Championing the
Changemakers

Salinas, California is now home to the first modular classrooms verified by the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS). Modular classrooms installed in August 2010 at Bolsa Knolls Middle School received CHPS verification for New School Construction in February 2011—only the second California school to achieve CHPS verification. The... Read more

Guide for Sustainable Projects to help builders, designers, and building owners understand and customize green building contracts. The guide, touted as a “roadmap for working on sustainable projects,” is intended for users of the AIA Contract Documents program who may... Read more

Current Intelligence Bulletin from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), titled “Occupational Exposure to Titanium Dioxide,” highlights the new health concerns for titanium dioxide (TiO2). NIOSH now recommends reducing exposure to as little as possible, below the... Read more

The U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA) Green Proving Ground program plans to test 16 “emerging sustainable building technologies and practices” in some federal buildings. The program aims to transform sustainable technology markets by replicating successful technologies on other GSA buildings. In a press release,... Read more

Researchers at the University of Texas–Austin have found that multi-species lawns of native grasses require fewer inputs—such as watering and mowing—than traditional monocultures to maintain a lush, weed-resistant lawn. Researchers, led by Mark Simmons, Ph.D., director of the center’s Ecosystem Design Group, compared one native and one non-... Read more

A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in May 2011 targets net-zero-energy use in all new residential and commercial buildings by 2030, and aims to create jobs by using low-cost strategies to increase energy efficiency in existing buildings across residential, commercial, institutional, industrial, and government sectors.

The Energy... Read more

Choosing the right insulation can be confounding. No other building material comes in so many forms—from ground-up newspapers to foam boards to translucent gel. Understanding how insulation works can help us find the right material for a particular project.

The word insulation comes from the Latin insula—an island. Insulation attempts... Read more

Let there be light, but no glare. Let there be a breeze in summer, but no winter air leaks. Let there be home security, but also quick emergency exits.

In a perfect world, our windows would do all this at once. Since we don’t live in a perfect world, we have created any number of window attachments—everything from interior... Read more

[Editor's note: Robert Riversong, a Vermont builder, continues his 10-part series of articles taking design and construction to what he sees as radical or... Read more

Have you ever found yourself picking a sticker off a building product or material from the store, and wondering, why did they put the sticker here? I have often had this thought with everything from stovepipe to plumbing fittings, but the classic example in the building world is probably windows.

The glass part of the window... Read more

If you build... Read more

[Editor's note: Robert Riversong, a Vermont builder, continues his 10-part series of articles taking design and construction to what he sees as radical or "... Read more

A new clear floor coating for the commercial and industrial market is being touted as not containing isocyanates, potentially toxic chemicals used in uncured spray polyurethane foams (SPF), clear furniture and floor coatings, and adhesives such as those found in no-added-formaldehyde wood panel products. But it does contain epoxy, made from... Read more

It has been a great spring so far for spotting wildlife. A neighbor told me he was shooing a black bear away from his garbage the other day when he saw that he had also frightened off a moose that was also in the neighborhood. Perhaps the moose and bear are rehearsing for a new wildlife buddy movie?

I spotted a porcupine crossing the... Read more

The 2030 Challenge established by Ed Mazria’s organization Architecture 2030 sets a phased timeline for reducing fossil energy use in buildings, targeting net zero use for all new construction by the year 2030. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) endorsed that challenge, but worried about designers committing to goals that... Read more