Photo by Doug Lockhart, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory The walls of the rotating test building have no braces thanks to an inverted moment frame. Courtesy of John Wolfe, Tipping Mar The orthogonal girder system, rare for a turntable, will collect earthquake forces from the building columns and transfer them to the central pivot foundation. Related Links: FLEXLAB, for Plug 'n Play Green-Building Studies, Has World's First Revolving Test Bed 11th-Hour Solution Solves Cable-Protection Headache at FLEXLAB's Rotating Test-Bed Building Researchers in Norway, Singapore Are Cloning FLEXLAB Constructing a single-story laboratory disguised as a 1,610-sq-ft office building—with interchangeable parts and systems
Related Links: U.S. Dept. of Energy Energy Information Administration The U.S. Dept. of Energy recently announced a dozen research grants, valued at about $12 million in total, to develop energy-efficient building technologies as well as open-source energy-efficiency software for both residential and commercial buildings. The projects will receive approximately $11 million from DOE and another $1 million in private funding.Commercial and residential buildings use nearly 40% of the total energy consumed in the U.S. each year and produce more than 40% of the nation's carbon pollution, says DOE. According to the Energy Information Administration, about 48% of energy consumption in
Related Links: Sustainable Performance Institute HUD Construction professionals have through Oct. 11 to provide the Sustainable Performance Institute with comments on the content of the draft of SPI's Green Firm Certification Program version 3.0.SPI certification is intended to validate the capability of architects, engineers and construction firms to deliver “consistent, high-quality sustainability services and confirms that marketing claims are true,” says the non-profit group. The latest version is presented as a simplified set of evaluation criteria for organizational sustainability. These criteria include vision, planning and implementation, project delivery, infrastructure, collaboration and partnering, and outcomes and metrics. The certification program also uses
Related Links: HUD's Rebuild by Design Competition Buoyant Foundation Project Rebuild By Design The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development's Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force recently announced the 10 finalists in a regional design competition aimed at promoting innovation in resilient buildings after Hurricane Sandy. The winners represent some big names in design, including the Office of Metropolitan Architecture and Sasaki Associates.Among the more than 130 hopefuls cut is Team Phase US, which was pushing amphibious new buildings and retrofits. "This is a big disappointment," says team leader Elizabeth C. English, founder-director of the nonprofit Buoyant Foundation Project.English has
Related Links: LEED v4 Approved by USGBC Members Skaska USA CEO: Don't Let Green Standards Wither ENR's 2013 Top Green Design Firms Tumult Grows Over LEED Rating System Update An Uphill Battle Against LEED-Based Codes International construction giant Skanska USA has terminated its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce due to what the firm views as attempts to “halt progress in sustainable building.” The move reportedly came after failed talks with the U.S. Chamber about its policies and follows on the heels of a pro-LEED op-ed in the Washington Post penned by Michael McNally, president and CEO of Skanska
Related Links: Skanska Quits U.S. Chamber of Commerce Over Anti-LEED Lobbying ENR's 2013 Top Green Design Firms Tumult Grows Over LEED Rating System Update An Uphill Battle Against LEED-Based Codes Skaska USA CEO: Don't Let Green Standards Wither LEED version 4 has been approved by a vote of U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) members, with 86 percent of the voting body voting in the affirmative. Approval of LEED v4 as the next version of the LEED Rating System clears the way for its launch during the Greenbuild conference in November 2013.The landmark vote, in which more than 1,200 USGBC member
Related Links: Timber Tower Research Project Softwood Lumber Board Arup San Francisco The U.S. is lagging Europe, Canada and Australia in the massive-timber tall-building movement—heating up because renewable, low-carbon-footprint timber is the most sustainable structural material. A feasibility study released last week for a 42-story concrete-jointed mass-timber frame—considered supertall in a world in which the tallest timber building is only 105 ft—could begin to change all that by stirring up interest in tall timber structures in the U.S. and even providing grist for the mill for supertall timber towers elsewhere.Under the Timber Tower Research Project, a team from the Chicago
Related Links: Information on ASHRAE's bEQ program NYC Building Energy Reprt Called a Step Toward Saving Energy An energy labeling program, which allows commercial building owners to get a better sense of how efficiently their buildings operate, has expanded to include an "As Designed" label.The program, called Building Energy Quotient (bEQ) and originally developed as a pilot program in 2010 by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), now has two labels that building owners can obtain: an As Designed label, which rates the building's potential energy use under standardized conditions, independent of the building's occupancy and