Schinnerer's RM Blog - green tag

Efficient Experimental Construction

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:56:00 GMT

Out of Denmark we have more news in green construction: Danish architects built an experimental house using just a computer, a printer, and 820 sheets of plywood. First, a 3D model was created and translated into a manufacturing template which was then sent to a computerized milling machine (the “printer”) that cuts the pieces of plywood. The home was built as part of a project intended to experiment with mass-customizing houses in an efficient manner with minimal environmental impact. Some of the environmentally friendly features of the house include the fact that the project uses no concrete, wood is the only wall material used with the exception of glass windows, only a small amount of steel is used, and the structure only touches the ground at the screw pile foundations. This manner of producing homes is attractive due to the transportability of the digital techniques. As long as the raw materials are available, the digital file could be delivered to an area and homes could be produced rather quickly, which might come in handy to a region that has been struck by natural disaster.

Gazing into the Future

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:39:00 GMT

“It’s alive, it’s ALIVE.” No, we’re not talking about Frankenstein monsters. We’re talking about the possible next generation of buildings. The SmartPlanet blog recently ran a piece on the future life of buildings and how these buildings will be loaded with sensors that automatically adjust to the environment around them. The Media-ITC building will use “a nitrogen based fog and smart temperature sensors that collect information about the outside environment." The sensors will cause cushions to "adjust, inflate, deflate, and become opaque.” These sensors are only part of a network that monitors the entire building, making it function like it has a living skin. This particular building is only one of many new designs using cutting-edge technology and construction techniques to bring buildings into a modern urban environment.

Green Buildings Surviving Disasters

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:42:00 GMT

The ability of a building to withstand natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes is not currently taken into account by the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system that rewards buildings for being sustainable. However, this may eventually change, as architects have been pointing out that a green building is one that doesn’t have to be rebuilt after a disaster. This is a valid point, due to all of the energy and materials that are necessarily expended during new construction. While it may take years for LEED to incorporate the resiliency of a building into its rating system, LEED does recognize that the ability to withstand disasters is an important aspect of sustainable structures.

Rating System for Civil Infrastructure Projects Released

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:43:00 GMT

The Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI), an independent non-profit entity set up by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the American Public Works Association (APWA) has released a new infrastructure rating system called Envision™. The new rating system is intended to provide a project assessment tool that analyzes not only how infrastructure projects are delivered but also takes into account how long they last, accounting for durability, flexibility, and utility of the constructed works. According to ISI, the rating system is intended to provide designers, decision-makers and the public with the tools to evaluate and rate infrastructure projects against the needs and values of the community, recognizing efforts that replenish and restore natural resources. The Envision System is intended to evaluate infrastructure throughout its full life with rating systems for design and planning, construction, operations, and decommissioning phases. This initial release of Envision™ addresses the design and planning phase; subsequent phase ratings will follow.

Additional information on the Envision rating system can be found at http://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/.

Fort Bliss Invests in Energy Efficiency

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:32:00 GMT

While Congress keeps wavering on the need to invest in infrastructure improvements to reduce energy usage, many military units are tapping creative solutions to answer the Obama administration’s call for improvements to save energy and create job opportunities in the private sector.

Fort Bliss, an army base about the size of the state of Rhode Island, is outside of El Paso, Texas. It created a forward-looking energy reduction program in 2009 with the goal of becoming the Army’s leadership center for renewable energy. Its vision of energy security has been focused not only on energy conservation and management efforts, but also on renewable resources such as geothermal, solar, wind, and other “off-the-grid” power sources. Recently it signed a $16 million energy efficiency contract with Johnson Controls. The energy savings performance contract will pay for improvements over a 24-year period with savings on electricity and other utility bills. The project includes the installation of 5,500 solar panels at no cost to the Army. With 330 days of sunshine on average, the El Paso area is a prime location for solar installations. In addition to the panels, daylighting solar “light pipes” are being installed to illuminate building interiors.

The base, which is envisioned as the base to around 34,000 troops and their families, has the goal of being “net zero” in energy consumption by 2015.