Related Links: ASHRAE Illuminating Engineering Society of North America The updated energy standard for buildings includes big revisions to building envelope, lighting and mechanical appliance requirements. The changes make the 2013 update 40% to 50% more stringent than the 2004 version, according to ASHRAE, which recently published the standard.ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, incorporates 110 addenda that reflect changes to the 2010 energy standard.The prescriptive window-to-wall ratio remains 40%, but stricter fenestration provisions require double-glazed windows in many climates and establish a minimum visible-transmittance/solar-heat-gain-coefficient ratio to allow daylighting with minimal solar gain.Minimum efficiencies are
Related Links: FLEXLAB, for Plug 'n Play Green-Building Studies, Has Worlds First Revolving Test Bed Putting a Square Peg in a Round Hole to Construction the World's First Rotating Test Laboratory Researchers in Norway, Singapore are Cloning FLEXLAB FLEXLAB Stantec Stantec Architecture was stumped, having gone down several dead ends trying to design a system to manage the 48 ft of flexible conduit in the crawl space under FLEXLAB's rotational green-systems test building in Berkeley, Calif. The team worried about the conduit slack, which allows the turntable to rotate without ripping out the electrical service, snaking around on the concrete
Related Links: 11th-Hour Solution Solves Cable-Protection Headache at FLEXLAB's Rotating Test-Bed Building Researchers in Norway, Singapore Are Cloning FLEXLAB Putting a Square Peg in a Round Hole to Construct the World's First Rotating Test Laboratory FLEXLAB Singapore's Centre for Sustainable Buildings and Construction On Sept. 12, crews successfully rotated a 64-ft-dia turntable, complete with its unique cable management system, for the world's first revolving rent-a-lab for full-scale green-building-systems performance tests. The 40%-completed lazy-Susan building, which tracks the sun from the southeast to northeast by rotating 270˚, is the trickiest part of FLEXLAB, a $15.7-million research complex at the Lawrence Berkeley
Related Links: FLEXLAB, for Plug 'n Play Green-Building Studies, Has Worlds First Revolving Test Bed FLEXLAB PROSPECT Silicon Valley Cindy Regnier, manager of the world's first research laboratory for full-scale performance mock-ups of integrated green-building systems, is canvassing the world to find partners and research sponsors for the facility, called FLEXLAB. Regnier is bent on doing her part to create a new paradigm for energy conservation in buildings. And she is using the lab as a springboard.She seems to be succeeding. The $15.7-million FLEXLAB, which stands for "Facility for Low-Energy Experiments in Buildings," is still under construction on the campus
Andrew G. Wright for ENR Retrofit Zero Energy Building lab provides test bed for solar panels and natural lighting. Andrew G. Wright for ENR PARKROYAL Hotel on Pickering, in the central business district, maximizes green design features. Designed by WOHA, the property sports more than 15,000 cu m of gardens and pools. The Singapore Building and Construction Authority designated it a Green Mark Platinum building. Related Links: Zero Energy Building -- Singapore World Green Building Council home page With customary well-scripted attention to detail, Singapore has unveiled the latest version of the island nation-state's blueprint for sustainable development, the so-called
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
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