The International Living Future Institute, responding to market demand, has launched the Net Zero Energy Building Certification…, the first program that provides third party certification of net zero energy performance. Building upon the success of the Institute’s Living Building Challenge (“LBC”) the new initiative is designed to address

The following post appeared in Environmental Design and Construction on January 10.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the release of the third installment in a series of four 50% Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs)…. This latest guide will help architects, engineers, and contractors design and build highly

Rocky Mountain Institute’s Michael Bendewald recently penned an article for TriplePundit.com about the $4 billion President Obama… committed to building retrofits.  In the article, Bendewald provides a number examples demonstrating how deep energy retrofits are bolstering the economy through job creation and inching closer to the tipping point for the mainstreaming

The Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES), a public-private partnership of Boise State University, Idaho State University, and the University of Idaho, located in Idaho Falls, Idaho, is tasked with delivery of “innovative, cost-effective, credible energy research leading to sustainable technology-based economic environment”. A new case study by NEEA’s BetterBricks…

A 2011 Portland AIA Design Awards jurist commented upon the Portland Community College Newberg Center…, winner of this year’s Sustainable Design Award, saying “the building is a diagram of itself”. What might that mean? Well, unlike the hidden building systems in many facilities, you can get a good sense

What do you get when you combine the Portland AIA Design Awards, the Portland AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE), NEEA’s BetterBricks initiative, and the Architecture 2030 Challenge? Why, the 2030 Challenge Design Awards, of course! Presented November 10^th… at the Portland AIA COTE Green

 
The Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC) has opened the call for entries for the 2011 Beyond Green™ High-Performance Building Awards…. The awards recognize buildings, initiatives and products that shape, inform and catalyze the high-performance building market. The award winners will be invitedto present their projects on Capitol Hill

As an architect or engineer striving to increase building energy performance, do you often feel the weight of the world on your shoulders? The combined load of client expectations, the 2030 Commitment…, energy models addressing multiple baselines, and LEED documentation, must all be optimized within budget constraints as you

…The BetterBricks Awards return to for the ninth year in Oregon and the seventh year in Washington to recognize local professionals who are taking significant strides in reducing the energy consumption and carbon footprint of Northwest commercial buildings.  Green building professionals are encouraged to submit a nomination no later than

Retrofitting our existing building stock to achieve substantial energy savings is quickly becoming a major theme for city governments across the nation in an effort to cut energy consumption – and save taxpayers money.  In a recent GreenBiz article written by Rocky Mountain Institute’s… Michael Bendwald, the author looks at

…Wouldn’t it be convenient to compare the energy performance of commercial buildings as readily as you can compare the mileage ratings of different vehicles? Local and state governments around the Northwest are implementing programs to facilitate this process. While the proposed programs, so far, will all rely on EPA’s ENERGY

Designed to be the most energy efficient commercial building in the world – at least for the moment – the Bullitt Foundation’s Cascadia Center… will achieve this objective through integrated architectural and engineering design, cutting-edge technology and components, carefully selected building materials and conscious choices by tenants.
In 2007, Congress

Ulf Meyer is an accomplished architectural critic and author who has been published in major newspapers and architectural magazines both in Germany and abroad. He is the editor of ARCH+ journal and serves as the German correspondent for World Architecture. NEEA’s BetterBricks… caught up with Ulf during a visit to

Don’t let the title, Spreadsheet Sustainability, of Russell Fortmeyer’s McGraw Hill Construction—Continuing Education Center… article mislead you. Yes, he does make the case that a surprisingly large amount of advanced sustainability strategies are analyzed and designed not with sophisticated, packaged, integrated design models, but with sophisticated, proprietary spreadsheets, crafted

The U.S. Department of Energy has released the Advanced Energy Design Guide for Small and Medium Office Buildings: Achieving 50% Energy Savings Toward a Net Zero Building…—the first in a series of four new construction Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs). K-12 Schools, Medium to Big Box Retail

ECO-STRUCTURE is once again looking for environmentally responsible projects throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico for its Evergreen Awards.  Note that entries are due by May 31, so act fast.… Below are award and submission details
Enter your high-performance projects in ECO-STRUCTURE’s annual Evergreen Awards and be recognized for

Analytical software? Diagnostic tools? Have you started putting a toolkit together? Do you know where you’d begin?
A team of University of Oregon undergraduate architecture students, members of the UO student ASHRAE… (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) chapter, will soon be able to provide some advice.

Oregon’s Daily Journal of Commerce recently reported that energy modeling is not just for sustainability geeks anymore!… NEEA’s BetterBricks initiative has held that view for awhile and has partnered extensively with regional and national experts to research energy modeling tools and methods and educate architects and engineers.
NEEA’s BetterBricks asked

Every year, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE)… invites submission of projects for selection among the top ten green projects of the year. Sustainability bragging rights are awarded to these select projects, based upon a comprehensive, balanced set of measures and metrics, including a category

If you are not familiar with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)… you should be. With a mission “to drive the efficient and restorative use of resources”, the non-profit develops strategies “to map and drive the transition from coal and oil to efficiency and renewables.” For up-to-date resources supporting high performance

Looking for new tools to enhance your ability to daylight commercial building spaces? Want increased certainty that your daylighting strategies will perform as designed? Need to streamline the effort required to integrate daylighting into your projects? If you can get to Seattle for a three-hour workshop… the morning of April

After wowing over 300 guests at the Portland BetterBricks Awards, Kevin Kampschroer, Director of the Office of Federal High Performance Green Buildings for the U.S. General Service Administration (GSA), was invited by SERA Architects… and NEEA’s BetterBricks initiative to tour the extensive energy efficient renovation of GSA’s Edith Green

Q&A: Dana Schneider, VP, Sustainability Services Market Lead, Jones Lang LaSalle
By Brian Libby, for NEEA’s BetterBricks Initiative
In 2009, owners of one of New York City’s great architectural landmarks, the Empire State Building… embarked on a renovation to reduce the skyscraper’s energy use by more than one-third by 2013.

The President signed an Executive Order directing federal agencies to achieve zero net energy by 2030 and employ high-performance and sustainable design principles for all new construction and alterations. At least 15 percent of existing buildings need to meet these guiding principles by FY 2015.  Read more HERE….

Check out this article by HOK titled “The Path to Net Zero C o2urt – Where Form Follows Performance”.  An integrated design team led by HOK and energy and daylighting consultant The Weidt Group… undertook a 10-month virtual design charrette to create a prototype market-rate, zero-emissions design for a

While you may not find them on the racks at airport bookstores, COMNET’s recently published Commercial Buildings Energy Modeling Guidelines and Procedures… are a lot more interesting than you might imagine. While intended as a guideline for building energy modelers and simulation software developers, architects interested in learning to increase

Architecture 2030… handed out its first ever awards for significant energy and carbon reductions to a group of well-deserving Portland-based architecture firms.  In collaboration with AIA Portland and their Committee on the Environment (COTE) and NEEA’s BetterBricks initiative, Architecture 2030 presented the inaugural 2030 Challenge Design Awards in recognition of

To help round out your integrated design toolbox, NEEA’s BetterBricks – in collaboration with the University of Oregon’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory – developed a new interactive resource:  http://designsynthesis.betterbricks.com…. This video-driven website describes the four major elements of integrated design, articulates important differences between the design process and

…How does the scope of energy modeling change to better support the integrated design process? This is a question that leading designers and NEEA’s BetterBricks have been grappling to answer. We have been promoting an integrated design approach that emphasizes the synthesis of energy efficient solutions from opportunities related to

BetterBricks Awards Calls for Nominations. …
Each year, a handful of standout individuals throughout the Northwest are honored with a BetterBricks Award for their commitment to high performance buildings and contributions to a sustainable built environment.  These awards honor the people behind some of the best commercial building projects throughout the

NEEA’s BetterBricks website has quite a bit of information about integrated project delivery (IPD) and building information modeling (BIM).  Most building professionals believe that both resources are bound to play a significant role in the creation of high performance buildings. Attorney Hafez Daraee assesses industry acceptance and IPD and BIM…

Part II:
Integrated Design, MEEB and The Green Studio Handbook: Environmental Strategies for Schematic Design
This is the second of two interviews with the authors of the Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings (MEEB)… Alison Kwok, Professor of Architecture, University of Oregon, and Walter Grondzik, Professor of Architecture, Ball State

“MEEB like this, MEEB like that, yo MEEB, you be where the party at!”
“Ask yourself, what is the best textbook in the whole universe?”
–Seduciousness (“MEEB Like This” on YouTube)

An Interview with the Authors – PART 1
For over 50 years, Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for …

WMIG?
Among the many criteria you might select to benchmark your projects, one of the most helpful is an assessment of the qualities of award winning projects. To help you keep your eye on the prize, a new pocket-sized publication, available from NEEA’s BetterBricks, …and a touring exhibition traversing

Are you hankering to design an ambitious Net-Zero Energy Building (NZEB), but you just can’t overcome your assessment of the potential risk? Ever wanted the designers and project managers who have been there before you to whisper lessons learned into your ear? Well, here’s your chance to hear from some…

Authored by “The Dream Team” at The Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design and Construction
The Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design and Construction strives to be the first of its kind: an urban mid-rise Living Building^TM.  The vision of the Bullitt Foundation and its director, Denis Hayes…, is

Oregon Health and Sciences University is once again taking center stage for its super efficient Center for Health & Healing building in Portland’s South Waterfront district.  The Building Owners and Managers Association International recently honored the building with its Outstanding Building of Year award….  The Center for Health and

The aim of Rocky Mountain Institute’s Built Environment Team (BET)  is to transform the built environment into a sustainable and regenerative global ecology.  With an emphasis on achieving energy efficiency through integrated design, the BET has contributed to numerous high-performance projects throughout the world.  Two of the projects they’ve worked…

At the AIA Convention in Miami last Thursday, several Northwest firms presented on their efforts to track and benchmark energy performance on all their projects. The session focused on how firms are doing in meeting their AIA 2030 commitments. Margaret Montgomery, Director of Sustainability for NBBJ and Chris Chatto on the ZGF…

The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s BetterBricks initiative congratulates the Seattle AIA 2010 What Makes It Green Award winners and the Seattle AIA and Seattle COTE for an outstanding program and process. The program culminated in the 11th annual awards event held in Seattle on June 2^nd…. This came

Students in one Portland, Oregon middle school just earned some serious bragging rights among their peers.  The Evans – Harvard High Performance Classroom at the da Vinici Arts Middle School… was recently awarded LEED platinum certification – the first K-12 public school building to achieve this level of certification. The

Portland is once again on the national stage, but this time it’s not the New York Times touting the city’s epic eateries (thanks for the nod, but enough already).  Architect Magazine released its second annual ranking of green architecture firms… and two of the top ten firms call Portland home.

…
A groundbreaking new research effort reveals how hospitals, which account for four percent of all energy consumed in the U.S., can achieve a 60 percent reduction in energy utility use by redesigning the way they use energy. A newly constructed, code-compliant hospital in the Northwest following the process and employing strategies

Another great opportunity to hear from a leading European practitioner presents itself for Portland area building professionals and students.
David Cook of Behnisch Architekten, and currently the Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Visiting Professor in Architecture… at the University of Oregon School of Architecture, will be speaking at the U of O White Stag

A recent DesignIntelligence… blog post has an interesting posting relating icebergs to buildings. This is particularly apropos to energy efficiency in buildings. DesignIntelligence is the Design Futures Council’s bi-monthly report.
“Like buildings, icebergs come in all shapes and sizes. They can be beautiful and also a little mysterious. On average,

The building envelope is an essential component and area of opportunity in the design, engineering and operation of ultra-low energy buildings.  Rather than serving as a static enclosure, it has the potential to redirect and filter daylight, provide natural ventilation, manage radiant heat transfers, and create visual and physical connections…

The fifth annual Puget Sound BetterBricks Awards wrapped up a few weeks and ushered in a new batch green building overachievers.  The aim of these Awards are to both recognize energy efficiency achievements in commercial buildings as well as inspire others to embrace high performance buildings.
This year’s Award winners…

There’s less than two weeks left to submit your work to be considered for the the What Makes it GREEN Awards…. Presented by AIA Seattle’s Committee on the Environment (COTE), What Makes it GREEN? (WMIG?) recognizes and celebrates the best green design in the Northwest and Pacific Region.  WMIG?

Three years of hard work, characterized by widespread building industry collaboration, has resulted in the first comprehensive U.S. commercial green building standard accredited by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) and intended for adoption into local codes. The Standard may also be used by utility programs and green building rating…

…
Each year BetterBricks hosts an awards ceremony in four cities throughout the Northwest to celebrate the accomplishments of green building professionals.  The aim is to both recognize energy efficiency achievements in commercial buildings as well as inspire others to embrace high performance buildings.  After all, buildings consume more than 40