BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

July 31, 2006
by Peter Jeswald. Storey Publishing, North Adams, Massachusetts, 2005. Softcover, 248 pages, $19.95.

This clear, practical, how-to book provides a treasure trove of ideas for creating pathways, stairways, and footbridges in the outdoor landscape. While the specific focus on green is relatively minor, the vast majority of solutions described... Read more

News Brief

July 31, 2006
Virginia Avenue Park in Santa Monica, California, recently earned a Silver rating in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® for New Construction rating system, becoming the first park in North America to achieve LEED certification. The park, which opened in November 2005, was designed by Koning Eizenberg Architecture in Santa Monica and Spurlock... Read more

News Analysis

July 31, 2006

Originally designed, manufactured, and marketed 20 years ago, the Mister Miser urinal (see

EBN

Vol. 6, No. 8) has been reintroduced. According to Rocco Corbino of Mister Miser, LLC, the product’s first incarnation—designed, manufactured, and marketed by his business partner’s father—was in some ways a victim of its own success... Read more

News Brief

July 31, 2006

The Clackamas Community Land Trust, based in Clackamas, Oregon, has issued a call for entries to its 2006 green-built dollhouse competition and show, which will take place September 25 through October 5, 2006, in Portland, Oregon. A fundraiser for the land trust, the competition offers separate categories for architecture professionals, design... Read more

Feature

July 31, 2006
The treated wood industry is in the midst of major changes today. The leading treated wood product, chromated copper arsenate (CCA), was taken off the market for many uses at the beginning of 2004 (see

EBN

Vol. 11, No. 3). The mainstream, copper-based replacements for CCA corrode fasteners more rapidly than CCA, increasing the risk of... Read more

News Brief

July 31, 2006

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has added the following members to its Core Research Committee: Gail Brager, Ph.D., professor and associate director of the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley; Drury Crawley, AIA, technology development manager at the U.S. Department of Energy; John Fernandez, AIA,... Read more

News Brief

July 31, 2006

Building materials giant USG Corporation has joined the Alliance for Sustainable Built Environments, a group launched in 2003 to educate the marketplace and top management on the benefits of reducing the impact of facilities on the environment and building occupants. “By joining the Alliance, USG can work with like-minded companies to help... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006

An upscale Tahoe Vista, California, restaurant, Wild Goose, recently became the first restaurant to receive certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® rating system for commercial interiors (LEED-CI). CCS Architecture, of San Francisco, remodeled the 10,000 ft2 (930 m2) restaurant for East West Partners. Among Wild Goose’s... Read more

News Analysis

July 9, 2006
On June 12, 2006, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson announced the launch of WaterSense, EPA’s new water efficiency program, noting that the program’s aim is “spreading the ethic of water efficiency and promoting the tools to make wise water choices.” Like EPA’s successful Energy Star™ program for energy-... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006
Virginia San Fratello and collaborators Ronald Rael and Isaiah Dunlap won the third annual Next Generation Award, sponsored by

Metropolis magazine, for their Hydro Wall design. Hydro Wall is a series of flexible bladders designed to store rainwater within a building’s walls. The water could be used for irrigation, flushing toilets, and a range... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006
Launched by the U.S. Green Building Council in August 2005, the LEED® for Homes (LEED-H) pilot rating system now has its first certified home. Built by Ideal Homes, Inc., and certified by LEED-H provider Guaranteed Watt Saver Systems, Inc., the LEED-H Certified home is located in the Valencia neighborhood of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The 1,640 ft2... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006

A study published in the journal

Cancer Research in June 2006 links bisphenol-A (BPA)—used to make the hard, clear plastic polycarbonate as well as most epoxies—to cancer. BPA, which mimics the human hormone estrogen, altered the structure of genes in rats’ prostate cells when they were exposed to low doses of the chemical, the study... Read more

News Analysis

July 9, 2006

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

News Brief

July 9, 2006

Charles Kibert, Ph.D., of the University of Florida’s Rinker School of Construction, has assembled an impressive collection of speakers from around the world for a sequel to the seminal Sustainable Construction conference he hosted in November 1994. Based on its draft agenda, the four-day affair looks to be a hybrid of Greenbuild’s practice-... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006
A $1 million grant from the California Clean Energy Fund and $500,000 from PG&E Corporation will fund the Energy Efficiency Center at the University of California–Davis. The university will contribute $1.3 million in operating and research funds, faculty time, and office and laboratory space. Intended as “the world’s leading university center... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006
Changing student enrollment has led many school districts to rely on portable classroom units for overflow classes. Portable classrooms have traditionally been poor performers when it comes to energy and the environment. “These units use about three times as much energy per area as the school building itself and often compromise students’ and... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006

The U.S. Army has announced that, beginning in 2008, all of its new buildings will achieve Silver or higher ratings in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Rating System. LEED will supplant the Army’s own Sustainable Project Rating Tool (SPiRiT), which was modeled after LEED. The Army has also committed to certifying all of its housing once... Read more

News Analysis

July 9, 2006

Lead was discovered in Washington, D.C., drinking water in 2004 in alarming concentrations following the district’s switch from chlorine to chloramine for drinking water disinfection. Municipalities around the country took note when U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chemist Mike Schock hypothesized that the switch, made in response to new... Read more

News Brief

July 9, 2006
Environmental Design and Construction (

ED+C) magazine has announced the winners of its annual Excellence in Design Awards. This year’s jury included

ED+C staff members as well as Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC); Jim Nicolow, AIA, head of the sustainability initiative at Lord, Aeck &... Read more

Product Review

July 9, 2006
The availability of recovered wood from a variety of sources is growing, but the wood is often expensive, the quality varies, and, at least in the case of riverbed recovery, there can be a negative environmental impact from disturbing sediments. Triton Logging, Inc., of Saanichton, British Columbia, promises a recovered lumber resource that is... Read more