The overwhelming majority of wallcoverings are flexible vinyl, laden with all the life-cycle concerns that come with PVC. Products used to contain orthophthalate plasticizers—which make up a large percentage of these products. Phthalates are not bound in the material and can slough off in dust, exposing occupants during everyday work or play.... Read more

Hi All,

How are folks funding training for your employees? Would it help to have free training opportunities besides lunch and learns or ones you do yourself?

For those of you outside of Massachusetts you may have employees or friends in MA that this could be relevant to.  I'm hoping my friends in MA have already heard this.

Hello Green Gurus,

A close colleague of ours, Frances Yang of Arup, is distributing a survey developed in partnership with the Healthy Building Network (HBN).

The survey asks for which product categories you need more health information. Answers will help inform which product categories HBN next incorporates into its HomeFree and... Read more

Hello fellow sustainable design leaders! I am about to kick off an intensive effort here at EHDD to refine our internal standards for materials. We will be considering both GWP as well as the health of materials (avoiding harmful chemicals). In addition to setting the standards, I will be working to develop a process to vet materials before... Read more

Greetings,

I posted this a while back on the MEP SDL forum but also wanted to appeal to the broader community.  We need help gathering existing plug/process load data.  We know it is out there!  Two golden stars to Becky Alexander from LHB who reached out to us after this month's meet-up with some useful material.  We need more!  Please... Read more

Hi all,

We have a project in New Orleans that needs to meet the GSA Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) requirements and submit EPDs. For our concrete, there is only one manufacturer that meets the requirements and is more than 50 miles away (according to EC3). Does anyone have tips on attempting to talk to local concrete manufacturers about... Read more

Hi folks,

It was fun going back over all the great conversations we had and pulling them together in this report. Please feel free to share it with anyone--no constraints on that!

Also, we'll have a webinar next Friday based on this report-- March 8 at 2pm eastern:

I'll show the report and share key takeaways from the 12th... Read more

Hey, everyone! Many of you on this forum have probably already RSVP'ed but I wanted to put a plug out there for the happy hour event on the evening of November 2nd at our office in San Francisco.

The event is co-hosted by Architecture 2030 and national and local AIA COTE. There will be food, drinks, great people, and a chance to preview... Read more

Have any of you heard of anyone ever using phase change material (PCM) "movable partitions" as a resiliency strategy to mitigate indoor overheating during a heat wave in passive buildings? You'd keep them stored in a basement or cool room, and deploy them into habitable spaces during the heat wave to keep the space cooler than the exterior... Read more

Mary Ann Lazarus

THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Buildings aren’t garbage. But you wouldn’t know it by examining the way the AEC industry works. 

We typically design buildings for a single, limited purpose. We build them partly out of plastics that can’t be readily recycled. We choose diverse materials... Read more

We are pursuing sustainability goals (and documentation of those goals) outside of any certification/rating system for a current project.  However, we have set up a criteria list of goals by following strategies/credits from many of those systems (LEED v4 EPDs, SITES v2 threatened tree species, WELL v2 mindful eating, etc.).  This approach is... Read more

Hello,

The Baltimore office for Hord Coplan Macht is looking to hire a Sustainability Coordinator.  Please find the specifics here https://workforcenow.adp.com/jobs/apply/posting.html?client=hcm2&jobId=4... or attached and pass along if you know of someone who may be a good fit.

Thank you,

Ara Massey 

Greetings, All.

The Resilient Outcomes Working group has been putting together a resource list (and map) of resources for supporting resilience-focused design across the US.  So far, we have around 50 resources on the list, ranging from the AIA Resilient Design Toolkit to local Vulnerability and Adaptation reports and tools.

We... Read more

Friends,

We put a lot of effort into air tightness design, detailing, and construction administration, often including 6-sided mockup and parital or whole-building blower-door testing.  For commercial buildings, these tests measure air leakage in cfm/sf at 1.57 psf (75pa).  

I came across this research paper several years ago, but... Read more