Championing the
Changemakers

They do, seriously.  They are fine people with tons of information, and without them, all of us Architects would be, well, out of luck.

So, we first want to say THANK YOU to all of our contractor friends who took part in our Contractor Coffee Talk on Tuesday. THAT WAS AWESOME!

We learned things like:

Hi SDLers-

Like many of you, I have found myself involved in our firm’s nascent Social & Racial Justice working group. Our group is laser focused on advancing BIPOC and is seeking to understand more about approaches our firm can take on advocacy, transparency, and training. They are interested in hearing about specific approaches... Read more

Hi, I've been following the copper piping discussion and am wondering if copper piping has been a problem in greywater systems.    We've used Aquatherm to some extent in greywater treatment.

Now available on demand

As more and more architects, designers, contractors and owners demand transparency surrounding human health impacts in the built environment, manufacturers need short cuts and tools to meet the call of this demand.

This webinar is intended to educate manufacturers about the market demands for creating... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of the Wood, Forests, and Embodied Carbon Webinar!

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:

1. Explain the complex relationship between forests and carbon, with an emphasis on how carbon releases from forestry affect the sustainability of buildings that... Read more

On behalf of the LFRT IRA working group, I am writing to see if anyone has applied for IRA funding (48E, 45L, 179D) for their project, and is willing to share their experiences and basic project info with us.  We can keep the project name confidential if needed.

Thank you!

Hi all,

We are looking to study Passive House on a couple small multifamily projects. Our understanding is that WUFI Passive only integrates with SketchUp at this time. Our BIM manager has been trying to find an example of a firm that works in Revit and uses WUFI Passive, to point him in the right direction on workflow. I offered to ask... Read more

I wanted to let you all know about this Built Environment Plus Roundtable coming up on Thursday afternoon 3:00 est. We will be having a discussion around the IRA and how to implement the incentives on projects and help our clients understnad what it means for them. This is an informal setting where people can ask questions or share experiences... Read more

Good daylighting intentions can end up increasing glare and solar heat gain.

BuidlingGreen-Approved Lightshelves

We look for lightshelves designed to reflect direct sunlight onto the ceiling, turning what could potentially be glare into diffuse, ambient daylight that penetrates deep into the interior of a building.

Energy... Read more

Here is a fundamental question regarding measuring operational carbon emissions that I'm sure many of you can clarify for me:  Let's say you are considering design options and you want to know the relative contribution of GWP of adding an additional inch of continuous insulation to the building envelope.  The GWP from embodied carbon will... Read more

We are looking into different building skin materials from including GFRC and FRP (amongst others) as alternatives to precast. I remember years ago (when I was at LAS) we had retrofitted a Federal Courthouse with FRP for blast resistance. I kind of remember that at the time it had some pretty high offgassing concerns. I haven't been able to... Read more

We talked about products in Eastern region and Western region groups. 

Guiding questions:

Better Product Choices On Every Project: How To Get There?

How do firms organize and communicate information on materials? Is it office wide or on select projects?

What do designers and project managers need to know? How... Read more

You can download the guide here:
https://www.collaborativedesign.org/

And I would ask that any/all of you who find this interesting and useful to please share with your networks. We want it to get distributed far and wide!

- Clark

Hi all,

I'm curious how various firms are approaching their own office projects, re green building certifications. I'm especially interested in medium-large firms that have multiple offices, but policies and processes from small firms may still be instructive.

Do you have a firm-wide policy or is it a case-by-case thing? Has... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Getting Flame Retardants Out of Foam Insulation.

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:


1. Summarize why and how flame retardants are used in foam insulation.
2. Elucidate the case for taking the chemicals out of foam insulation.
3.... Read more