BuildingGreen Report

Blog Post

February 26, 2009
In December 2007 I posted about a video called The Story of Stuff. From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns... Read more

Blog Post

February 26, 2009
Over at buildingscience.com, the online home of Building Science Corporation (where you can benefit from the big-brained research and synthesis of Joe Lstiburek, John Straube, and others), there are tons of great articles like Can Highly Glazed Building Façades Be Green?, Capillarity — Small Sacrifices, and Ground Source Heat Pumps ("Geothermal")... Read more

Blog Post

February 26, 2009
This is the second post about strawbale building today. The other is Building Science for Strawbale Buildings. Regular readers may recall that post back in June about the straw-bale construction briefing organized by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) that was held in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington DC. The... Read more

Blog Post

February 26, 2009
thisisreality.orglink to video

Blog Post

February 25, 2009
Last night in President Obama's address to congress he mentioned Greensburg, Kansas as an example of leadership in green energy: I think about Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community - how it can bring jobs... Read more

Blog Post

February 24, 2009
This major renovation converted a retail lumberyard into an office and retail facility. Retail space now occupies half of the first floor, while office space occupies the other half of the first floor and the entire second floor. The renovation involved the addition of several features, including an intermediate floor in the existing warehouse... Read more

Blog Post

February 24, 2009
4240 Architecture is a national design firm dedicated to creating architectural, planning, and interior solutions that integrate social, technological, economic, environmental, and aesthetic concerns. The firm recently moved its Denver office from its Lower Downtown (LoDo) location to a former steel-pipe foundry in the River North (RiNo)... Read more

Blog Post

February 24, 2009

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Read the current bulletin

Blog Post

February 24, 2009
The Jøtul F 100 Nordic QT wood burning stove.

In the 27 years that I've owned my house in West Dummerston, Vermont, I've always used wood heat to some extent. But my commitment to it has ebbed and flowed. For about the first 15 years, I heated the house almost exclusively with wood. Built in 1785, the house had electric heat when I bought it... Read more

Blog Post

February 23, 2009
The tireless folks from Google's for-profit charity, Google.org, are developing a web-based application called PowerMeter that takes advantage of the increasing availability of "smart meters" from utility companies and independent manufacturers. Millions upon millions of homes and businesses are expected to be upgraded to these meters in the... Read more

Blog Post

February 23, 2009
What color is green? The fundamental, unanswered — perhaps unanswerable — question. And it's not just people new to the concept of "green" who are asking it as technology, information, and philosophy continue to evolve. "Green" seekers are all spread out on an incredibly wide path, and all are at different points along the way. At least most of... Read more

Blog Post

February 20, 2009
In an online article on the U.S. Department of Energy's EnergySmart Hospitals, we compared that program to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star for Healthcare program. Having looked at both programs, we suggested that, without benchmarking and reporting requirements, the EnergySmart Hospitals program was the less rigorous of the... Read more

Blog Post

February 18, 2009
We've all had this conversation: is a huge single family green home really green? A new building in the desert? A man-made island in Dubai? The blog Green Building Elements has collected the 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth, including a BP gas station, a golf lodge, a single-family skyscraper, and a car dealership. A green building is better... Read more

Blog Post

February 18, 2009

Despite the economic downturn and the trend toward smaller crowds at building trade shows, Efficiency Vermont's 2009 Better Buildings by Design Conference was a great success and actually increased attendance this year. The enthusiastic response is a tribute to the sustainable building community at large and to Efficiency Vermont, which put on... Read more

Blog Post

February 16, 2009
Turbines in Mount Equinox, Vermont.

Last week we reviewed the history of wind energy, including its use for pumping water and generating power. This week we'll take at look at the state of the art with wind power and what's ahead.

The growth of wind power over the past decade has been nothing short of spectacular. In ten years, from... Read more

Blog Post

February 10, 2009
There are still people on both sides of the PVC issue, but let's go ahead and assume that most green builders don't like the stuff — mostly because of its upstream and downstream environmental burdens. PVC taken in isolation from its birth and death enters murkier territory. There's a product available that decreases a building's heat loss, doesn... Read more

Blog Post

February 9, 2009
NOT FOR EVERY SITE. Wind power doesn't make sense everywhere. Fortunately this site is consistently breezy enough to generate the 6,000 kWh of electricity that David Pill's family demands each year. Here, a gin pole -- an old-fashioned but effective winch-and-mast system -- is used to hoist the wind turbine into position.

Over the past few... Read more

Blog Post

February 4, 2009
At the 2008 "Summer Camp" in the Adirondacks.Photo: Mike Cox The green building industry lost one of its pillars this week. Less than two years after being diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2007, Gail Lindsey, FAIA, of Wake Forest, North Carolina, passed away on February 2nd. She had been recovering from a third round of chemotherapy when a... Read more

Blog Post

February 3, 2009

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Read the current bulletin

Blog Post

February 3, 2009
Over 18 years and more than 160 issues of Environmental Building News, I've written quite a few articles — I hesitate to think about how many — but out of all of those, I think I had more fun and learned more in writing my most recent than ever before. "Growing Food Locally: Integrating Agriculture into our Built Environment" examines... Read more