features are not just aesthetically pleasing; researchers have found that patients heal faster, workers are more productive, and children learn better when more elements of nature are present.
And yet there are still very few projects developed today that inspire a connection to life and the natural world. Some people... Read more
Forum topic
Good morning. If you're worried like I am by today's new IPCC Report and would like some helpful explanation I recommend reading climate scientist Zeke Hausfather's lengthy Twitter feed summarizing key aspects with graphics. It's here https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1424642708291821569?s=21
of course we need to see this as an even... Read more
Forum topic
Hi All: We are in the design phase for a 5,700 SF project in NH. The team is taking care to drive down embodied carbon where possible. It will be NZE.
A1-A3 emissions are coming in at 67.15 kgCO2e/sf, of which 11.97 kgCO2e/sf is a hot spot attributed to permeable paving and concrete pavers (a little skewed, since lot and patio sizes... Read more
Forum topic
I am new to the SAL and honored to be included. I'm Summer, managing partner at Ecoimpact Consulting. I manage a small staff of sustainability consultants who focus primarily on LEED project administration and documentation services. Day to day, I am working on implementation of the technical requirements of various LEED rating systems (in the... Read more
Forum topic
Hi Everyone!
I am building our internal/firm resources around sustainable design, and creating our post-occupancy evaluations is one of those resources. Does anyone have references or resources they'd recommend me to look into for post-occupancy evaluations? So far I am considering a few evalutation types: building user input, building... Read more
Forum topic
Hey Team,
I'm in a Living Future session where a number of manufacturers are talking about the low uptake they're seeing in their take back programs. Contractor friends... What barriers (if any) are you running into in using take back programs? How might we as architects help increase utilization of these programs?
Aley
Forum topic
Does anyone have an opinion of Autocase? https://autocase.com/
I had not heard of this platform before. Their website says that some firms in the group are customers / users. Website does not do a great job of describing exactly what they do. Is there value?
Thanks,
Allen
Forum topic
Hello friends. On a current school project, an abuse resistant wall covering has been proposed as an alternative to our typical MDF wainscot. The proposed product has been used successfully in healthcare, and switching to it will save the project almost $1million, which is no small amount when the project is over budget and 7-figure cost... Read more
Forum topic
Team,
What are the M vs. E vs. P(FP) ratios of fee distribution you use in your company for a commercial office building? How about a residential/hotel?
Best,
Luke Leung
Forum topic
Hi folks,
A press release about this just showed up--most of what they're including in their "Clean Construction Declaration" involves reducing embodied carbon in materials, but they're also calling out construction equipment:
"Procure and, when possible, use only zero emission construction machinery from 2025 and require zero... Read more