News Brief

Sustainable Building Technical Manual: Green Building Design, Construction, and Operation

Annette Osso, Project Manager; David A. Gottfried, Managing Editor. 1996. Public Technology, Inc., 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washing-ton, D.C. 20004; 202/626-2441; 202/626-2498 (fax); osso@pti.nw.dc.us (e-mail). Also available from the U.S. Green Building Council, 290 Alhambra #11, San Francisco, CA 94123; 415/543-3001; 415/957-5890 (fax); usgreen@well.com (e-mail). Looseleaf notebook, 312 pages, $74 postpaid ($39 postpaid for employees of nonprofit organizations, government employees, and members of the U.S. Green Building Council; free for employees of agencies affiliated with PTI).

The

Sustainable Building Technical Manual is a very useful addition to the literature on environmentally responsible design and construction. More than 20 authors have contributed to 25 chapters, which are organized into seven sections: Economics and the Environment; Pre-Design Issues; Site Issues; Building Design (the longest); the Construction Process; Operations and Maintenance; and Issues and Trends. With so many authors, the style is a little bumpy, but the editors have done a good job at melding the writing to make the book quite readable.

Each chapter addresses one aspect of green design or construction, such as daylighting or building commissioning. Chapters first address the significance of the design issue or technology, followed by suggested practices in various subcategories, which are organized into a checklist format. In fact, the bulk of the manual is really a thorough checklist. Graphics are very limited in most chapters, but useful resources, design tools, and technical notes are provided.

While the information in the manual is generally quite good, we were surprised to find little in the way of specific design and construction information (construction details, tables of glazing properties, etc.) as one might expect from a “technical manual.” Information on materials is somewhat disjointed—Chapter 2 is a paper from the 1995 U.S. Green Building Council Conference that tries to explain how to quantify environmental and economic life-cycle impacts of materials; then the same level of life-cycle assessment information (by a different author) is repeated as the lead-in to Chapter 16, Materials. The distinction between commercial and residential building is not clearly stated in the manual, but the primary focus and most examples are on commercial buildings. Very good chapters by Michael Myers of the U.S. Department of Energy are included at the end of most major sections addressing strategies and information sources for municipal governments—reflecting the priorities of Public Technology, Inc.

Published November 1, 1996

(1996, November 1). Sustainable Building Technical Manual: Green Building Design, Construction, and Operation. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/newsbrief/sustainable-building-technical-manual-green-building-design-construction-and-operation

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