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
Hooray, Arrays! Image Courtesy of NREL The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. Thanks to its arrays of photovoltaic cells with a total production capacity of 973 kW, the nation's largest net-zero energy-use building produced as much energy as it used on June 22. National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers in the Dept. of Energy's 220,000-sq-ft Research Support Facility expect the Golden, Colo., building to achieve NZEU for the month of July, assuming the sun continues to shine. DOE's Jeffrey M. Baker, the facility's visionary and ENR's 2011 Award of Excellence winner, reports the year-old building is performing as designed (ENR
As they sift through debris from one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history, designers, builders and inspectors in Joplin, Mo., are evaluating the condition of the structures that survived the May 22 disaster and learning more about those that did not. Courtesy Thornton Tomasetti KILLING FLOOR An EF5 tornado cut a mile-wide swath through the heart of Joplin, Mo., leaving more than 150 people dead. The Reston, Va.-based American Society of Civil Engineers sent a technical assessment team to Joplin to evaluate the extent of the damage and determine whether modifications to ASCE standards are warranted.ASCE also plans to
More than four years after an EF5 tornado flattened Greensburg, Kan., and killed 11 of its 1,500 residents, business and home owners continue to rebuild in a fashion that embraces sustainable design, if not more stringent building codes. Related Links: Joplin, Mo., Devastated by May 22 Tornado, Learning Lessons From Rubble “We adopted the International Building Code in 2006 and haven't made any changes since then,” says Greensburg Mayor Bob Dixon.However, the majority of those who have rebuilt have incorporated safe rooms into their homes and workplaces. Further, if the rebuilding received financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
MARTELLY Fifteen months after an earthquake devastated Haiti's capital, the country's newly elected president, Michel Martelly, says he recognizes that he and his nation face a major rebuilding task. Speaking after an April 20 meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C., Martelly said, through an interpreter, “Clearly, I have huge challenges in front of me, but I intend to meet them.” He added, “The reconstruction process is despairingly slow.” Martelly, a former entertainer, said that 1.7 million Haitians “still live under tents” and that, unless more people are vaccinated against cholera, the epidemic could widen with the
One night in early March as well as the next day before dawn, the Dept. of Energy’s Jeffrey M. Baker wasn’t pleased when he noticed lights still burning on two floors of his pet project: the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s new, ultra-green office building in Golden, Colo. “The cleaning staff probably left them on,” said Baker, who oversees the lab. Photo: Dennis Schroeder/NREL Monitors Pless (left) and a colleague track the building’s energy use to see if it aligns with the energy model used for design. Related Links: 2011 Award of Excellence Winner: Jeffrey M. Baker Risky ‘Golden’ Job Proves
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