Championing the
Changemakers

Two post-occupancy energy studies are shedding some light on energy efficiency in certified green buildings. Both studies found that prioritizing energy efficiency in the design process led to better performance and highlighted the inaccuracy of energy modeling.

The first, the

Regional Green Building Case Study Project,... Read more

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill in October 2009 postponing the deadline for building owners to report energy information when they sell or lease a property. The bill delays the implementation of AB 1103, passed in 2007 and scheduled for full implementation on January 1, 2010 (see

EBN Oct. 2008).

Several companies are now incorporating the EnOcean wireless control system for automating energy conservation in unoccupied hotel rooms (see

EBN Dec. 2007).

BuildingGreen, LLC, publisher of the GreenSpec Directory  and Environmental Building News (EBN), announced its eighth annual Top-10 Green Building Products during the 2009 Greenbuild conference in Phoenix. The list recognizes the most exciting products drawn from recent additions to GreenSpec and coverage in EBN.

Project FROG modular... Read more

By the end of Greenbuild, I was exhausted/troubled/elated with all sorts of conundrums swirling around in my head — not to mention a few partly written blogs, abandoned in favor of the next conversation... ... I had wanted to write about the 'executive roundtable' that happened that Wednesday — and responses to the twitter-submitted question... Read more

I just returned from the Greenbuild conference in Phoenix. This annual event, now in its eighth year, has become the leading locus for exchange of information about the rapidly growing green building movement.... Read more

The easiest energy savings come from little changes in our behavior that don't cause any hardship--or even result in ancillary benefits. Such is the case with reducing the amount of time spent... Read more

The easiest energy savings come from little changes in our behavior that don't cause any hardship--or even result in ancillary benefits. Such is the case with reducing the amount of time spent... Read more

These shorts were filmed at West Coast Green; for more like them, see revision.tv.

As a follow-on to The Great Passivhaus Face-off, take a look at this commentary from a couple years ago in the wake of a visit to Passivhaus examples in Germany by a couple well-informed British authors and researchers — The Passive House: thoughts and reflections. It begins, "There were a couple of moments when the PassivHaus study tour... Read more

A little over a year ago I reported on the efforts of a local organization, Brattleboro Thermal Utility (BTU), to develop a wood-chip-fired "combined heat and power" (CHP) plant for the town. In that column I reported that BTU, on whose board I sit, was trying to identify a company to carry out a preliminary feasibility study for the project;... Read more

By Aleksandr Bierig

A 35-story apartment building in lower Manhattan isn’t the most obvious place for sustainable architecture. But the Visionaire, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli isn’t on normal terrain—it’s in Battery Park City, a rare example of thoroughly executed American planning. Due to that planning process, a seemingly typical... Read more

By Clifford A. Pearson

The Grateful Dead weren’t thinking of 355 Eleventh Street when they sang, “What a long, strange trip it’s been,” but their words evoke the San Francisco building’s checkered history. Built around 1912 as a bottle-storage facility for the adjacent Jackson Brewery, the 14,000-square-foot structure hit the... Read more