What's Another Name for Geoengineering?
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Geoengineering. That's what they're calling some of the more high-tech proposals for solving the climate crisis.
A Skyscraper Based on a Plant
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An article in the UK version of Wired talks about a design for a skyscraper that would collect water in much the way plants do. The skin of the building collects rainwater, guiding it to storage cisterns below ground. It could then be used for toilets, irrigation, clothes washing, and other uses for which potable water is not required.
Unfortunately, the design is just that--a model created for a competition. It's not likely to be built any time soon.
Sage Triple-Glazed, Tintable Glazing
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I've been following Sage Electrochromics for a long time. In 2006, BuildingGreen named SageGlass one of our Top-10 Green Building Products. It was the first practical, durable dynamic glazing that worked in exterior façade applications. This week, the company rolled out a new, much-higher-performance product.
By way of context, most glazing is "static." That means it has certain performance properties that remain the same, including visible light transmittance (Tvis), solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC), and U-factor.
Passive House in North America
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Our April EBN feature article--"Passive House Arrives in North America: Could it Revolutionize the Way We Build?"--went online today. This was a fun article to research and write, because it put me in touch with my low-energy building roots.
Green Building Myth #5: Adding Solar is the Best Way to Green a Home
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The last several weeks I've written about common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green, that green building is mostly about materials, that green products don't work as well as conventional products, and that
Interior and exterior lighting
Addressing both interior and exterior lighting, this credit seeks to reduce light pollution that can block our view of the night sky and cause human health problems as well as ecological problems for many birds, insects, and other animals. Light pollution often represents nighttime lighting that isn’t needed, wasting energy while causing light trespass and contrast, reducing visibility.
InPro's New BioPolymer
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InPro Corporation was founded in 1979 as Institutional Products Corporation (IPC). Originally a distributor of high-impact door and wall-protection products for the healthcare industry, IPC began its own manufacturing in 1986, changed its name to InPro Corporation in 1995 (cleverly retaining IPC), and today is one of the leading producers of a wide range of wall and corner-protection components, plastic surfacing products, handrails, and signage used in commercial and institutional buildings.