An unexpected tower in the hallway...
A foundation of the Society for Design Administration (SDA), Canstruction is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students mentored by these professionals, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food.
Sunlight gives us light at no charge, which we can harness in our buildings to reduce our reliance on electrical lighting, while providing a more enjoyable indoor environment. Leave it to an engineer to tell us how much that sunlight actually costs us. Lumens per watt (lpw) is the measure of lighting efficacy, telling us how much light (lumens) we get out for how much power (watts) we put in. The chart below shows typical efficacies of different lighting technologies, including incandescent (14), LED (30–50), T-5 fluorescent tube (95), and more.
"Using case studies of recent high performance architecture, this session will identify key strategies required to increase sustainable methods to achieve zero carbon goals by the year 2030.
Nadav Malin and Scot Horst offered up a great, head-twisting presentation about product certifications called "It's Certified Green But What Does That Mean?" to about 500 people.
I'm no fan of vinyl, but someone (actually a lot of someones) keep buying lots of it, year after year. Why? A recent article, "Vinyl makers push for New Urbanism market," in New Urban News looks at the benefits. Since vinyl is pretty much Evil (I picture it as the smoldering stuff in the toaster oven in "Time Bandits") in the environmental world, I thought this article was pretty fun.
Now, having made that snarky comment about white guys in a previous post (for the record, I'm a white guy), I should say that the conference itself has a very nicely diverse attendance. Walking the trade show floor, you're surrounded by a range of ages, what seems like an almost even mix of sexes, and a good variety of ancestries. And not everybody is dressed in fashionable black with high-tone glasses.
This morning began (for me) with a 7:00 (early!) session called "Legally Green: Legal and Practice Issues of LEED," presented by Betsy del Monte and William Quatman. The room had a capacity approaching 400, and got close to filling up. Betsy's presentation was, for the most part, understandably basic. The big majority of the audience, by show of hands, had not worked on a LEED certified project, or a LEED certifiable project, and were not LEED APs. They were there for continuing education. More on that shortly.
I came to Boston yesterday, giving myself plenty of time to check in at the sprawling Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) for this year's AIA National Convention before heading out — pretty much cluelessly — to get a closer look at this historic city.
The AIA 2008 National Convention and Design Exposition — "We the People" — starts next week Thursday, on the East Coast for the first time in almost a decade. As usual, BuildingGreen will be there. If you are, too, come see us at booth 14079.
If I could adopt a conference, it would be the USGBC Cascadia chapter's Living Future 'Unconference'. As someone who generally prefers to stay behind the scenes talking shop, it was a delight to find myself surrounded primarily by the obsessed of the green building world. Even better, as presenters we were encouraged to bring our own big challenges to the table and get attendees to help us address them — which is exactly what we and many other presenters did.
As Research Director at BuildingGreen, I dabble in - or dive headlong into - a wide range of BuildingGreen internal and collaborative projects, and am part of the team working to make the GreenSpec product directory as robust as possible. I have every intention of making my bio personalized, but there are too many other fun things to do than talk about myself – so in the mean time:
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"Green buildings have captured the imagination of many in the mainstream, but for green professionals the time has come to stop designing for mere energy efficiency and start designing to regenerate and restore. And that means taking responsibility for what people do in buildings and communities after they are built." — www.greenmanifesto.org
Also from the website:
Communities are people, not buildings.
