PPG Simplifies Product Architectural Coating Specifications

by: Duane Craig - March 23rd, 2012   Filed under: General News, Web Tech 1 Comment

Specifiers will have an easier time sorting through PPG’s options for architectural coatings with the launch of its new website. The company says it will help paint professionals easily find the products, information and resources relevant to their needs.

Organized into five professional segments – commercial, new home, multi-family, industrial and residential – ppgpro.com delivers in two clicks or fewer, targeted content such as most popular products, key services and support, color tools and ecological solutions. Read More

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Metal Buildings: Their Uses, Affordability and Costs

by: Sylvia Rosen - March 16th, 2012   Filed under: Materials 1 Comment
ConSealTab building insulation installation photo

An installer seals the edges of insulation on a steel building with the ConSealTab. Insulating metal buildings bumps up the cost by about $.30 sf.

Metal buildings have become highly popular in a number of industries since they are affordable and can withstand even the harshest environmental conditions. Even better, a well-constructed metal building done right, can have enticing curb appeal to attract customers to a business.

Wide variety of uses

While metal buildings are most commonly used for warehouses, they are also widely used today for commercial office space, storage buildings, Read More

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Metromont Uses Precast Components to Spruce Up Historic Theater

by: Duane Craig - March 9th, 2012   Filed under: Architecture and Design 1 Comment
Metromont Corp. took first place honors for Best Parking Deck for the Athens Clarke County Parking Deck project. (Photo: Business Wire)

Metromont Corp. took first place honors for Best Parking Deck for the Athens Clarke County Parking Deck project. (Photo: Business Wire)

Using precast building components speeds things up, among other benefits, and, it’s very possible to create some nice looking structures. Metromont Corporation won the Best Parking Deck award for this Athens Clarke County Parking Deck, a $16 million redevelopment project near the historic Georgia Theatre which included parking, retail and office space along with a courtyard and plaza. Metromont varied its precast in color, texture, height and offset to replicate the street level experience Read More

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2011 Solar Decathlon Offers Lessons For All Builders

by: Duane Craig - November 2nd, 2011   Filed under: Architecture and Design, Green 3 Comments

One of the things that becomes quickly clear when you take a look at the scoring graph for this year’s Solar Decathlon, held at the National Mall’s West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., is that the competitors were closely matched in the Architecture, Market Appeal and Engineering challenges. In fact, all the scores across the field of 19 university teams fell between 80 and 96 for the Architecture challenge, 67 and 94 for the Market Appeal challenge, and 64 and 91 for the Engineering challenge.

The cool thing about the closeness of these scores is it signals that certain aspects of highly energy efficient buildings are advancing at the current rate of available technology. They are also reaching a certain state-of-the-art in form. The designs show these kinds of buildings are appealing to people aesthetically, and that says a lot since people are often more than willing to sacrifice energy efficiency just to get the look they want.

But what about the low side of the scores? If you contrast the tightly grouped scores above with say the Energy Balance competition, you find a huge disparity in their closeness. In that challenge the scores ranged all the way from 100 to absolute zero. And it wasn’t just one team that scored zero in that challenge, but rather five, with the next lowest scores in the 35 range. To be fair, this is a tough part of the competition since the goal is to build a home that uses no more energy then it produces. Given the vagaries of weather it becomes clear that homes must be designed not just for the local climate, but maybe even for the local micro-climate. Still, by paying close attention to details that helped some homes achieve this goal, everybody can learn a thing or two about energy balance.

The highest score, 100, was not seen much throughout the whole competition. There were only two other challenges outside of Energy Balance where 100s were earned and that was in Hot Water and Affordability. Interestingly, Hot water and Energy Balance though, were the challenges where teams received the most 100 scores — seven in each.

Overall, there’s a lot to learn from this year’s entries and I imagine that by looking closely at construction techniques and materials used any builder will come away with a few ideas for improving building sustainability.

But beyond that, I look forward to the Solar Decathlon every year because when I look at the faces and exuberance of these young people who aren’t afraid to dream and to throw their hearts into new building designs that please people AND the environment, I feel the impetus might be there to propel us just a little bit closer to a more enlightened energy policy, rather than just continually hanging our future on fossils when most of us know, and accept, they’re going the way of the dinosaur.

This year’s overall winner was the University of Maryland. But really, everyone was a winner and there are winners in each of the challenge categories as well. There’s much more to know about this latest Solar Decathlon. So enjoy the slides below. Just click on any one and all of them will load up into a carousel you can then scan through. Then, then find out more here.

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Worldwide Construction News

by: Duane Craig - February 13th, 2009   Filed under: General News

How Much Stimulation Will Your School District Lose? Or, maybe by now it should read – Did Lose. Pro Publica has put up a tool on the Web where you can see how much construction money won’t be flowing to your school system if the Senate version of the stimulus package gets passed. Some builders may have to forego those new tape measures since even in small communities the money that won’t be flowing is significant. I checked on a town with a population of 20,000 that is nearby and the amount was more than $1.5 million.

Earthquake Proofing According to Purdue: In light of the disastrous collapses of schools and other public buildings around the world as a result of earthquakes some civil engineers at Purdue have looked at building failures and found a built-in flaw that makes buildings more susceptible to earthquake damage. Buildings in Turkey, China and Latin America use too many partial height walls between structural columns. That leads to weak points that could easily be strengthened by replacing some windows with ordinary masonry bricks.

Brazil To Build Its Way Out Of Economic Doldrums: Government in Brazil plans to build a million homes and increase government-backed home loans by 42 percent in order to reactivate the domestic construction sector. The Brazilian President is bent on getting a package that generates more jobs while building cheaper housing for poor people.

Got an Infection? Eat Your Plaster. Chinese scientists are putting the finishing touches on a self-sanitizing building plaster that is more powerful than penicillin. Dubbed “supramolecular” the material can be used for wall coatings, paints and art work, to name a few applications. It is capable of killing five types of disease-causing bacteria and controls the growth of four other kinds of bacteria better than penicillin.

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Commercial Construction Could be Aided By Green

by: Duane Craig - September 10th, 2008   Filed under: Green, Industry

Last year, on September 24 to be exact, I took a close look in this post at the Architectural Billing Index (ABI) that is put out by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). At the time July 2007 billings had a score of almost 60 but was quickly followed in August by the biggest drop since September of 2006 hitting almost 54.

Remember, those numbers predict the level of construction activity about a year in advance. Then in March of this year the commercial ABI was reported to be at 41.8 for February. That was called its lowest level since 2001. That was followed in March by a drop to 39.7, it’s lowest ever.

So that pretty much wipes out this year as far as potential recovery on the commercial side and pundits are now saying it could be most of 2009 before that sector picks up.

So it’s little wonder the AIA is asking Congress to renew the Energy Efficient Commercial Buildings Tax Deduction beyond this year. That deduction amounts to $1.80 per square foot of constructed energy-efficient commercial building. The organization thinks this will provide some stimulus to the design and construction industries.

“Currently, many developers are reluctant to pursue new commercial projects because of uncertainty over whether federal tax incentives will remain in place beyond this year,” said Paul Mendelsohn, AIA vice president, Government and Community Relations. “Ensuring that the commercial buildings tax deduction remains in place for years to come will remove this worry, help provide a much needed jolt to the economy and address critical environmental concerns.”

The AIA says the construction industry accounts for one-tenth of the US gross domestic product.

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LEDs to Light Your Way Home

by: Duane Craig - August 15th, 2008   Filed under: Green, Products

As light emitting diodes (LED) continue to permeate lighting applications it is a bit surprising to see them showing up in street lights. But, there they are, in the unit shown here from BetaLED, a division of Ruud Lighting, Inc. Named LEDway Streetlight, the units just started rolling off the assembly line in Sturdevant, WI and the City of Racine is installing 20 of them right off the line. They are actually getting units 2 through 21 of the factory’s production.

BetaLED streetlight Some interesting things about this approach to street lighting according to the company is that these lights use 50-60 percent less energy, last 23 years (or four times longer than high-pressure sodium lamps), and there is no mercury in the lamps, or in the manufacturing process. The company also has a line of products for commercial and industrial applications.

But perhaps most interesting is that this illustrates the kinds of new green technologies that are spurring a re-growth of industries like those that manufacture things. Specifiers and builders who haven’t looked closely at LED technology could be missing an important point of differentiation, and at least some long-term savings to clients in energy costs.

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The Coming of Sea Cement

by: Duane Craig - August 14th, 2008   Filed under: Materials

The making of cement uses huge amounts of fossil-fuel-generated heat and so it is the third largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the U.S. By one account making one ton of cement creates one ton of carbon dioxide, or more.

There are some life forms on earth that have been making cement since, well, forever, and so humans are starting to consider using their processes. Marine coral take calcium and magnesium from sea water and make carbonates out of it at normal temperatures and pressures.

A company called Calera plans to take the heat from the vent stacks of fossil-fuel power stations and use it to dry a slurry made from sea water and the carbon dioxide emissions from the stacks. The process makes chalk which is then used as a substitute for Portland cement. There are other companies on the trail of this process as well.

Since the product removes from the atmosphere and then sequesters carbon dioxide into a useable product that can then be used to create a building, the idea is that will go a long way toward reducing the global warming pollution from buildings – in the U.S. buildings account for 48 percent of that global warming pollution.

One hurdle of course are the regulators that approve structural components like concrete and the other is the people who build with things like concrete. So Calera will be first offering a blend that contains both Portland and the chalk.

Some of the flue gasses from California’s Moss Landing power plant are already turning out material for evaluation and Caltrans is interested in testing the cement from this process.

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Stunning Commercial Properties Showcase Sustainability

by: Duane Craig - July 23rd, 2008   Filed under: Architecture and Design

This futuristic design of the ALDAR Properties Headquarters building in Abu Dhabi won “The Best Futuristic Design” award from the Building Exchange Conference held in Valencia, Spain. The spherical building is said to be the first of its kind in the world. Designed by MZ & Partners it is 360 feet tall and is built with recyclable materials. Those materials include glass, steel and ALDAR Properties Hqconcrete so I guess it is built from recyclable materials but isn’t that making just a bit much of the obvious? Included in the building will be an automated vacuum waste system and a district cooling plant. The structure will be built using prefabricated elements and that is expected to reduce the waste and recycling load from the construction project. ALDAR is a real estate development, management and investment company headquartered in Abu Dhabi and it has announced more than $70 billion worth of developments. The company is owned by Abu Dhabi institutions.

 

Fujian Headquarters

MulvannyG2 Architecture designed the Fujian Provincial Electric and Power Company headquarters to incorporate innovative and sustainable development and design based upon best practices among Asia’s top real estate developers, consultants and designers. The building was completed in 2007 and has garnered the Sustainable Project of the Year Award from commercial real estate and design experts from across Asia. The 31-story building has a 22-story communications tower at its top.

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Codes Get Help With GHG Reduction Planning

by: Duane Craig - July 16th, 2008   Filed under: Green, Process

The U.S. Council of Mayors voted to support an initiative called The 30% Solution in an effort to bring the energy efficiency of buildings in line with the goal to one day get their greenhouse gas emissions reduced to zero. This will be no small feat as buildings account for 43 percent of the total US carbon emissions and use 76 percent of the electricity, according to Architecture 2030.

One daunting challenge lies with the various energy codes that have been adopted across the country. Even though many municipalities, states and the federal government subscribe to the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), there are also numerous HVAC standards advanced by ASHRAE and then California, Oregon and Washington have their own codes and standards. Add to that LEED standards and optional prescriptive path standards of EECC and NBI, GBI and the RESNET HERS index and…well you get the idea.

In a way it’s too bad codes and standards have developed into money makers for the codes and standards authorities because it seems there might be some great opportunities to combine a bunch of this stuff and make things simpler.

With an eye toward helping the people who work with all these codes to figure out just how much they are going to have to tweak them in order to hit the longer range goals Architecture 2030 has put together a list of the codes with the corresponding amount of additional reductions they will have to address in order to meet the 2030 Challenge. This is an interim system whereby states and local governments can figure out what more they have to do to meet the 2030 Challenge in the face of not yet having the new standards and systems that are being developed from the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey.

Here is how Architecture 2030 summed up this effort in its news release:

The urgent need for a code-based approach prompted Architecture 2030 to develop ‘code equivalents,’ which are the additional reductions needed beyond the requirements of a particular code, standard or rating system to meet or exceed the initial 50% target of the 2030 Challenge. These code equivalents can be easily incorporated into existing codes by ordinance.

You can get a copy of this document here.

 

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Tracking the Spin on LEED Advantages

by: Duane Craig - May 15th, 2008   Filed under: Green

It isn’t my nature to rain on people’s parades. I think it is generally positive when people are engaged and interested in what they are creating. I also think it is therapeutic when the things people are creating benefits others as-well-as themselves. There is something communal about that and I tend to like communal as long as it doesn’t mean someone will be knocking at my door every morning to share my coffee and chat for an indeterminable period of time about mostly nothing.

Those of you who read here regularly know my exuberance for “green” is tempered. Many times it seems that companies and people have seized upon it because it is the latest cool thing and there is a possibility they can make a buck. I know, I know that rings a bit cynical but I have watched human behavior for some time now and if you ask anyone else who has done the same thing you will find they will probably agree with me. Humans get very excited about things that appeal to a lot of other people and that also offer financial rewards.

I read with interest the report put out by the United States Green Building Council in cooperation with the New Buildings Institute. Both of these organizations deserve a lot of credit for their efforts in beginning to turn-around the thinking about the buildings we build.

While a red headline in the report championed the positives relating to the benefits of building according to the LEED program the other summary points, printed in plain old black, told a different story. This is not an indictment of following LEED building principles it is an observation of how exuberance takes over and skews reality. Through a series of complex graphs that would send a nuclear physicist’s brain into summersaults the story unfolds about the energy performance of LEED buildings. I was left wondering if the intent was to impress, or obfuscate, because it certainly didn’t seem to help the reader to figure out just exactly what was being presented. So, being an astute report reader I skipped to the conclusions and here is what I found:

  • LEED buildings are 25-30 percent more efficient than non-LEED buildings;
  • The higher the LEED achievement level the greater the savings (Platinum LEED buildings are 45 percent better than non-LEED buildings);
  • While 30 percent of LEED buildings perform better than expected, 25 percent perform worse;
  • A handful of buildings have serious energy consumption problems, (everything in the report up to here has been excruciatingly exact so why is handful used here instead of a number?);
  • Lab buildings use twice the energy expected; and
  • Modeling results are mixed, the baseline performance target is not aggressive, and better feedback is needed.

On the whole it looks like LEED has some beneficial effects and it also has some problems. When these things are written about, and presented, the credibility might be enhanced if the sugar was left for the cake and the facts and data were shown in a simple way. There is already a lot of vital information in the world being presented with agenda and entertainment spin. In this case the upside seems to be clear, although the following realities could be skewing that assessment:

  • LEED needs some refinements in the data gathering, modeling and analysis areas in order to most accurately get a fix on its real value relative to its cost;
  • The expectations people have regarding the actual benefits of LEED appear to be higher and more divergent than they should be;
  • Some building types, based upon use, may not respond as expected to LEED initiatives.

So are LEED buildings really 25 to 30 percent more efficient than non-LEED buildings? I think the jury is still out on this one. What about you?

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