Elemental

These are my links for September 25th through October 1st:

• "Passive" Heating and Cooling Is a Misnomer. It’s Active. : TreeHugger – "there are 36 Billion square feet of non-residential buildings from the 50s through the 80s that need to be retrofitted and greened. It ain't going to be easy."
• AIArchitect This Week | Buildings Brought to Life: The First Project to Meet the Living Building Challenge Is Only Months Away – "For a building to meet the Living Building Challenge it must consume net-zero energy and water. It must produce net-zero waste. It must choose an ecologically responsible site and maintain it. Inherently unsustainable materials (like lead, mercury, and formaldehyde) are not allowed, and there’s a limited radius from which materials can be transported to the building site during construction. Indoor air quality must be maintained, and, among many other requirements, all of these sustainability features must be featured in educational materials and programs at the building. Since the challenge was formulated in 2006, no building has met it."
• Don’t Underestimate the Power of Information in Pursuing Sustainability | GreenerBuildings.com – "The Energy Passport is a related idea that could be implemented much more easily. Conceived in the early '90s by Dr. Yuri Matrosov of the Moscow Center for Energy Efficiency (CENEf), Energy Passport programs were first adopted in Moscow, then in Germany, which is now pushing for it to be implemented in the EU as a whole.
  The initial Energy Passport is based on modeled energy use and then actual energy use is compared each year with predicted use, which then could be accessed by tenants and others. Clearly, comparing actual energy use with predicted energy use, as well as consumption trends over time, would give designers and developers an incentive to get the prediction right in the first place (parenthetical note, without clear modeling rules it is shockingly easy to game the results of energy models), as well as provide a clear benchmark for operators to manage their buildings more closely."
• Glass Industry Raises Concerns Over ASHRAE 90.1 Revisions That Could Reduce the Use of Glass in Nonresidential Buildings – Impact of potential changes to prescriptive route for ASHRAE 90.1 (similar to old elemental method for Part L) for glazing: "The proposal does not recognize or accommodate the need for different glazing solutions across climate zones. It is a "one size fits all" approach and will limit the glazing choice to a small range of high transmission, clear low-E glazings. They are not the appropriate products in all climate zones, especially the Southern cooling-dominated climates because of the sunlight intensity. Use of such high transmission glass in those climate zones will likely result in greater use of blinds resulting in increasing lighting energy usage.
  …There is only limited possibility for saving energy in buildings unless the space also includes automatic daylighting controls. Even with recent proposals, daylighting controls are only required in rooms where the "primary side-lighted area" is less than 1,000 square feet. …"
• How to keep your mouth shut « Scott Berkun – Oh, I have been here many times. Like Scott, I'm recovering ;o). Read the whole post: "But then later on, in a new job at Microsoft in a group known as MSTE, I discovered a world of dysfunction, despair and passive/aggression. No one spoke their mind in public. Few people worked hard or asked tough questions. Quality of work, and morale, was low. So I soon felt obligated to mention these facts as often and as loudly as possible to leadership. I even expected to be rewarded for telling people how bad things were. Why wouldn’t they want to hear this? I thought.
  Before I knew it, I was that guy. The guy who always complains."
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment » Blog Archive » Ethics and the Built Environment (by Jon de Souza) – If consultants only get involved at the Jus in Bello stage, is it ethical to build immoral buildings? Waiting avidly for part 2: "At present, the discussions about ethical behaviours in construction largely consider what happens after a decision has been taken to construct – the Jus In Buildo stage if you will. (Told you). What is missing is consideration of that former stage – the question asked is “can we build it”, but not “should we”. This seems to chime with our view of the world – that there are some things that simply shouldn’t be built. I mean, can any of us really morally defend snow domes in Dubai?"
• UK notches strong gains in renewable capacity in 2008 – Politics – Renewable energy news – Recharge – wind, solar, biofuels, wave/tidal/hydro and geothermal – "The UK’s installed renewable generation capacity surged 19% in 2008, thanks largely to a 727 megawatt (MW) increase in onshore wind capacity and a 192MW boost in offshore wind, according to new government statistics.
  At the same time, the amount of electricity produced from renewables in the UK rose a more modest 10%, to 21.6 gigawatt hours (GWh)."

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These are my links for July 31st through August 4th:

• By Degrees – White Roofs Catch On as Energy Cost Cutters – Series – NYTimes.com – LEED rewards white roofs (heat island effect) and it also pops up in BREEAM Communities – but beware: "Still, the ardor of the cool-roof advocates has prompted a bit of a backlash.
  Some roofing specialists and architects argue that supporters fail to account for climate differences or the complexities of roof construction. In cooler climates, they say, reflective roofs can mean higher heating bills.
  Scientists acknowledge that the extra heating costs may outweigh the air-conditioning savings in cities like Detroit or Minneapolis.
  But for most types of construction, they say, light roofs yield significant net benefits as far north as New York or Chicago. Although those cities have cold winters, they are heat islands in the summer, with hundreds of thousands of square feet of roof surface absorbing energy."
• Five UK firms vie for Masdar standards job – Building – Masdar, the £13bn UAE project to create the greenest city on earth, has invited five UK organisations to tender for the contract to design its sustainability standard
  They are Aecom, Arup, BRE, Hyder and WSP. Cyril Sweett is advising BRE on the cost element of its bid.
  The standard will set out sustainability targets for the project. Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, the developer of the 5.5 million m2 city, invited bids at the beginning of June and it is understood shortlisting is imminent.
  A source close to the bidders said the standard was intended to go beyond anything done before. He said Masdar would be likely to aim to be carbon positive, water neutral and waste neutral.
• Green Compass – Constructing Excellence in Wales (CEW) has worked with BSI to develop PAS 402 as part of its Green Compass waste programme, which gives assurance to anyone disposing of construction waste that it will be collected, checked, recycled or disposed of in an environmentally sound fashion. PAS 402 provides the framework for waste management organisations to demonstrate performance in key areas. Green Compass, managed by CEW on behalf of the Welsh Assembly, is the first scheme of its kind in the UK and is expected to make a significant contribution to minimising the levels of waste going to landfill.
• Tanya Ross on engineers and the media – Building Sustainable Design – Tanya makes some good points, but there's more to be said. Give me a minute while I go and work out the right answer to 3 decimal points ;o)
  "In a more general context, we need to keep promoting the idea of engineers as shapers of the urban landscape, as solvers of some of the problems posed by climate change. We’re clever, vital people who can help to save the planet, not a collection of wrench-wielding cowboys. Sure, it’s an enormous task, but it’s one we should relish. All engineers would benefit from increased public awareness. Whether it is not having to explain to your grandmother what exactly you do for a living or being considered suitable matrimonial material, even a modicum of greater awareness could mean improved recognition."
• Suburbs get urban makeover – USATODAY.com – An interesting take on the cultural aspects of urban design – asian influences in the US (both investors and occupants). Via @UrbanLandInst on twitter:
  "Suburbs that had not allowed development to rise too high above the single-family homes that have shaped suburbia for decades are beginning to embrace the "urban" in "suburban."
  The trend reflects the priorities of the times: saving energy, reducing traffic congestion, saving land, and promoting walking and mass transit."
• Footprint » WRAP/RIBA competition results – Designing out Waste – Interesting: "architects have yet to get to grips with waste. When it comes to sustainability, the profession focuses on reducing operational energy use and embodied carbon, but that rarely translates into preoccupation with reducing the overall waste stream from a project. WRAP launched a campaign in October 2008 to reduce waste to landfill by half by 2012. Many contractors have signed on, but so far only two architects (Ryder and White Design)."

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These are my links for April 18th through April 19th:

• Construction Blog Practice – New blog from someone at Constructing Excellence
• Asus Eee 900 to hit shelves on 1 May – ZDNet.co.uk – Going to hold out for the new and improved version (plus the 7" is nigh impossible to source instore in the US)
• 11 April 2008 – iSBEM_v3.1.a Patch Release – We recommend all users to download and run the patch for iSBEM_v3.1.a which is available from the download page item 2.

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