News

No man is an island, and neither is a building.

And yet there is increasing movement for buildings to reach net-zero energy (NZE) or net-zero carbon (NZC). Architecture 2030 wants all buildings there by 2030. Many in the LEED community want this as a requirement for achieving LEED Platinum today. And California has stated it as a goal... Read more

Are your clients asking you about wellness? You’re not alone. Healthy interiors and wellbeing are the trending buzzwords of sustainable design. In this hour-long on-demand webcast, GreenStep Education's Alex Spilger will walk you through the seven concepts within WELL and describe what sets it apart from other frameworks such as LEED... Read more

The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top Ten Awards recognize innovative and inspiring projects that demonstrate how to combine architectural excellence and environmental performance.

Beginning with last year’s awards, the criteria AIA COTE uses to define sustainable design was updated and redeveloped... Read more

With the rise in extreme weather events, people are looking for ways to prepare for disasters that accompany our changing climate. New studies, regulations, and design practices are helping to address current and future needs.

Many times, low-income communities are disproportionately affected by weather- and climate-related disasters,... Read more

Two years ago, when Washington, D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) was developing a plan to prepare the district for a changing climate, Kate Johnson recalls a series of meetings with people from the utilities and those who work in the district’s affordable housing sector. Johnson, the chief of the green building and climate... Read more

The State of California is taking steps toward regulating carpets and rugs with common stain-resistance treatments.

A new draft report from the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) implicates perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in a variety of toxic effects, and recommends listing carpets and rugs with... Read more

When the floodwaters of Superstorm Sandy receded in the fall of 2012, they left behind a trail of devastation. Among those hardest hit were people who lived in affordable housing.

At the time, the mainstream guidance for architects was simply “to elevate your building to deal with flooding, but for multifamily housing sites that was not... Read more

In 2013, Kingspan quietly became the first company to eliminate halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) from its insulated metal panels (IMP). IMPs combine cladding and insulation in one product, and their use can save resources, labor, and time, but their insulation typically contains HFRs that have a high risk of environmental persistence and... Read more

The Japanese construction company Sumitomo Forestry thinks a city could reduce its carbon footprint by building with wood. To demonstrate this vision and bring attention to the possibilities of mass timber construction, the company plans to build a 1,148-foot (350-meter) tall wooden tower in Tokyo by 2041.

Developed by Sumitomo Forestry... Read more

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has set stricter elevation requirements for the construction of new or substantially renovated buildings in flood-prone areas using HUD funds after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. The goal is to reduce future flood risks to people and to properties when rebuilding is paid for with... Read more

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and the tsunami that followed, destroyed three-quarters of the homes in Higashimatsushima, a town of about 40,000 people located in the Tohoku region of Japan. More than a thousand of the town’s residents were killed.

In the time since the disaster, the city, in partnership with housing developer... Read more

Back in May 2017, I wrote a blog post about negative side waterproofing (NSW). But I was still feeling troubled. The standardized test for NSW from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Standard Test Method for Water Permeability of Concrete”) is really complicated; the schematic seems impossible to decipher (see Image #1 in the slideshow... Read more

The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) has issued a report that found when federal funds are invested in mitigating hazards, in the long term, far fewer dollars are spent on disaster recovery and other costs.

The Natural Hazard Saves: 2017 Interim Report, funded by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is part... Read more

BuildingGreen’s president, Nadav Malin, recently received the Honorary AIA designation. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) “recognizes the notable contributions and service of people outside of the architecture profession with honorary membership in the Institute,” according to its website.

I sat down with Nadav to discuss this... Read more

 At the end of my recent blog post on Kooltherm rigid phenolic foam insulation, I mentioned that the roof and wall assemblies at an energy retrofit project in Brattleboro, Vermont, were insulated with cellulose by a company called American Installations. The company claimed that the German blowing equipment it uses delivers cellulose at a more... Read more

Design teams looking for low-emitting interior composite wood panels for LEED 2009 used to have it easy. If the wood panel met the California Air Resources Board (CARB) requirements for no added urea formaldehyde­ (NAUF) or no added formaldehyde (NAF), then it was good to go.

Not anymore. CARB no longer recognizes NAUF, opting instead... Read more

As project delivery models have evolved and become more collaborative in support of high-performance design, the role of various project stakeholders has also evolved. But this process has generally left out code officials.

By engaging code officials early, project teams can ensure that their proposed design solutions will meet code... Read more

When Jonathan Lash became president of Hampshire College, his environmental pedigree primed him to move the school closer to carbon neutrality.

He had served as a senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources, and president of the World Resources... Read more

Why and how do buildings fail? In this quick video, Paula Melton and Peter Yost discuss what they learned in the process of writing their feature article “How Buildings Fail Their Users.” The article includes seven stories of building failure and lessons learned. Read the feature article.

“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.”

            –Sam Levenson

We need to talk about failure. Because the more we talk about it, the more successful we will be.

That’s the position of Henry Petroski, Ph.D., civil engineer, failure analyst,... Read more