Beth Leslie Glasser, AIA, LEED AP, is the winner of our Brand Preference Survey drawing and will soon be enjoying an Apple iPad. Beth’s firm, BLGarchitecture LLC is located in Baltimore. You can contact her at bg@blgarchitecture.com or 410-929-1239. I’m confident she’d be receptive to any work you want to shove her way. Congratulations Beth! Enjoy the new toy.—Gary L. Parr

Kohler Rental, part of the Kohler Co. (Kohler, WI) Global Power Group,  is providing temporary power and air conditioning services to wildlife rehabilitation centers located across several Gulf Coast states. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Washington, a bureau in the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Washington, established wildlife M*A*S*H units following the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill that has been occurring in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana since April.
   Included in Kohler Rental’s support effort is Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, Buras, LA, an epicenter of bird rescue and cleaning operations located in Louisiana’s fringe coastal area, south of New Orleans. The center plays a crucial role in the effort to rescue, clean, and save the lives of hundreds of brown pelicans and other native bird species exposed to the crude oil that is polluting the Gulf of Mexico.
   Helping wildlife caretakers combat Louisiana’s summer heat and humidity, Kohler Rental has brought in portable air conditioning equipment and power generators to run the units and power the equipment used to clean the birds. Including additional wildlife rehabilitation centers and temporary housing for volunteers and workers located in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Kohler Rental has been called upon to deploy nearly 30 high-capacity air conditioners and power generators in support of the oil cleanup efforts.
   ”The men and women rescuing, cleaning, and nursing pelicans and other birds back to health in Gulf Coast states may not know Kohler Rental is onsite. And we’re not running the wildlife rescue camps. However, the people who do operate the rescue centers reached out to Kohler Rental and it’s our mission to climate control the rescue camp and deliver additional power. By providing a more comfortable working environment, Kohler Rental helps keep workers at their best throughout the countless hours spent caring for the helpless birds,” said Mike Nasif, general manager, Kohler Rental. “Kohler Rental is involved in something a lot bigger than Kohler and fortunately what we do—providing for temporary climate control and power needs—can make a difference. It has been awe-inspiring to see the passion and dedication of the people we support as they save wildlife affected by this environmental disaster.”

The Fort Jackson Center’s role in the crisis
Brown pelicans and similar bird species get oiled as they float on the surface of Gulf of Mexico waters or when diving for fish. Once oiled, the pelicans can lose the ability to fly, dive for food, or even float on the water. In some cases, an oiled bird will die of hypothermia or become ill as a result of ingesting oil while grooming themselves.
   If found and rescued in a timely manner, oil-coated birds have an extremely high survival rate after receiving care at bird-cleaning camps. Upon arrival, each bird is given a physical and time to de-stress. Removing a bird’s oil-coat involves meticulous scrubbing with household dishwashing detergent, followed by a rinse and dry. Prior to being released into wildlife refuges located away from the Gulf, birds at Fort Jackson are placed in outdoor aviary pens, referred to as Pelican Island, for observation, recovery, and rehabilitation.—Gary L. Parr

When business is slow it’s often wise to focus resources on putting your company in a position to take advantage of new business when the market recovers. Two areas that should receive the lion’s share of resources, but rarely do, are promotion/marketing and training. Training is often a frustration because, when business is slow the bean counters don’t want to spend the money and when business is moving quickly there’s never any time for training. The result is that people end up getting trial-by-fire training, which involves mistakes and unnecessary expense.
   Project management is one area in which training is needed  and, according to a new report from ZweigWhite, Wayland, MA, doesn’t get much support, at least from A/E firms. According to the company’s 2010 Project Management Survey, only 51% of project managers report that they received any job-specific training before being promoted to the position of project manager. Moreover, less than a third of firms reported that they always provide project-management training to new project managers.
   ”Project manager is a role of many dimensions and project management is a skill we will always be learning, no matter how many years we’ve been practicing it,” said Christine Brack, PMP, principal, ZweigWhite Strategic Advisory Services. “Even if economic circumstances did not influence dramatic changes in the way we manage projects, it is still worthwhile to compare, validate, and improve our practices and policies.”
   For more information about the report, click here.—Gary L. Parr

Trane Inc., St. Paul, MN, recently presented its Trane Energy Efficiency Leader Award to six customers. The customers, located in six countries, were recognized for doing dynamic work to link the physical environment of their buildings and assets to their business outcomes. The award is presented to customers across all sectors, including healthcare, education, retail, grocery, government, industrial, and commercial real estate.
   Award recipients leverage improvements in building design, renovation, construction, and operations to achieve real business outcomes, such as lowering energy and operating costs, reducing tenant turnover, creating better learning environments, and achieving improved patient outcomes.
   Award recipients were:

• Ivory Properties Group and GH Consultants Sdn. Bhd., Penang, Malaysia, for development of the Penang Times Square shopping mall. The mall was initially designed to include a conventional air conditioning system. Ivory Properties Group, with support and advice from GH Consultants Sdn. Bhd., instead opted for a more energy efficient Trane chilled-water system. The system is expected to achieve 0.63 kW/ton system efficiency on an annual basis and will be 30% more efficient than conventional chiller plants found in typical commercial buildings in Malaysia.
• Macalester College, a private college in St. Paul, MN, with 163 full-time faculty and nearly 2,000 students, was recognized for a campus-wide dedication to efficiency and sustainability. This effort led to significant energy saving upgrades on campus. Upgrades included a chilled-water system plant, an Eco House (on-campus green living experience), and the construction of LEED Platinum-certified Markim Hall. Markim Hall, which opened in July 2009, is a $7.5 million, 17,000-sq.-ft. facility housing the college’s Institute for Global Citizenship. The building is the first higher education facility in Minnesota, and one of the first nationwide, to receive the highest level of LEED certification. Energy simulation models predict that Markim Hall will use nearly 80% less energy than a standard building in an equivalent climate.
• Monterrey Tec is a private, independent educational institution with more than 8,500 teachers serving more than 90,000 students at the high school, undergraduate, and post-graduate levels at its 31 campuses in Mexico. Based in Monterrey, Mexico, the school is recognized for recent infrastructure improvements that significantly reduce annual energy consumption. As a result of the upgrades, the university has created a more comfortable teaching and learning environment while also reducing energy consumption by 13% to 15% year.
• The P.P. Porty Lotnicze Terminal at Warsaw Chopin Airport, Warsaw, Poland, serves nearly half of the passenger air traffic in Poland. The P.P. Porty Lotnicze Terminal features high-performance infrastructure systems that make the state-of-the-art terminal operationally and energy efficient, while at the same time providing visitors and workers with a comfortable environment. It is estimated that during the first 10 years of operation the infrastructure systems will save enough energy to power a city of 11,000 people for one year.
• Tishman Speyer received an award for development of the Castelo Branco Office Park in São Paulo, Brazil. Because of the investments in efficiency, the 1.1 million-sq.-ft. site provides the same quality and technology of premium areas of the state capital, but at less cost. The office park encompasses a 27-acre site that includes six towers, a horizontal corporate space for parking and services, and state-of-the-art buildings using the latest technologies in climate-control solutions.
• Transitions Optical, Galway, Ireland, the optical industry’s top photo-chromic lens manufacturer, recently completed upgrades to its plant that are generating €144,000 in annual energy savings and reduced the energy required to produce each lens by 50%. Automation has saved Transitions Optical €432,000 over the past three years, saving enough electricity to run the plant for three additional days every month.

   This group of recipients makes a total of 25 Trane customers who have received the Trane Energy Efficiency Leader Award in the past year.—Gary L. Parr

On April 9 we reported on the upcoming April 22 deadline for getting certified under the EPA‘s Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting rule (see that story here for lead-safe work practices. Apparently training and certification haven’t gone as efficiently as the EPA was expecting (I’m going to guess extensive red tape). To accommodate the concerns “raised by the regulated community regarding difficulties experienced in obtaining the rule-required firm certification and renovation working training,” the EPA has extended the compliance deadline.”
   To quote the memo, “Until October 1, 2010, EPA will not take enforcement action for violations of the RRP Rule’s firm certification requirement.” Also, “For violations of the RRP Rule’s renovation worker certification requirement, EPA will not enforce against individual renovation workers if the person has applied to enroll in, or has enrolled in, by not later than September 30, 2010, a certified renovator class to train contractors in practices necessary for compliance with the final rules. Renovators must complete training by December 31, 2010.”
   Download the entire announcement here. Obtain information about training here.
   If you’ve been putting this off, it’s time to get cracking.—Gary L. Parr

At the AIA Nat’l Convention, held June 10 to 12 in Miami, Schott North America Inc., Elmsford, NY, introduced RestrictView, a glass product designed for buildings in which privacy is a priority. The security glass is designed to prevent viewing through two pieces of glass but permit viewing through one piece. In other words, a viewer can see an object or person in a room when looking through one pane of RestrictView, but cannot see through the RestrictView glass on the other side of the room.
   For example, in a hospital, patients can see nurses or attendants in the corridor through windows in their rooms, and the nurses can see the patients. Patients, however, cannot see across the corridor into the room of another patient. In a courtyard application, people can see into the courtyard, but cannot see through to viewers on the other side. Adjoining treatment rooms or conference rooms are only viewable from corridors.
   RestrictView glass is a laminate and can be manufactured in a variety of formats, including approved attack-specification formats for psychiatric hospitals and prisons. A 3/16-in.-thick laminate consists of:

• 4 mm Schott Amiran anti-reflective glass
• 0.76 mm polyurethane with an RV interlayer
• 4 mm of Amiran anti-reflective glass

   The glass weighs 4.68 lb./ft² and is available with maximum dimensions of 44 x 44 in. The glass is designed for hospital, hotel, commercial, or security applications.
   At the show, Schott also announced that its fire-rated Pyran glass-ceramic glass recently received “Cradle-to-Cradle” certification. According to the company, “‘Cradle to Cradle’ certifies that Pyran is produced in an environmentally preferable way and qualifies it as the only environmentally friendly, fire-rated glass-ceramic on the market. It will be the only fire-rated glass option to help architects and designers qualify for LEED certification.”—Gary L. Parr

The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Washington, applauded the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ endorsement (click here and view p. 89 of the pdf) of the International Green Construction Code (IGCC), a comprehensive set of requirements intended to reduce the negative impact of buildings on the natural environment, while maintaining safety standards and increasing long-term peak performance.
   According to the AIA statement, “The Mayors’ Conference endorsement today of the IGCC at its annual meeting is a major expression of support from an organization outside of the building and construction industry. Such resolutions document support for a policy and represent ways for mayors to learn about and support policies nationally that they are free to adopt in their communities.”
   ”The IGCC needs the backing of leadership within local jurisdictions if it is to have any impact on the carbon footprint of the nation’s building sector, which accounts for almost 40% of America’s energy consumption and 72% of its electricity use,” said George H. Miller, FAIA, president of the AIA. “This resolution, by America’s mayors, is a huge step in that direction.”
   The Mayors Conference resolution calls on local governments “wishing to take a more holistic approach to incorporating energy efficiency, sustainable community planning, and healthy and safe building practices into the codes to adopt the IGCC and consider its Standard 189.1 compliance path as base code in their jurisdiction.”
   According to the AIA, “The IGCC is a document that can be readily used by design professionals, builders, and others in the industry. It was created with the intent to be administered by code officials and adopted by governmental units at any level as a tool to establish a green ‘floor’ above which voluntary rating systems can continue to drive the cutting edge of sustainable and safe design.”
   The IGCC was developed by the International Code Council (ICC), Washington, in association with cooperating sponsors ASTM International (ASTM), West Conshohocken, PA, and the AIA. Other organizations have joined the effort, including the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Washington, producers of the LEED green building rating systems; the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), Atlanta; responsible for developing the Standard 189.1; and the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), New York.
   Version 1.0 of the IGCC was publicly released, in Washington, on March 15, 2010. Comments received and testimony presented at the August 14-to-22 hearings in Chicago will be the basis for Public Version 2.0 of the IGCC, scheduled for release in November 2010.—Gary L. Parr

The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Washington, announced a tool that predicts a project’s energy use and project modeling. ”This tool is a valuable resource for architecture firms and will be used on their entire portfolio, not just for projects seeking green building certification,” said AIA president, George H. Miller, FAIA. “The tool was specifically developed to be simple to use and to be used by firms of all sizes on a variety of building types, large and small.”
   The tool is available by participating in the AIA’s voluntary 2030 Commitment Program. The program asks architecture firms, and other entities in the built environment, to pledge to develop multi-year action plans and implement steps that will advance the AIA’s goal of producing carbon-neutral buildings by the year 2030.
   The Excel-based reporting tool requires the user to enter project use type, gross square footage (GSF), and predicted energy use intensity, in addition to answering some basic yes/no questions such as, Is project Interior only? Is the project modeled?. Based on that information, for modeled projects, the tool will automatically calculate the national average site energy usage index (EUI) for that project type and the project’s percentage reduction from the national average EUI toward meeting the firm’s 2030 goal for the current year (currently 60%). For non-modeled projects, users enter the design standard or code and the sheet will calculate the project’s contribution toward the firm’s 2030 commitment.
   The Excel tool will generate three easy-to-decipher graphs that aggregate the individually listed active projects within the spreadsheet. These three graphs will constitute the report that firms will forward to the AIA under the 2030 Commitment Program. The three charts will show a snapshot of the firm portfolio including the percentage of GSF:

• of active projects meeting the current reduction goal
• being modeled
• for which the firm will gather actual energy performance.

   Firms are asked to track all active design projects for the reporting year, not just those that are seeking green-building certification. Reports developed with the tool are meant to provide a year-to-year summary of a firm’s work. Firms of all sizes and building type expertise will use the same tool and report in the same manner.
   The tool can be used for any type of building project and was developed through a collaboration between members of the AIA Committee on the Environment, AIA Large Firm Roundtable, AIA Chicago Chapter Working Group, and individuals from AIA member firms.—Gary L. Parr

GE Lighting, Cleveland and Lithonia Lighting, Atlanta, have combined efforts to help schools improve their classroom lighting quality and cut energy costs by as much as 50%. The information-delivery vehicle for this new effort is a website at www.BetterLightingBetterSchools.com.
   According to the press release: “Better quality, more controllable and efficient lighting is an investment that ought to be on the radar screens of school districts across the U.S. this year. Superintendents, business managers, and school boards can take a meaningful step toward extraordinary, lasting lighting energy savings—and improved, more flexible learning environments—by visiting www.BetterLightingBetterSchools.com.”

GE and Lithonia's www.BetterLightingBetterSchools.com website is a new resource aimed at helping schools improve lighting and cut energy costs.

   The site provides a spectrum of information about how schools can improve lighting energy efficiency. It features a lighting audit request form tied to the introduction of energy-efficient Class Pack Lighting Systems from GE Lighting and Lithonia Lighting. By installing Class Pack Lighting Systems, schools can reduce annual lighting-related energy costs as much as 50%.
   ”We want to help school districts across the country understand the significant opportunity that today’s energy-efficient lighting systems can provide,” said Jason Raak, a marketing manager with GE’s lighting business. “Recent new product advancements make current high-performance lighting far superior to systems installed just five years ago, and payback periods are shorter than ever.”
   Qualified school representatives can use www.BetterLightingBetterSchools.com to request a school or district-wide energy audit (restrictions apply). Visitors to the site will see a host of supporting statistics and details on how school executives can reduce the cost to renovate facilities by using NEMA premium ballasts and CEE qualified HPT8 lamps which, in many regions, can defray initial costs through utility rebate eligibility.
   The Class Pack Lighting Systems combine high-light-output, full-spectrum fluorescent lighting with a ballast system that delivers customized lighting levels on a two-lamp platform. With fewer, longer-life components, it minimizes maintenance and lamp replacement costs. It’s designed for fast, easy installation after school is out for the day or during summer renovations.
   ”We think BetterLightingBetterSchools.com provides school districts with many of the resources needed to make smart financial decisions about lighting and energy savings,” said Monik Mehra, director of marketing, Lithonia Lighting. “It’s a vital tool at a time when school districts have to do more with less, while striving to improve the quality of their students’ learning experience.”—Gary L. Parr