Journal of Indoor Environmental Quality

Architectural Design Drives the Biogeography of Indoor Bacterial Communities

Excerpt: “Humans help to direct microbial biodiversity patterns in buildings – not only as building occupants, but also through architectural design strategies. The impact of human design decisions in structuring the indoor microbiome offers the possibility to use ecological knowledge to shape our buildings in a way that will select for an indoor microbiome that promotes our health and well-being.”

Citation: Kembel SW, Meadow JF, O’Connor TK, Mhuireach G, Northcutt D, et al. (2014) Architectural Design Drives the Biogeography of Indoor Bacterial Communities. PLoS ONE 9(1): e87093. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0087093

For more information on this paper

 

 

 

RBc: Suggested viewing

TED Fellow Jessica Green: Are we filtering the wrong microbes?

 

Related articles

Oregon researchers show how building design impacts indoor bacteria

How the Architecture of Our Buildings Shapes the Germs Around Us

How Architecture Could Shape Your Microbiome

A little about the radiant based HVAC system at the LEED Gold Telus Spark Science Center: P2S2013 Conference Location

Telus Spark Science Center

It was serendipitous that my keynote at the Pathways 2 Sustainability Conference was in the Telus Spark Science Center. The HVAC system was designed by the Calgary office of Dialog who have described the IEQ systems as;

“Along with lots of natural Calgary light and smart water use, the building design brings fresh air to every room. Rather than a typical, forced-air ventilation and cooling system, the building incorporates displacement ventilation and radiant panels to distribute fresh air and highly effective heating and cooling for visitor comfort. The atrium and extensive lobby areas are heated and cooled with a radiant chilled/heated slab system for a non-intrusive but highly effective conditioning system. Underseat displacement ventilation is provided in the 250-person IMAX theatre for optimum thermal comfort and ventilation effectiveness.” 

You can see some of the interior photo’s at our photo library https://twitter.com/healthyheating

Interestingly, the HVAC zone for the exhibit hall (converted into the P2S2013 conference space) was tested beyond its functional capacity as over 250 delegates filled a space likely designed for less. (hopefully someone from Dialog will show up and correct my assumption). Despite the load, the thermal comfort was well beyond most conference halls that I have visited (and there have been hundreds). The air quality not so much. As the occupant load increased it was necessary to open the adjoining doors connecting a large open hallway to the conference room and that one simple solution seemed to do the trick for most of the attendees.

The point being - despite a heavy occupant load during three days of rain the radiant cooling panels never once condensed as the air system was capable of maintaining a lean air mixture.

I really like how the Architectural/Interior Designers and Mechanical Engineers incorporated the ventilation columns into the space – very nice.

Brad Struble Telus Spark representative and director of design gave us the tour and did a great job explaining the project as well as helping adapt the space to the conference and for the adaptive measures to help maintain the indoor environmental quality.

You can learn more about the project including the radiant based HVAC system from this video (can view in Google Chrome).

More about the conference, keynotes and moderators.

My keynote slides will be accessible early next week...I'll let you know the URL via this blog, our Linked-In page and twitter feed.

Final note: Lisa Fox and her team did a fabulous job organizing the event and workshop - well done!

Related articles

Thermal Comfort, Design Tools and Techniques (PLEA Note 3), 2nd Edition

LEED Canada and HVAC Systems

Thermal Comfort, Design Tools and Techniques (PLEA Note 3), 2nd Edition

Excerpt: “This is the third booklet in our PLEA Notes series. Each of these Notes is intended to deal with one particular and narrow aspect of design, of a technical /scientific nature. These Notes serve a dual purpose: to be a learning tool, introducing the subject and discussing it in mainly qualitative terms, but also to be a design tool, to provide quantitative data and methods for the consideration of the particular subject matter in design. An implicit aim is also to create an authoritative reference work, which would provide a concise but comprehensive summary of the state of the art of the subject.

In this Note 3 the undergraduate student will find part 1, then sections 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 of part 2 as well as part 3 of particular interest. The practising designer (using the above sections as introduction) will - we hope - find part 4 most useful. The research student, or anyone interested in the whys and wherefores will find part 2 as a unique reference source.

References for the comfort index data sheets are given in footnote form, similarly in places where they refer to that page only. General references are listed in alphabetical order on pages 62 – 63.

We hope that this Note will contribute in some small way to the creation of better buildings, healthier indoor environments and energy conservation, thus serve the broad aims of PLEA and a sustainable future.”

Citation: Auliciems, A., Szokolay, S.V. (2007) Thermal Comfort, Design Tools and Techniques. PLEA Note 3(2^nd Ed.), Passive and Low Energy Architecture International. < http://plea-arch.org/?page_id=125> accessed April 30^th, 2013

Additional reading:

1. Thermal Comfort: A Condition of Mind
2. Do I need an engineer? A Guide to HVAC/Indoor Climate Design Service Providers
3. Where will your indoor climate system score?
4. How to "ball park" your budget for indoor climate control.
5. Indoor environments: Self assessment
6. Built to code: What does it mean for consumer thermal comfort?
7. The Total Comfort System - The "Un-minimum" System
8. Thermal Comfort: A 40 grit perspective for consumers
9. The Cost of HVAC Systems - Are You Paying Too Much for Downgrades?
10. Thermal Comfort Surveys - Post Occupancy, Part I
11. Thermal Comfort Surveys - Post Occupancy, Part II
12. HVAC does not equal IEQ: Mislabelling, misleading and misunderstanding

 

 

Related articles

Indoor Air Quality and its Effects on Health: a Presentation of the Guidelines for Health-Based Ventilation in Europe

How Indoor Environment Affects Performance (ASHRAE March 2013)

Housing improvements for health and associated socio-economic outcomes

Thermal Comfort: Indeed a Condition of Mind

As our long time readers know, we feel strongly that HVAC trade schools along with architectural and engineering programs should teach the basics in human anatomy and physiology; for those parts related to the indoor environment.

It just makes so much sense that those in industry responsible for indoor spaces should be able to explain how the indoor climate affects the body or how the body responds to the indoor climate.

Doesn't it make sense to you as well?

How long would it take to explain the fundamentals?

Two hours.

We know you don't have two hours to spare online so we’ve uploaded a sample on thermal comfort that we teach in our integrated design program at the following link:

< http://www.healthyheating.com/Thermal-Comfort-in-Simple-Terms.htm>

It’s basic but educational enough that it should open reader’s eyes as to how we sense and percieve temperature.

How long to read it?

10 min. max.

Enjoy,

RB

NCCU Residence Hall Earns LEED Gold Certification

The new 517-bed Chidley North Residence Hall at North Carolina Central University has received LEED gold certification from the USGBC.

One of the most interesting energy-saving approaches that architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent (LAS) took was to design the building with an ICF (insulated concrete form) bearing wall assembly. The ICF approach was chosen for its insulating capacity, its speedy and efficient construction assembly and its performance in an area of the country where there are great temperature variances. The LAS project manager for Chidley North says that ICF “provides almost double the thermal insulation of concrete masonry with conventional insulation.”

Chidley North features a host of energy-saving, water-saving and other green strategies that earned the building its LEED gold.

Photo credit © James West / JWest Productions.

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For further details contact: Annie Kohut | Kohut Communications Consulting (tel) 770-913-9747 | (cell) 404-786-6062 (fax) 770-913-3197 | annielk@bellsouth.net www.kohutcommunications.com | Follow me at http://twitter.com/kohutcomm

Lord, Aeck & Sargent is an award-winning architectural firm serving clients in scientific, academic, historic preservation, arts and cultural, and multi-family housing and mixed-use markets.

The Ultimate Hydronics Learning Experience

Join Us in Providence in September 2012- Join the nation's leading radiant and hydronics professionals for two days of learning, sharing, and idea generating at the brand new Hydronics Roundtable. Whether you are a seasoned radiant veteran or new to the field, you won't find a more useful, friendly, and engaging program anywhere else -- because it was truly created by contractors, for contractors! Check out the amazing speaker lineup.

RBc: Hydronics is the integrator of renewable energy systems such as solar and geo thermal and the preferred medium for moving heat around a building. When used as part of a hybrid system hydronics becomes the sensible load system which enables air systems to do what they do best – that being the de(humidification), deodorization and decontamination of air.

This will be a conference like no other and I for one look forward to being there sharing and learning with the best in the business.

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Reminder for our Canadian industry collegues:

Registration is open for the five city Canadian Tour hosted by our education partners at the Uponor Academy:

Sept. 17-19 Edmonton, AB
Oct. 29-31 Halifax, NS
Nov. 19-21 Vancouver, BC
Nov. 26-28 Toronto, ON
Dec. 3-5 Montreal, QC

Topic: 

How to establish low energy allowances for delivering thermal comfort and indoor air quality in modern buildings

If you want to know more about this course call us at 403.278.8481

Glass versus glass: Winnipeg’s Manitoba Hydro Office Tower vs. Chicago’s Aqua Tower

Glass versus glass: Winnipeg’s Manitoba Hydro Office Tower vs. Chicago’s multi-tenant Aqua Tower

Two very big buildings made of glass one just received a LEED Platinum designation and labelled the most energy efficient building in America (adjacent photo) and the other is becoming fodder for cynical engineers worldwide; building scientist Ted Kesik called it "architectural pornography" – so why the hypocrisy since they’re both made of glass?

We’ve not seen the energy reports on the Aqua Tower (AQT) (we may never see them) but the published results for the Manitoba Hydro building (MHB) are stated here, “The building's target was for a 60 per cent reduction in energy consumption compared to the Canadian Model National Energy Code for Buildings. The goal was to attain LEED Gold certification. It proved to be even more efficient than anticipated, achieving reductions in energy use of over 70 per cent. In May 2012, Manitoba Hydro Place received LEED® Platinum certification, making it the most energy efficient office tower in North America and the only office tower in Canada to receive this prestigious rating.”

So what`s the difference? In the case of MHB it hired indoor climate and energy engineers TransSolar to evaluate the energy and indoor environmental quality of numerous models before the integrated design team selected the one offering the best opportunity to meet the client’s objectives of an energy efficient indoor climate. This process took years of preconstruction planning (started in 2002) ultimately resulting in the double façade building (think a building within a building) having opening windows on all of its office tower floors, conditioned with low temperature radiant heating and high temperature radiant cooling; ventilated with a dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) with heat recovery - boosted by inline fans in the under floor displacement air system and augment by the solar chimney for pulling draft on the entire structure. The HVAC and domestic plant is a geothermal system powered by hydro and assisted with peaking natural gas boilers. What is so great about this building is the attention given to the mechanical and electrical system and how the architecture flows around it to enable its peak performance – it’s truly ingenious and inspiring and a huge credit to the architectural and engineering teams.

On the other hand, “The Aqua was named the Emporis Skyscraper Award 2009 skyscraper of the year and was shortlisted in 2010 for the biannual International Highrise Award”, perhaps a result of the architectural focus that left the mechanical and electrical engineering teams the responsibility of making the building work – this classic approach is repeatedly demonstrated as being flawed in a world concerned about sustainability.

As we have said over and over again in this journal and in industry publications – first let the engineers and interior designers create the DNA for the building and then use architecture to enable these systems to operate at peak performance.

This inverted process is the DNA of our upcoming cross Canada Tour hosted by Uponor – who by the way supplied the radiant heating and cooling system for the LEED Platinum Manitoba Hydro Building and the radiant heating and cooling system for the LEED Platinum NREL Research Facility and many other high performance buildings.

You’ll not want to miss this course – it will change how you do buildings.

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Complete listing of credits for the Manitoba Hydro Building: Project Team, Project Facts and Credits

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Suggested reading:

Radiant cooled Manitoba Hydro Office Building

The Facts on Manitoba Hydro Office Building

NREL Research Support Facility

The Facts on NREL Research Support Facility

Begin With the End in Mind: A Model for Sustainability

Why Do Architects Focus on Art More than Building Science?

 

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Sign up soon for our five city Canadian Tour hosted by the Uponor Academy:

Sept. 17-19 Edmonton, AB
Oct. 29-31 Halifax, NS
Nov. 19-21 Vancouver, BC
Nov. 26-28 Toronto, ON
Dec. 3-5 Montreal, QC

Topic: 

How to establish low energy allowances for delivering thermal comfort and indoor air quality in modern buildings

If you want to know more about this course call us at 403.278.8481

Georgia Health Sciences University: College of Dental Medicine - family-centric care environment

AUGUSTA, Ga., April 12, 2012 – The State of Georgia’s only dental school – the Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU) College of Dental Medicine (CDM) – has a new $112 million home that features a warm, embracing, family-centric care environment, provides state-of-the-art equipment for both students and dental practices, and fulfills a need for the university to educate more dentists.

 Designed by architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent (LAS) in collaboration with Francis Cauffman as consulting dental architect, the five-story, 269,000-square-foot building features a host of sustainable design elements and is targeting LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

 The natural light-filled building, whose dominant exterior design element is a gentle curve that spans the length of building’s 1.68-acre footprint, was developed in response to patient and student input that called for an environment that was anything but institutional.

“I think we are one of the first, if not the first dental school in the world to solicit building design input from a Patient and Family Centered Care committee,” said Connie Drisko, CDM dean at GHSU (formerly the Medical College of Georgia). “The committee members told us that they wanted a patient-friendly building. And moving to this building from a box-like structure with not a lot of windows, I personally told the architects, ‘Don’t give me a box.’

“Lord, Aeck & Sargent translated into reality a building that fits our vision and needs. It’s a building that has a really spectacular outer appearance, an interior that flows, and LEED features to help lower our maintenance costs,” Drisko added.

photo credit: © Jonathan Hillyer / Atlanta.

For further details contact: Annie Kohut | Kohut Communications Consulting (tel) 770-913-9747 | (cell) 404-786-6062 (fax) 770-913-3197 | annielk@bellsouth.net www.kohutcommunications.com | Follow me at http://twitter.com/kohutcomm

Lord, Aeck & Sargent is an award-winning architectural firm serving clients in scientific, academic, historic preservation, arts and cultural, and multi-family housing and mixed-use markets. 

RBc: We like many aspects of this building including the family-centric approach and low maintainence features...worth visiting the links to learn more.

 

Book review - High Performance Enclosures: A Design Guide for Institutional, Commercial and Industrial Buildings in Cold Climates by Prof. J Straube, Ph.D., P.Eng.

So what do you think? Kind of appropriate after featuring the thermal bridging exposure from the Aqua Tower that Dr. John Straube’s new manual, “High Performance Enclosures” shows up in our mail box!

So I haven’t had a chance to jump fully into this new publication from Building Science Press but what I have seen is excellent. Straube provides with clarity both the graphics and text to explain in detail numerous enclosures from both the low rise and high rise camps. I particularly like the work he’s done on building form and orientation plus the discussions on building loading. As expected there is some duplication for clarification of principles from Straube and Burnett’s 2005, “Building Science for Building Enclosures” which was a modernization and expansion of Hutcheon and Handegord 1983 classic, “Building Science for a Cold Climates”; but unlike the latter references which were targeted more to the engineering sciences, the new publication is more for the practicing engineering, technician, architect and builder -  having less theory and more practical example of the what and how to do’s. For a good one-two punch at building science and enclosures you won’t find a better pair of manuals than the 2005 and 2012 publications to keep you company during those cold winter design days.

To order visit,  http://www.buildingsciencepress.com/Building-Science-for-Building-Enclosures-P6.aspx

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A note at all publishers…we get the reasoning behind the paper bound publications but really - it’s getting old…we would happily pay a small premium for secured .pdf versions rather than fund the world of transportation, duty and brokerage which adds zero value to the materials. Look at it this way...if we spent less money on zero education value items we could spend more money on the valuable educational items. Those are my thoughts and I'm sticking to them...

Suggested reading:

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) of Building Materials

Building Enclosures: A Filter, Sponge and Capacitor

JIGSAW Homes: JIGSAW BLUE - Building the building blocks

I love it when a builder calls me up out of blue (pun intended) to bring me into their world of innovation. Last week I invested a few hours on site with JIGSAW BLUE's Scott Wilson an industrial designer by profession who is leading a high performance building charge along with partners Cory Krygier a professional architect and Wade Butler finishing carpenter turned green construction professional.

JIGSAW BLUE is the R & D arm of JIGSAW Homes and was created, “Because we believe that there is a better way to be building homes, that homes can be places which contribute to a sustainable built environment and improve the health and well-being of the occupants at the same time.”

These guys get things like mean radiant temperature - It’s rare to find a builder that really gets the importance of the occupants well-being in a space but when you put an industrial designer together with an architect and a carpenter you have the recipe for a home building team that gets back to the basics of shelter – keep it simple, affordable to purchase and operate and enhance the indoor environment so that it enables healthy living. These guys go beyond the norm and are writing their own rules – they don’t dabble in high performance like most builders they do high performance every day of the week.

One of their “in your face statements” amongst the status quo of competing builders was this nutritional label – it was a line in the sand that got the public’s attention which got people talking about the things we’ve all been talking about…it was a great way to introduce the world of high performance housing into the world of the everyday Jill and Jack home buyer.

I like this kind of stuff – its bold, disruptive and creates change in a complacent world established by the status quo.

Way to go guys!

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Some standard features of the JigSaw Blue Home

High performance floors, walls and roof and high performance windows including methods to reduce air leakage to well below industry norms. These features reduce heating and cooling costs whilst improving thermal comfort.

Solar for power generation and heating – in conjunction with the high performance enclosure, significantly lowers energy costs while reducing or eliminates reliance on utility based energy providers.

Low VOC interior finishes and air to air heat exchangers – enables healthier indoor air whilst reducing costs associated with ventilation system in comparison to other systems.

Well placed and properly proportioned windows – enables natural lighting without destroying building performance and inducing discomfort due to excessive solar gains and cold surfaces.

Low maintenance materials – enables less "hands on time" for owners.

I would suggest anyone interested in these guys products to contact them through their websites or by visiting their projects...they make it so easy you'll be glad you did.

JIGSAW BLUE and JIGSAW Homes

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Announcement -  Sign up soon for our five cities Canadian Tour hosted by the Uponor Academy:

Sept. 17-19 Edmonton, AB
Oct. 29-31 Halifax, NS
Nov. 19-21 Vancouver, BC
Nov. 26-28 Toronto, ON
Dec. 3-5 Montreal, QC

Topic: 

How to establish low energy allowances for delivering thermal comfort and indoor air quality in modern buildings

If you want to know more about this course call us at 403.278.8481

New Apartment Homes Prove Public Housing Can Be Sustainably Designed

ROME, Ga., April 26, 2012 – As the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) established public housing programs for low-income families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities, public housing by definition must be affordable for its residents. But not all public housing is also sustainably designed.

Village Green, a new, energy-efficient,10-unit public housing project for the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority (NWGHA), will save its residents money and is expected to achieve Enterprise Green Community Certification, Energy Star certification and LEED for Homes Silver certification. It will also be the first public housing authority project in Georgia to become LEED certified.

“It’s important to understand that sustainable design is achievable without having to add significant cost and complexity to a project,” said Jay Silverman, project manager at Lord, Aeck & Sargent, which designed the multifamily building. “For us, however, it wasn’t about meeting LEED or other performance standards; it was about incorporating sustainability as a way to improve the quality and livability of the apartment homes and to lower operating costs for the residents and client while staying within our budget. By saving on operating costs, the Housing Authority can use its annual budget to provide better resources and programs.”

photo credit: © Sarah Dorio

For further details contact: Annie Kohut | Kohut Communications Consulting (tel) 770-913-9747 | (cell) 404-786-6062 (fax) 770-913-3197 | annielk@bellsouth.net www.kohutcommunications.com | Follow me athttp://twitter.com/kohutcomm

Lord, Aeck & Sargent is an award-winning architectural firm serving clients in scientific, academic, historic preservation, arts and cultural, and multi-family housing and mixed-use markets. 

A not so trivial statement on ventilation in the National Building Code of Canada.

Those who still stand firm in the belief that the V in HVAC is exclusively about delivering indoor air quality might want to read this clause:

 "A-6.2.1.7.(2) Outdoor Design Conditions. In the past, the practice of ventilating buildings with outdoor air assumed that the outdoor air was of better quality than the indoor air. It has become evident that the outdoor air in some areas of Canada may not be of an acceptable quality for ventilating buildings unless certain particles and gases are first removed or reduced. A recent estimate suggests that 30% of Canadians are exposed to contaminated outdoor air via buildings’ ventilation systems, which may lead to health problems such as cardiovascular and cerebral vascular diseases, respiratory irritation and illnesses, asthma, allergies, cancer, mucus membrane disorders and possibly death."

As we have stated before, the general populations misunderstanding of HVAC is that H is exclusively heating comfort, V is indoor air quality and AC is comfort cooling. This misunderstanding also extends regrettably to a large segment of the construction industry.

This is how we define HVAC:

• Heating (H) influences the relative humidity, surface and interstitial vapour pressures, surface temperatures, drafts, material durability, and material VOC emission rates ergo its more than heating for thermal comfort.
• Ventilation (V) in and by itself does not guarantee air quality as its function is to exhaust indoor air and replace it with outdoor air. One would think that a higher ventilation rate would be better than a lower ventilation rate but if the outdoor air is contaminated with ozone or has a high humidity, bringing more air in from outside actually makes the inside worse.
• Air Conditioning (AC) or conditioning the air allows the designer to treat the air through dilution, filtration, deodorization, temperature regulation, dehumidification, humidification, and air velocity control ergo it is not just cooling for thermal comfort.

Thus, the H in HVAC is not exclusively heating comfort, the V is not exclusively air quality and the AC is not exclusively cooling comfort.

If I had it my way we would change the HVAC to HVCA thus we would have a much better descriptor with Heating, Ventilation and Conditioning of Air.

For a back ground on the topic be sure to read these resources:

• http://healthyheating.com/Definitions/HVAC.htm
• http://www.healthyheating.com/How_Much/DIY_HVAC.htm
• http://healthyheating.com/Definitions/enviro_ergo_def.htm

If this is not the cook book for your new building you may want to look for another chef.

Recipe for High Performing Buildings – Better Than Standard Practice

If you are an architect, building owner, facility manager, or design/build contractor and want to learn how buildings can achieve energy, economic, and environmental performance substantially better than standard practice…ASHRAE's High Performing Buildings publication is for you.

High Performing Buildings describes measured performance of practices and technologies to promote better buildings, presenting case studies that feature integrated building design practices and improved operations and maintenance techniques. They tend to be built around three fundamentals: They take advantage of climate and location, they have envelopes that reduce load and enhance natural lighting, and they use high-efficiency mechanical systems and lighting.

Link: <www.HPBmagazine.org/subscribe >

RBc: The latest issue features among others, Manitoba Hydro Place; a radiant cooled and heated 700,000 sq.ft. 22 plus story building that is beating the Model National Energy Code by 60% and ASHRAE 90.1-2007 by 52%.

We featured this project back in 2010 < http://blogs.healthyheating.com/2010/05/manitoba-hydro-place-a-new-benchmark-for-cold-climate-buildings.html>

Just a reminder this project has a radiant based HVAC system (heating and cooling), dedicated outdoor air systems, geothermal with high efficient condensing boilers, low VOC finishes for IAQ etc…if this sounds familiar it should because if it’s not the recipe for your new building you may want to look for another chef.

Suggested reading:

• http://www.healthyheating.com/Page%2055/Page_55_i_cooling_eq.htm
• http://www.healthyheating.com/DOAS/DOAS_Introduction.htm
• http://www.healthyheating.com/Page%2055/Page_55_a_benchmark.htm

We'll be talking about these and other principles at the following upcoming courses

• Energy Center of Wisconsin: HVAC hybrids: transitional solutions bridge tradition and the future and How vision affects residential design: an exploration of human sensory systems, Wed, Feb 1, 2012, Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, Schaumburg, Il.,
• 2012 Uponor Convention, Thermal comfort with Radiant Based HVAC and How not to do radiant cooling, April 11-12, 2012, Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas

Premier Issue of Better Building, A Magazine for Progressive Residential Constructors.

The folks from Business Information Group with Publisher Peter Leonard and his merry band of editors have just launched the premier issue of Better Building, a magazine for progressive residential constructors.

Inside the front cover is Murray Pound, Vice President of Operations for Gold Seal Master Builder. Murray is a unique individual in that he is both a master builder and professional fire fighter who has been advocating for fire sprinklers for many years. He’s seen the carnage and horrific scenes from senseless destruction and knows firsthand the aftermath of buildings burnt to the ground.

I have the pleasure of knowing Murray and always pay attention to his stories as a builder and the stories of fires he’s fought and so should you. As a 13 year veteran fire fighter and just completing their 300th project -  the folks at Gold Seal have a deep understanding of safe, secure, energy efficient comfortable homes…check them out today.

There are a number of residential fire safety systems available today and one of them comes from Uponor a supporter of ours and colleague to the industry. They’re a leader in this field and we suggest you look at their product offering.

Lots of other good stuff in the issue including a few words from yours truly on building codes, enclosures, IEQ and HVAC systems – access the issue here (note: you’ll have to scroll down on the landing page to Supplements & Special Features).

Award of Excellence Given to Recently Restored Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building

The confluence of sustainability and historic preservation is apparent in downtown Atlanta’s recently restored Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building, dedicated in 1933 to serve as the central postal facility for the southeast.

Architecture, interiors and planning firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent designed and oversaw the $62 million exterior restoration and interior rehabilitation/adaptive reuse of the building, approaching the project with the dual goal of preserving the building’s character-defining historic elements and simultaneously adapting it to serve the GSA’s current needs for an energy-efficient, contemporary workplace that is targeting LEED Silver certification.

The project received an Award of Excellence from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission at the AUDC’s 34th annual awards ceremony in June. Considered one of the best examples of federal architecture of the Great Depression era, the building was designed by prominent Atlanta architect A. Ten Eyck Brown and his associates. The 350,000-square-foot structure’s modern classical symmetry and art deco ornamentation exhibit a “starved” classicism that reflected the economic conditions of the time.

For overview of this historic renovation and other outstanding project by Lord, Aeck & Sargent visit the project gallery.

For further details contact: Annie Kohut | Kohut Communications Consulting (tel) 770-913-9747 | (cell) 404-786-6062 (fax) 770-913-3197 | annielk@bellsouth.net www.kohutcommunications.com | Follow me at http://twitter.com/kohutcomm