Volume 15, Issue 5
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Environmental Building NewsTM The Leading Newsletter on Environmentally Responsible Design & Construction A Publication of BuildingGreen, Inc. www.BuildingGreen.com Volume 15, Number 5 · May 2006 Passive Survivability: In This Issue A New Design Criterion for Buildings Feature Article ............1 • Passive Survivability: A New N DECEMBER 2001 AN EDITORIAL IN The Vulnerability of Buildings Design Criterion for Buildings EBN introduced the concept of “passive Isurvivability,” or a building’s ability to While Hurricane Katrina wasn’t the fi rst What’s Happening ...... 2 maintain critical life-support conditions natural disaster to affect an entire city, • Newsbriefs if services such as power, heating fuel, and it certainly won’t be the last to cause or water are lost, and suggested that it widespread power outages and damage Awards & Competitions ........ 5 should become a standard design criterion to buildings, it may have been a turning for houses, apartment buildings, schools, point—both in our acceptance that global • AIA Awards 2006 Top Ten and certain other building types (EBN warming is real and in our awareness Green Projects Vol. 14, No. 12). Since then, the term has of the vulnerability we face in the years • Award Briefs begun creeping into the lexicon of green and decades ahead. Visionary thinker building, though we have a long way to go Gil Friend suggested in a recent essay Then & Now: 1996-2006 ........... 7 before the mainstream building industry that someday we will look back at 2005 takes notice. as a tipping point. “The fact- and science- • Unvented Gas Heaters Still averse among us may still claim to not Gaining Ground In this article we examine the concept of be persuaded about global warming, but passive survivability in greater detail and I’ll wager that everyone else got the mes- Product News & Reviews ............... 8 address some specifi c strategies that can be sage in 2005,” he wrote in “Sustainability— employed in adopting this design criterion At the Tipping Point?” in his online • New Delta Showerhead for buildings. newsletter, The New Bottom Advances State of the Art Line (www.natlogic.com). • Kohler Enters the Waterless Urinal Market As the storm track images on page 11 clearly convey, • Another Green Panel Manufacturer Calls it Quits both the frequency and the magnitude of tropical From the Library ....... 15 storms affecting the Gulf • Design Essentials Coast and coastal Atlantic states increased dramatically • Making Better Concrete in the decade 1995 to 2004 compared with the previous Calendar .................. 16 decade. Other, longer-term, scientifi c studies have dem- onstrated that at least the Quote of the month: severity of tropical storms has been increasing as an ef- “With a single ganglion for a brain, using no electricity fect of global warming, even or fossil fuels, termites if the jury is still out on the construct dwellings that frequency of storms. maintain temperature, Photo credit: Duane Lempke, Sisson Studios humidity, and ventilation Cooling-load avoidance strategies, like the shades on the southwestern The potential for rising sea better than most buildings.” windows of the combined Langston High School and Langston-Brown levels has also been in the Terry Brennan Community Center in Arlington, Virginia, help maintain livable news a great deal recently. thermal conditions in a building even when the power goes out. (page 12) (continued on p. 10) What’s Happening Environmental Building News Executive Editor · Alex Wilson Editor · Nadav Malin What’s Happening Managing Editor · Jessica Boehland Associate Editor · Mark Piepkorn Editorial Intern · Rachel Auerbach Humanity Overshoots Biological than it did in record-breaking 2004, Art Director · Julia Jandrisits Capacity by 39%—Humanity’s eco- the percentage of that petroleum that Marketing Director · Susan Way logical footprint exceeds the planet’s was imported reached a new high in Outreach Director · Jerelyn Wilson capacity by 39%, according to Rede- 2005, according to the U.S. Depart- Director of Online Services · Jim Newman Webmaster · Ethan Goldman fi ning Progress, a nonprofi t policy ment of Energy’s Energy Informa- GreenSpec Manager · Angela Battisto organization based in Oakland, Cali- tion Administration. Of the 99.84 Financial Manager · Willie Marquart fornia. The ecological footprint is a quadrillion Btus used, a net 59.8% Circulation Department measure of the amount of “nature” was imported. Of those imports, Charlotte Snyder, Mgr. · Martha Swanson it takes to sustain a given population 17.0% came from the Persian Gulf Advisory Board John Abrams, Chilmark, MA over the course of a year; compar- and 40.7% came from OPEC coun- Bob Berkebile, FAIA, Kansas City, MO ing this footprint to the same area’s tries. More information is online at John Boecker, AIA, Harrisburg, PA biological capacity shows the degree www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/. Terry Brennan, Rome, NY Bill Browning, Hon. AIA, Rappahannock, VA to which the population is living Nancy Clanton, P.E., Boulder, CO sustainably, or within its ecological Raymond Cole, Ph.D., Vancouver, BC means. The new report fi nds human- Norton Claims Increase in Wet- David Eisenberg, Tucson, AZ Drew George, San Diego, CA ity’s current footprint to be an aver- lands—Gale Norton, outgoing sec- Harry Gordon, FAIA, Washington, DC age of 57 acres (23 ha) per person, retary of the interior, announced John L. Knott, Jr., Dewees Island, SC Malcolm Lewis, Ph.D., P.E., Irvine, CA while Earth’s biological capacity is in March 2006 an increase in the Gail Lindsey, FAIA, Raleigh, NC just 41 (17 ha). It identifi es overfi sh- nation’s area of wetlands. Although Joseph Lstiburek, P.E., Westford, MA ing, industrial agriculture, urban more than 500,000 acres (202,000 ha) Sandra Mendler, AIA, San Francisco, CA Greg Norris, Ph.D., N. Berwick, ME sprawl, and carbon emissions as the of swamps and tidal marshes were Russell Perry, AIA, Washington, DC chief culprits driving the overshoot. lost between 1998 and 2004, the U.S. Peter Pfeiffer, FAIA, Austin, TX Fish and Wildlife Service found a Bill Reed, AIA, Arlington, MA The U.S. has the world’s third highest Jonathan Rose, Katonah, NY ecological defi cit, coming in well be- 200,000-acre (81,000 ha) net increase Marc Rosenbaum, P.E., Meriden, NH hind the United Arab Emirates and in wetlands, due to the fact that it Michael Totten, Washington, DC Gail Vittori, Austin, TX Kuwait. The entire report is online at counted golf course water hazards, ornamental ponds, stormwater sys- www.ecologicalfootprint.org. ENVIRONMENTAL BUILDING NEWS (ISSN 1062- tems, and mine reclamation ponds. 3957) is published monthly by BuildingGreen, Inc. EBN does not accept advertising. Subscriptions are $99/year. Outside North America add $30. Periodicals U.S. Homes Continue to Grow—The postage paid at Brattleboro, Vt. and at additional average new, single-family home mailing offi ces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Environmental Building News, 122 Birge St., Ste 30, built in the U.S. in 2004 came in at Brattleboro, VT 05301. 2,349 ft2 (218 m2)—13% larger than Copyright © 2006, BuildingGreen, Inc. All rights the average in 1990 and 2.4 times as reserved. No material in this newsletter may be photocopied, electronically transmitted, or otherwise big as the average in 1950—according reproduced by any means without written permission to the National Association of Home from the Publisher. However, license to photocopy items for internal use or by institutions of higher educ- Builders’ newest “Housing Facts, Fig- tion as part of collective works is granted, provided ures, and Trends” report, released in that the appropriate fee is paid directly to Copyright March 2006. Of new homes in 2004, Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923, USA; 978-750-8400. 95% had two full bathrooms or more, Disclaimer compared with 87% in 1990 and only Every effort has been made to ensure that the infor- 4% in 1950; and 91% had a garage or mation presented in EBN is accurate and that design carport, compared with 84% in 1900 and construction details meet generally accepted standards. However, the information presented in and 47% in 1950. The complete report EBN, by itself, should not be relied on for fi nal design, is available at www.nahb.org (search engineering, or building decisions. for “fi gures”). Editorial & Subscription Offi ce 122 Birge St., Suite 30, Brattleboro, VT 05301 802-257-7300 · 802-257-7304 (fax) Petroleum Net Imports Reach a Photo: Lynn Betts, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service [email protected] · www.BuildingGreen.com New High—Although the U.S. used The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service counted golf course water hazards as wetlands in its Printed on New Leaf Opaque paper, 100% post-consumer, slightly (0.5%) less petroleum in 2005 process chlorine free with soy-based inks. FSC certifi ed. most recent survey. 2 Environmental Building News · May 2006 What’s Happening “Open water systems do not have the says NJMC’s executive direc- same biological diversity or functions tor, Robert Ceberio. “The time and values as wetlands,” says Julie to pursue these resources is Sibbing, National Wildlife Federation now.” NJMC is online at www. wetlands specialist. Calling Norton’s njmeadowlands.gov. report “pure spin,” Sibbing notes that “the majority opinion is that the na- tion is still hemorrhaging wetlands.” Wisconsin Commits to Green Building—Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed an executive Landowner to Pay for Clean Water order in April 2006 supporting Act Violations—The U.S. Environ- green building. The order calls The green roof on the Silva, a high-rise residential building in North Vancouver, British Columbia, is mental Protection Agency (EPA) has for new State facilities to be 30% part of the 27 acres (11 ha) of green roofs built in ordered James Pfl ueger to pay $7.5 more effi cient than required by North America in 2005.