Op-Ed
Your article “What’s New in Construction Waste Management” moved me to write—and to finally subscribe. I’ve been sharing a subscription with someone else, but now I feel I can’t wait for the
EBN to come my way. So be it if I’m being environmentally incorrect by ordering my own copy. Or is it? What is
EBN’s position on that?
... Read moreNews Brief
The San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA) has just announced a new Master’s Degree program in Ecological Design. A professional certificate is also available, and the program is not limited to students of architecture. Enrollment is open for the Spring 1996 semester, which begins February 26. Contact the SFIA Information Office, Box... Read more
Product Review
transpired solar collector, Solarwall has initially been targeted... Read more
News Analysis
Anderson has set the company on the path toward sustainability. Awakened only within the past two years to... Read more
News Brief
by Scientific Certification Systems, Inc., August 1995. Published by Western Wood Products Association, Yeon Building, 522 SW Fifth Avenue, Portland, OR 97204-2122; 503/224-3930, 503/224-3934 (fax). Spiral bound, 28 pages (not including appendices), $125.
The closer one looks at anything in nature, the more there is to look at. This fact may... Read moreNews Analysis
A government program to promote high-performance commercial buildings in Canada now has three buildings under construction. In two of these cases, program administrators were surprised to discover that their stringent criteria are being met using only conventional technologies, with little or no increase in building costs. They credit this... Read more
News Brief
On October 31st of last year, new fluorescent lamp standards took effect that eliminate some of the most widely used lamps in commercial buildings. Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the old standby T-12, cool-white, F40 lamp can no longer be manufactured or imported into the U.S. Lamps must now have a minimum color rendering index (CRI)—a... Read more
Op-Ed
Thanks for your article on “Establishing Priorities.”
Under saving energy, the first item: “In buildings with skin dominated loads,” incorporate high R-values. What about buildings with greater internal loads? Does it follow to use less insulation? Make it less airtight? I have a high school where the general contractor is saying, “How come... Read moreFeature
If our goal is to reduce the overall environmental impact of our building projects, we must begin paying more attention to the role automobiles play in these projects. Even the most environmentally responsible house—for example, an energy-independent, passive-solar house, built of salvaged and recycled materials, with graywater separation—will... Read more
Product Review
The company uses Norwegian manufacturing equipment to produce 4’ x 8’ (1200 mm x 2400 mm) panels in 1⁄4” (6 mm) and 1⁄8” (3 mm) thicknesses. Thicker, 1⁄2” (13 mm) panels were initially produced as well, but... Read more
Feature
A few years ago, construction waste management and job-site source separation would have been considered nearly synonymous. It makes sense, after all, that if the materials have more value when separated by type, we should try to avoid mixing them together in the first place. While source separation still makes sense for many jobs and for... Read more
News Brief
Steven Winter Associates, Inc., of Norwalk, Connecticut, has been awarded a grant through the U.S. Department of Energy’s 1995 Small Business Innovative Research program to design advanced modular townhouses for urban infill sites. The company has been charged with designing townhouses that employ renewable energy and energy conservation... Read more
News Analysis
Choosing an environmentally friendly siding material has never been easy. Often the more “natural” products, such as wood clapboards, are associated with depletion of sensitive forest resources, while materials that are highly manufactured—such as vinyl—raise questions about chlorine and petrochemicals as... Read more
Product Review
As you might imagine, information about new building products comes into the
EBN office all the time. When a new product strikes our fancy, we extract what information we can from manufacturers, we play with samples (often mutilating them in the process), we talk with any users we can track... Read more
News Brief
Environmental Building Consultants, 312 A Jefferson Ave., Cheltenham, PA 19012-2021; 215/663-1611, 215/663-1637 (fax), ehouse@omni.voicenet.com (e-mail); $50 for PC or Macintosh diskette containing database and software to run it.
This initial release of an IAQ products database contains about 450 listings... Read more
News Brief
Building Industry Professionals for Environmental Responsibility (BIPER) is a new lobbying group founded to counter the frequently anti-environmental message governments receive from mainstream industry organizations. Annual membership is $35. Three levels of membership allow members to choose the frequency of contacts from the... Read more
News Brief
The DuPont Benedictus Awards for Innovation in Architectural Laminated Glass may have a significant environmental flavor in 1996 with the inclusion of two prominent “green” architects on the jury. Bob Berkebile of BNIM Architects in Kansas City, Missouri and Randolph Croxton, Croxton Collaborative Architects, New York City, have both been... Read more
Op-Ed
I very much appreciate your recognition of the need for and efforts to identify priorities for “green building” (whatever that is). Such priorities can either be defined implicitly by the buildings a “green designer” creates or by some systematic process based on a hierarchy of environmental problems. Your... Read more
Product Review
... Read more
Explainer
now being manufactured in Perrytown, Texas, can be used in place of both framing and drywall in partition walls. At $19 each for 4’ by 8’ (1200 mm by 2400 mm) panels, they are very competitive with conventional stud framing within a reasonable shipping distance from the plant. The panels... Read more






