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Looking Forward to Design Viewpoints at High Point Market

Steve Fell — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:20:00 GMT

High Point's Spring Market Week begins next week, running from April 2-7. As with past Markets, there will be several lectures given on trends in interior design, the overall economy, and green living. For more information on upcoming speakers, topics, and times check out http://www.highpointmarket.org/res_article.aspx?id=105

IESI Unveils Unique Environmentally Conscious Material Recovery Facility, First of its Kind in U.S.

Steve Fell — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:54:00 GMT

MCKINNEY, TEXAS--(Marketwire) - IESI, a leader in the U.S. solid waste industry, unveiled its new Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in McKinney, Texas. Upon the U.S. Green Building Council's approval, this facility will be the first privately funded single-stream LEED certified Material Recycling Facility in North America.

"This is an exciting day for not only our company and residents of North Texas, but for anyone who cares about making a difference in reducing our environmental impact," said Mickey Flood, IESI president & CEO. "We have essentially succeeded in making recycling even greener by processing the collected materials in a state-of-the-art environmentally conscious facility. We are not just talking about being green, we are showing our dedication to the environment with our actions and investment."

The 28,000 square foot facility will annually process more than 144 million pounds of non-hazardous materials including glass, plastic, paper, aluminum, tin and cardboard. The facility itself incorporates sustainable features such as certified wood, building materials containing recycled content, low-emitting materials, water-conserving fixtures and features to reduce the heat-island effect.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council in 2000, and regulated by the Green Building Certification Institute, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of green commercial structures.

"With the public becoming even more committed to recycling, it became apparent that we needed to expand our facilities," said John Gustafson, IESI vice president, Texas Region. "We decided it was important to do it right and make the investment to build a LEED certified facility. Our new Material Recovery Facility more than triples our capacity. It will process collected recycled materials from residential and commercial customers across North Texas."

The IESI McKinney MRF also houses a second-floor community room and observation deck overlooking the recycling operations area. Here, IESI invites area schools, scouting groups, after- school programs, chambers of commerce and other organizations to tour the MRF and learn about the importance of recycling. The education room also contains a time capsule filled with items individuals and businesses currently recycle.

IESI is a full service solid waste management company founded in Justin, Texas in 1995 with just two trucks, two drivers and one and a half routes. IESI now employees more than 2,700 associates and operates a fleet of more than 1,200 routed vehicles. IESI is a subsidiary of IESI-BFC Ltd., one of North America's largest full-service waste management companies, providing non-hazardous solid waste collection and landfill disposal services for commercial, industrial, municipal and residential customers in five provinces and ten U.S. states.

To find out more about IESI-BFC Ltd., visit our website at www.iesi-bfc.com.

Source: ED+C Magazine edcmag.com

‘ECO-CHAIR' FURNITURE DESIGN COMPETITION SET

Steve Fell — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:42:00 GMT

LAS VEGAS — An international competition to create an iconic "eco-chair" is being sponsored by the World Market Center, Las Vegas Market's Living Green Pavilion and the Sustainable Furnishings Council.

Models for the competition, part of the market's second One Good Chair event, will be displayed at the next Las Vegas Market, Sept. 14-17.

Jury chairperson and competition organizer Lance Hosey is an architect and author of "The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology and Design." Cash prizes will be awarded at a reception sponsored by the World Market Center during market week.

Registration is now open and closes May 30. Information and forms are available online at www.onegoodchair.com, www.lasvegasmarket.com or www.sustainablefurnishings.org.

The theme of this year's competition is "Fit Right Here," and emphasizes the connection between a person fitting comfortably in a chair as well as the chair fitting appropriately in its environment and eco-system. The goal of the competition, which is open to anyone, is to solicit designs that embody and enhance a particular place, Hosey said.

Source: Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, April 17, 2009 Furniture Today

Drexel University Adopts Green Globes for all Capital Projects

Steve Fell — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:14:00 GMT

Philadelphia -- On February 14, Drexel University President Dr. Constantine Papadakis announced new policy stipulating that the Green Globes environmental assessment and rating system will be used for all new and existing campus buildings.

"I announced last fall that Drexel University is committed to being a leader in the sustainability effort," said Dr. Papadakis. "We have a significant amount of new construction underway on campus, and there is no better time than now to make sure we reach our sustainability goals."

According to the university, Green Globes will be used to assess five new construction projects, which have a combined budget of $164.4 million over the next three years. Currently under construction on Drexel's 84-acre West Philadelphia campus are an 84,000-square-foot recreation center, a 17-story residence hall, a 130,000-square-foot Integrated Sciences Building, and a 5,000-square-foot dining terrace and food court. The university also has a three-story wing under construction at the Drexel University College of Medicine's Queen Lane campus.

The university is currently assessing these projects using Green Globes for New Construction. The GBI's independent third-party assessment process will be completed one year after occupancy, and will result in a rating of one, two, three or four Green Globes for each structure. Demonstrating its commitment to transparency, the results of all assessments will be made available to the public via Drexel's sustainability program website, "Drexel Green."

"Putting this information online demonstrates our commitment to transparency and accountability," said Dr. Papadakis. "It will help educate, promote discussion, and foster research, supporting the core missions of our university."

In addition to adopting the Green Globes system as formal university policy, Drexel is integrating environmentally-friendly design into all of its construction projects. For example:

The new residence hall will include a "vegetated" roof to reduce heat absorption, help manage storm water and insulate the building.
The recreation center will include rooftop light scopes which allow natural light into the building. This is predicted to result in an 87 percent reduction in the use of electric light during the day.
The Integrated Sciences Building will feature a living biofilter, known as a "Bio Wall," for energy efficiency and improved air quality.
A new addition to the academic building on the Queen Lane Medical Campus will include a green roof.
Even the smallest of current projects such as the new dining terrace will include shade devices that eliminate heat gain and reduce energy consumption.

In addition to new construction, the university is working with the GBI to assess its existing structures using Green Globes for Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings.

For more information on either Green Globes module, please visit www.thegbi.org/commercial/.

For information on Drexel University and its commitment to sustainability, visit www.drexel.edu/sustainability/.

Information provided by the GBI.

Biden Hears Presentation about Green Initiatives

Steve Fell — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:41:00 GMT

Vice President Joseph Biden and a small group of governmental leaders recently toured the University of Pennsylvania’s facilities and real-estate headquarters in Philadelphia. While there, Eric Orts, guardsmark professor and faculty director of the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School; Ken Ogawa, Penn’s executive director of operations; and Professor Ali Malkawi made presentations about Penn’s energy-efficiency achievements. Orts detailed three general areas that Penn could provide possible opportunities for scaling up and continually improving: energy efficiency, harnessing the market by providing reliable environmental information and new advances in renewable-energy technologies. For more information, visit www.energy.upenn.edu.

Source: ecostructure.com

Nanotech Batteries

Steve Fell — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:42:00 GMT

Monday, March 30, 2009

Nanotech Batteries - A New Energy Future

People want to use clean and green energy and live easy on earth’s resources. Many are changing to hybrid cars and using solar panels side by side with conventional sources of energy. But they hold a grudge. How to store large amount of energy in batteries?

Hybrid cars fit batteries for power storage. But this power is not enough to last long distances and takes many undesirable hours to recharge. The storage battery is not very helpful during acceleration. Solar and wind also don’t provide us with power at constant rate. They give us energy intermittently. Their storage devices also take lots of space and money as well and yet they don’t seem promising for surge demand. Gary Rubloff, who is the director of the University of Maryland’s NanoCenter is also voicing a common consumer’s concern, “Renewable energy sources like solar and wind provide time-varying, somewhat unpredictable energy supply, which must be captured and stored as electrical energy until demanded. Conventional devices to store and deliver electrical energy — batteries and capacitors — cannot achieve the needed combination of high energy density, high power, and fast recharge that are essential for our energy future.”

Scientists at the Maryland NanoCenter at the University of Maryland have produced new systems for storing electrical energy derived from alternative sources that are, in some cases, 10 times more efficient than what is commercially available.

Electrical energy storage devices can be categorized into three groups. Each group has its advantages and disadvantages. Batteries, mainly consisting of lithium ion, accumulate large amounts of energy but cannot afford high power or fast recharge. The second type is electrochemical capacitors (ECCs). Their advantage is they can offer higher power at the price of relatively lower energy density. The third storage device is electrostatic capacitors (ESCs). They store charge on the surfaces of two conductors. This way they are capable of high power and fast recharge, but at the price of lower energy density.

Scientists are using new processes to enhance the storage capacity of the devices. They are banking upon millions of identical nanostructures having peculiar shapes that will facilitate energy transport with the help of electrons. Electrons will move to and fro and store energy at a very large surface area. We all are familiar with the fact that materials behave according to physical laws of nature. The Maryland researchers are using this fact to their advantage. They are utilizing unusual combinations of these behaviors to produce millions and in the end billions of tiny, virtually indistinguishable nanostructures. These are supposed to receive, store, and deliver electrical energy.

Scientists are concentrating on self-assembly, self-limiting reaction, and self-alignment behaviors of nanostructures. Rubloff clarifies further, “The goal for electrical energy storage systems is to simultaneously achieve high power and high energy density to enable the devices to hold large amounts of energy, to deliver that energy at high power, and to recharge rapidly (the complement to high power).”

The Maryland research team is going for electrostatic nanocapacitors. They significantly increase energy storage density of such devices - by a factor of 10 over that of commercially available devices. This advance puts electrostatic devices to a performance level competitive with electrochemical capacitors.

The research team is right from the beginning building up the technology for commercial purposes. Their outward appearance would be like thin solar panels produced at economical costs. Multiple storage devices can be staked one over the other inside a car battery system. For the solar and wind energy storage they dream about the fully integrated with storage devices in manufacturing.

source

http://earthalternate.blogspot.com/2009/03/nanotech-batteries-new-energy-future.html

New LEED Testing Deadline

Steve Fell — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:15:00 GMT

WASHINGTON – June 30, 2009 will be the last date that candidates can take the current LEED for New Construction (NC) and LEED for Commercial Interiors (CI) version 2.0 LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) credentialing exams.

As part of the changes to the accreditation process announced at the end of 2008 the LEED for New Construction designation will be replaced with the LEED Building Design and Construction (BD+C) designation and the LEED for Commercial Interiors designation will be replaced by LEED for Interior Design and Construction (ID+C). Read the FAQs for more information about these changes.

In order to maintain alignment with the new LEED 2009 Ratings System for BD+C and ID+C, all new exam registrations must be submitted and accepted by GBCI no later than March 31, 2009 (11:59 PM, EST) to take the current LEED AP exams scheduled by June 30, 2009 (11:59 PM, EST).

Information provided by GBCI
GBCI was created to administer certification and credentialing programs related to green building practice and to ensure that the LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) program continues to be developed in accordance with best practices for credentialing programs. To underscore this commitment, GBCI will undergo the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accreditation process for personnel certification agencies complying with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Standard 17024. Beginning in 2009, GBCI will begin administering the LEED certification process for buildings. For more information, please visit www.GBCI.org.

Welcome

Steve Fell — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:05:11 GMT

Welcome to the Fell Design blog! I will be adding news, tips, and links related to designers and artisans devoted to green home goods and sustainable building design & construction. Please check back soon for new entries. And please feel free to spread what you read here by forwarding the link on to friends and colleagues. Thanks!