Green Building Articles

Home Depot and Habitat for Humanity Back Green Building
The partnership between a home improvement company and a shelter provider might seem simple, but the plans that two established organizations have now are far from cut and dry. A $30 million green building program is going national, funded by the Home Depot Foundation, and plans to build 5,000 efficient homes over the next five years.
Habitat for Humanity and the Home Depot Foundation started a pilot last year through 30 affiliates that resulted in 260 sustainable homes. The Partners in Sustainable Building program began there, and is now poised to break into the national sphere.
Read More...

Saving greenbacks by going green
Energy-efficient buildings reduce waste, can boost profits
Green, more than a color, is a catchall term used to describe an ecoconscious lifestyle, including everything from hybrid-fuel-powered cars to recycled consumer goods to solar electricity. The big-minded concept is to preserve the Earth's natural resources by reducing waste and pollution through innovative design and improved efficiency. In development circles, green has gone from a boutique idea to a mandatory part of architecture and construction.
"It's not just about energy savings," said Craig Willcut, president of United Construction, which opened new sustainable offices in Reno this year. "It's about providing a healthy environment for employees, as well as being socially responsible for our part of the environment."
Companies with green offices have an easier time recruiting and retaining employees, studies show. Healthy work settings, with plenty of daylight and fresh air, can reduce sick days. Today's Generation Y work force actively seeks social-minded employers that reduce their carbon footprints and improve the world around them.
"It's a popular thing with the younger generation," said Christopher Larson, spokesman for the Sustainable Development Committee of the Las Vegas chapter of NAIOP, a commercial real estate trade group. "They want to work for a company that is thinking sustainable because it's cool and the right thing to do."
Buildings are responsible for 40 percent of the Earth's global warming, observers say.
"Corporate responsibility is becoming unavoidable," said Rick Van Diepen, chairman of the Committee on the Environment for the Las Vegas chapter of the American Institute of Architects. "Employee productivity is being improved by 1 percent to 2 percent, conservatively, by working in a green building. That is a huge bottom-line savings."
Read More...

The Missing Link: Checking Up on Green Buildings
Green buildings are supposed to revolutionize the way the nation's built environment operates chiefly by using less energy. Seeing as U.S. commercial buildings account for about 30 percent of carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Green Building Council, improving the performance of the built environment is a key focus of all green building rating systems. But the green building industry has a dirty little secret: Until recently, few people really kept track of how so-called "high-performance buildings" were actually performing.
The main driver for green buildings in the United States is the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (USGBC-LEED) rating system. LEED-certified buildings, at the basic Certified level, are designed to use 30 percent less energy than buildings built to standard code. It would make sense to assume that LEED-certified buildings at all levels do in fact perform as advertised.
"We're not seeing the true performance we might have expected [out of LEED-certified buildings]," says Jared Silliker, owner of Silliker + Partners, a green building-focused consulting firm based in Seattle.
A study released in March 2008 by New Buildings Institute (NBI) looked at 121 of U.S. buildings that were certified by the LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) rating system through 2006. Of those, only 25 percent are performing better than their counterparts that were built to code.
Read More...

ASHRAE Research Targets Tying Together BIM, Energy Efficiency
Ensuring that a common language of "energy efficiency" is spoken by both building information modeling software used by architects and energy analysis and simulation software used by engineers is the goal of new research funded by ASHRAE.
The project will develop open-source reference models by which developers may test their solutions to interoperability between BIM and energy simulation software. The project will focus on the most common thermal features in buildings assumed to have the greatest impact on energy use, and provide guidelines for describing thermal models extracted from BIM and the rules for extracting those models used in whole building energy analysis applications.
"This research will promote the inclusion of energy efficiency measures in the early design of building model development," said Mark Clayton, Ph.D., principal investigator for the project. "It is expected to greatly increase the efficiency and accuracy of energy analysis and allow building designs to achieve higher levels of energy efficiency."
The project is one of 13 approved for funding by ASHRAE at its 2009 Annual Conference, totaling some $1.6 million.
Read More...

Design firms taking on more liability risk, but BIM insurance is available
A SmartRisk survey of 17 professional liability insurance carriers specializing in coverage for building design firms found that 82% of such firms are accepting more risk, while 36% of the carriers said premium rates were down 5-20%, and 75% said they offer BIM coverage.
Key Survey Findings
The survey report identifies insurance and risk trends, offerings and services supporting the A/E market segment. The following are a few of the key findings of the survey. Detailed information and analysis can be found within the survey report.
  • 82%: Providers indicating A/E firms are accepting more risk
  • 36.3% Premium rates down 5-20%
  • 73%: Firms not purchasing insurance, lowering limits, increasing deductibles
  • 53%: Providers offering risk management services to all firms
  • 35.3%: Economic climate has increased claims
  • 45%: Rates for 2009 and 2010 indicated as even
  • 75%: Providers offering BIM coverage in policy language
  • 41.2%: Providerss offering mid-term quotes
    Read More...

    AIA report estimates up to 270,000 construction industry jobs could be created if the American Clean Energy Security Act is passed
    Building-related provisions in act have environmental and economic benefits
    With the encouragement of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) conducted a study to determine how many jobs in the design and construction industry could be created if the American Clean Energy Security Act (H.R. 2454; also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill) is enacted.
    The study analyzes two provisions included in the House-passed Act, the State Energy and Environment Development (SEED) program and the Green Resources for Energy Efficient Neighborhoods (GREEN) program. Using studies that measure the extent of job creation in the building industry, the findings estimate that as many as 270,000 jobs could be created or saved if the building-related provisions in H.R. 2454 become law.
    "We have been actively calling for investments in infrastructure that create greener buildings, vibrant communities, and a 21st century transportation network that is good for both the environment and economy," said AIA Executive Vice President / CEO, Christine McEntee. "Investing in such projects will both create jobs and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment, and we call on the Senate to pass the building-related provisions in the American Clean Energy Security Act."
    Read More...

    Model Based Estimating to Inform Target Value Design
    The use of Target Value Design (TVD) or Target Costing is one of the focus areas of the application of Lean Construction methods to large healthcare projects. The Lean Construction Institute defines Target Costing as a practice which incorporates cost as a factor in design to minimize waste and create value. The cardinal rule is that the Target Cost for a project should never be exceeded. In most traditional project delivery approaches, cost follows design, but on projects where the TVD approach is used, cost should dictate what gets designed to ensure that the target cost is not exceeded. As a result, rapid cost feedback to the design team is paramount in this process.
    One mechanism for providing this rapid cost feedback is extracting quantities from the virtual model and model-based estimates. In this article, Saurabh Tiwari, Josh Odelson, Alan Watt, and Atul Khanzode of DPR Construction discuss the lessons currently being learned in applying Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools, such as model-based estimating, for TVD on a large healthcare project in Northern California.
    Read More...