The

Architecture + Energy: Building Excellence in Sustainable Design 2001 Awards were announced in July. This year the program was open to projects from outside the Pacific Northwest for the first time, and jurors noted that the entries were the best they had seen in a competition. The four winners were:

Nice job on the mold article (

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 6 – June 2001). I do have a question on the checklist for minimizing mold risk that perhaps has more to do with the difficulties in using checklists as well as life-cycle assessment (LCA) approaches. Under the building operation section, one of the points is “avoid surrounding... Read more

On June 11, Governor George Pataki signed an executive order that has the potential to make New York State facilities among the greenest in the country over the next decade. Executive Order No. 111, “Green and Clean State Buildings and Vehicles,” affects buildings owned, leased, or operated by state agencies. Its requirements include reducing... Read more

by Jonee Kulman, AIA and Joel Schurke, March 2001. National Council of Archi-tectural Registration Boards (NCARB), 1801 K Street, NW, Suite 1100K, Wash-ington, DC 20006; 202/783-6500,

www.ncarb.org. Paperback, 150 pages, $195 ($125 with NCARB certificate).

On July 3, the City of Boulder, Colorado passed an ordinance

expanding the requirements of its mandatory Green Points program (see

EBN

Vol. 7, No. 3) to include remodels and additions over 500 ft2 (50 m2), and increasing the number of points required for new homes. The revised program, which places a greater emphasis on... Read more

Whenever the term “plastics” is used, a whole generation of Americans immediately thinks of Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 movie classic,

The Graduate. Hoffman portrays Ben, a promising but largely directionless college graduate, whom one family friend cannot help but enlighten with the following advice: “Plastics.”

Indeed, the... Read more

Greenpeace has a new building products directory called the PVC Alternatives Database – Building the Future. The fully searchable international database lists over 236 (and counting) PVC-free products for the following building components: roofing, insulation, exterior cladding, windows and doors, flooring, wallcoverings, piping, and—often the... Read more

The

American Tree Farm System has engaged PriceWaterhouseCoopers to review its certification and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in relation to the American Forest & Paper Association’s (AF&PA) Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). The Tree Farm System is a program of the American Forest Foundation, providing technical... Read more

It’s never good to misquote a source, but it’s especially embarrassing when that source is one’s own research! In our “Buildings and the Environment: The Numbers” feature article (

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 5) we listed the amounts of paved area in the U.S. in millions instead of thousands. The correct values are:

W. R. Grace & Company is the latest casualty in asbestos-related lawsuits. The company, which has received over 325,000 personal injury claims related to asbestos and paid out $1.9 billion to resolve suits to date, has filed for Chapter 11 protection. W. R. Grace joins Owens Corning, Armstrong Industries, and more than 20 other companies in... Read more

When a regional astronomy club based in Springfield, Vermont raised opposition to a new state prison slated for the town, the state hired lighting engineer (and new

EBN Advisory Board member) Nancy Clanton to come up with a plan for reducing light pollution in the prison design. While her firm came up with an outdoor lighting plan for... Read more

Solar electric buildings researcher, designer, and advocate Steven Strong was the recipient of this year’s prestigious Charles Greeley Abbot Award from the American Solar Energy Society (ASES). The award is given for significant contributions to the Society or to the field of solar energy. Strong is principal of Solar Design Associates in... Read more

Collins Products LLC has received Green Cross certification from Scientific Certification Systems, Inc. that its particleboard is manufactured entirely from post-industrial waste fibers. While most particleboard manufactured today contains a high percentage of wood waste from other manufacturing processes, Collins has made an unusual commitment... Read more

A report requested by the Bush administration on global climate change was released by a committee of the National Academies’ National Research Council on June 6, 2001. The report summed up science’s current understanding of climate change by confirming that greenhouse gases are accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere and causing surface... Read more

Entering the U.S. market with autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) has not been easy. North American Cellular Concrete made a go of it in 1992 (see

EBN

Vol. 1, No. 2) but got no further than a pilot plant. In 1996, the German Hebel Group built a manufacturing plant in Adel, Georgia through its subsidiary Hebel USA (see

EBN... Read more

Our Newsbrief on page 5 of

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 4 about the Maine Hospital Association incorrectly identified the Natural Resources Council of Maine as the Natural Resources

Defense Council of Maine. Our apologies.

... Read more

The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) has a new standard for recycled-plastic residential decking. This standard pulls together into one product specification the individual strength test methods for recycled plastic established almost four years ago (see EBN

Vol. 6, No. 9). While the standardized test methods created a... Read more

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has a

new global warming action Web site—

www.SafeClimate.net—where individuals and businesses can determine and take action on their carbon dioxide footprint. The site contains an easy-to-use carbon dioxide emissions calculator, suggestions for ways to reduce estimated emissions, and the... Read more