My Office is Killing Me!: The Sick Building Survival Guideby Jeffrey C. May. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006. Paperback, 317 pages, $18.95.

If a proposed regulation from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is adopted as planned on September 28, 2006, the U.S. market for particleboard and similar interior-grade panel products will change dramatically. The proposed regulation drastically reduces the allowable levels of urea-formaldehyde (UF) emissions from composite wood... Read more

Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner in Stuttgart, Germany, under the leadership of Stefan Behnisch, is now Behnisch Architekten. The firm’s Venice, California, office, led by Stefan Behnisch and Christof Jantzen, AIA, has also changed its name, to Behnisch Architects. Founded in 1989, the firm has long been recognized as a leader in architectural... Read more

In May 2006, the U.S. Senate confirmed Dirk Kempthorne to succeed Gale Norton as head of the Department of the Interior, which manages 20% of all land in the U.S. Kempthorne, who has served in the U.S. Senate and as governor of Idaho, has worked to open national lands to logging, mining, and drilling; the League of Conservation Voters (LCV)... Read more

Smart Environments Awards. Co-sponsored by

Metropolis magazine, the awards were intended to recognize the most environmentally and socially responsible, beautiful, and functional interior designs of the past five years. The winners are:... Read more

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents the 1,183 U.S. cities with populations of 30,000 or more, has called for all new buildings and major renovation projects to be climate neutral by 2030. The Conference unanimously adopted Resolution 50, “Adopting the ‘2030 Challenge’ for All Buildings,” during its 74th annual meeting, in June 2006... Read more

Two projects under development, one in Boston, Massachusetts, and one in Cabinda, Angola, were among the projects recognized in June at the fourteenth Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) in Providence, Rhode Island. CNU’s 2006 Charter Awards recognize work that demonstrates an understanding of urbanism and the principles embodied in the CNU... Read more

Outside the window a phoebe was bringing food to her nest under the eaves. I had positioned myself next to the window in the small lecture room as I always try to do at meetings—when I am fortunate enough to be in a meeting facility with windows. Being able to glance out the window from time to time helps me relax and, I think, even focus on... Read more

A water conservation bill currently moving through the California Legislature would set the maximum water consumption for toilets at 1.3 gallons per flush (gpf; 4.9 lpf). The legislation, Assembly Bill 2496, was authored by John Laird (D–Santa Cruz) and passed the State Assembly on May 15, 2006. If approved by the Senate and signed into law,... Read more

The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) has announced the winners of its annual Student Sustainable Design Competition. Bridget Dunn, from Florida State University in Tallahassee, won Best of Competition, and Olena Baranova, from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, won an Award of Merit. Holly Murdock, from Utah State... Read more

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) will accept presentation proposals for its 2007 national convention and design exposition, themed “Growing Beyond Green,” through July 1, 2006. The conference will be held May 3-5, 2007, in San Antonio. Details are online at www.aia.org/conted_convention/. For more on AIA’s commitment to green design... Read more

When LEED® for New Construction (LEED-NC) version 2.2 was released in November 2005, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) dictated that project teams that had registered projects under previous versions of LEED-NC were free to migrate to the new version, but that such a migration was an all-or-nothing proposition. A project must be submitted... Read more

Arizona Public Service Company (APS) has announced the opening of the state’s first solar-thermal power plant, and the first built in the nation in 17 years. Built by Solargenix Energy, LLC, of Raleigh, North Carolina, the plant features over 100,000 ft2 (9,000 m2) of parabolic-trough mirrors—looking like several rows of mirrored half-pipe—that... Read more

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for heavy industries in the state, such as power plants, refineries, and factories, to report emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are contributing to global warming. Making the announcement at a San Francisco global warming summit in April 2006, the governor pledged to... Read more