The International Code Council's 2012 International Green Construction Code, or IgCC, released on March 28, seeks to provide the building community with more flexibility in the design of high-performance buildings than did earlier versions, its developers say.The culmination of a three-year effort by the ICC, the code was developed with significant input from construction industry leaders, policymakers and environmental groups. Formally approved in November 2011, it is the first model code to include sustainability measures for an entire construction project and its site for the entire life cycle of the project.The 2012 code incorporates the 2011 version of ANSI/ASHRAE/IES/USGBC Standard
Photo Courtesy of ASHRAE An Oberlin College building, designed for net-zero energy use, has not performed as well as hoped. Green does not necessarily mean energy-efficient. "A lot of people think it does," said consulting engineer Lawrence G. Spielvogel at the ASHRAE winter conference last month. The veteran mechanical engineer then charged that the long-used energy standard for commercial building systems, ASHRAE 90.1, "provides and requires a variety of means to waste energy efficiently, which is why so many 'green' buildings have high energy use."Among many things, Spielvogel—a known gadfly—blames code-required control systems for waste. "Good mechanical engineers do not
Related Links: Related Story: Resilient Systems Not Yet Tested by a Quake Structural engineer Steven Tipping doesn't often attend industry events, let alone introduce himself to keynote speakers. But he is glad he did just that on Dec. 5, 2007. So is the team for the $145.5-million San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Headquarters, a nearly finished job with a difficult past.Tipping's actions at the Dec. 5 breakfast—at which a project of his was recognized and he heard Webcor Builders' Phillip Williams speak—inadvertently helped recenter the ailing job. The 13-story showcase for sustainable design and construction owes its existence, in part,
Related Links: Main Story: Tensioning Eases Stress on a 13-Story Sustainability Showcase Tipping Mar's vertically post-tensioned concrete shear walls in the 164-ft-tall San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Headquarters is the most ambitious—and tallest—example to date of a family of lateral-load-resisting structures designed to minimize damage in a major earthquake and allow immediate reoccupancy. U.S. structural practitioners and researchers have been developing the self-centering systems, modeled after PT bridge construction, for about a decade.Self-centering structures, when designed in structural steel, have become known as "rocking frames." In addition to concrete systems, there are examples of self-centering PT structures in precast concrete
Images courtesy Stantec / Cause and Effect Evolutions Stantec architect Annette Zacherson designed the project to maximize natural light through clerestory windows. Images courtesy Stantec / Cause and Effect Evolutions Shaded light wells and outdoor screens are a major feature of the school design. An audacious plan is under way to build as many as 24 new schools in key markets across the U.S. solely through corporate funding, donated materials and volunteer labor.Dubbed the Green Schoolhouse Series, the idea sprung from father-and-son team Marshall and Jeff Zotara, co-founders of Cause and Effect Evolutions, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based firm acting as organizer,
Delhi International Airport Ltd. Indira Gandhi International Airport's $2-billion Terminal 3 has obtained LEED-Gold certification. Raintree Hotels The chain of Raintree business hotels in Chennai are the first eco-sensitive hotels in southern India. They use rubber, wood, bamboo and medium-density fiber for construction. Related Links: Indian Green Building Council India Plans Airport System Expansion (requires ENR login) Over the next five years, experts say, India's green building sector will outpace the growth of the country's overall construction sector. But with today's green infrastructure penetrating just 3% of all construction, India's green building boom may have only just begun.Evidence of this
Next year, the American Institute of Architects plans to release “green” model contract forms designed to help limit legal exposure on sustainable projects. The forms are based on the institute's model agreements between owner and architect and between owner and contractor. They will incorporate concepts from AIA's free Guide for Sustainable Projects, published in the spring.AIA previewed the forms at the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, which drew 23,000 registrants to Toronto on Oct. 4-7. The objective of the agreements is to “make sure that roles and responsibilities are correctly defined” and to “allocate risk
Courtesy of Mahlum. DIET Hospital is designed to use nearly two-thirds less energy than most Pacific Northwest facilities. Courtesy of the Miller Hull Partnership. ENERGY MISER At 52,000 sq ft, office building is designed to use 16,000 Btu per sq ft per year. Two small projects in Washington state are emphasizing sustainable design beyond the norm. The 38,000-sq-ft Peace Island Medical Center is designed to use almost one-third the energy of a typical hospital in the Northwest. In Seattle, the 52,000-sq-ft Bullitt Center is a net-zero energy-use project that is designed to produce as much energy as it uses over
Photo courtesy of Albuquerque Public Schools MODEL SCHOOL Barcelona Elementary School is one of several LEED-certified schools in Albuquerque designed under a green code adopted in 2006. Photo by Patrick Coulie Photography MODEL LAB LEED-certification goals were added during design of the N.M. Scientific Laboratories. The Albuquerque Public Schools system may become a testing ground for more than just the 90,000 students it serves. A recent debate within the school board over using the popular green-building rating system, known as LEED, for facility design and construction echoes a heated cost-versus-benefit dispute stemming from New Mexico's recent adoption of new building
A report from a non-profit think tank highlights some of the barriers several cities and states have experienced in implementing new building-energy benchmarking and disclosure policies, as well as some suggestions for ways to overcome those barriers.Within the past five years, five cities and two states have adopted policies that require owners of large, commercial buildings to measure their properties' energy consumption and make the data publicly available. The jurisdictions are in New York City, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Austin, Texas, San Francisco and the states of California and Washington.Although the policies are on the books, some of the jurisdictions have