I like nature shows. The behavior of animals in the wild isn’t that much different from how my dog acts. I admire biologists’ attempts to learn about their subjects. They are always putting radio collars or tags on whales, polar bears, and waterfowl to track their migration patterns.
Then I got to thinking. What if humans wore such tags? What would be the ramifications? The answer came the other day as I was talking with Clay Nesler, Johnson Control’s vice president for global energy and sustainability. He described how his company’s technology is being used by corporations to re-configure office space.
Here’s the short explanation: Employee ID badges are outfitted with RFID transmitters, which can be analyzed for all sorts of data, including: daily attendance, where an employee spends his time, with whom, and for how long. Is the employee working at his desk alone? Or, is he collaborating with co-workers in a meeting room? Or, is he on the road three weeks out of four?
By crunching the numbers, facility managers can see where the under-used space is in an office building. I was told they typically would find 10% to 20% savings. So, if a company is planning to hire (it could happen), it won’t have to move to a larger building. Or, if it is planning to move, it can use this employee-tracking data to find the right-sized building. For a company really interested in reducing its carbon footprint, the greenest things it can do are use less space or make the most of what it already has.
I might have stretched a bit in equating office workers with polar bears. Still, the point is the same: better decisions with better information based on real-time data.
Last month, IBM and Johnson Controls (JCI) announced a joint Smart Building Solution to improve building operations and to reduce energy and water consumption. This solution is suitable for large buildings as well as for portfolios of smaller buildings, like stores in a shopping center, or classrooms on a college campus. IBM is integrating its Tivoli and Maximo software with JCI’s Metasys, EnNet, energy and emissions, and other building management systems. Taken together, a building owner can address building performance in systems integration, energy management, enterprise reporting, space utilization, and asset management.
Here’s one more example. Nesler told me how the Smart Building Solution uses real-time data to anticipate problems and generate work orders automatically to correct situations. For instance, the system can tell a building engineer to change a filter now because it is the optimal time instead of waiting for the scheduled-maintenance guess-timate.
JCI already has deployed the technology in 1.5 billion square feet of real estate that it manages worldwide, Nesler said. That’s a lot of energy to be saved and greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced. If this keeps the polar bears up in the Arctic, I’m all for that. —Jim Carper
Last week, Tile of Spain invited 12 architects, designers, and journalists to Spain to show off the country’s innovative ceramic tile manufacturers. We spent three days in Valencia, visiting booths (or “stands,” as they say in Europe) at Cevisama, the tile show.
We also toured two factories in the Castellon region, Spain’s center of tile manufacturing. One makes tiles with powdered ingredients that are formed in high-pressure molds. The other factory forces soft clay through an extruder, and the tiles are cut to size. Processes like ink-jet printing and drum rollers lay down textures, patterns, or images on the tiles before they are glazed and fired. Manufacturers turn out products that look like wood, marble, wallpaper, photographs, and, well, ceramic tile.
The manufacturing process is impressive, but so are the factory buildings themselves. Skylights brighten (without shadows) the warehouses and factory floors. The day of our tour was chilly and I was expecting to warm up inside, but the 2,000+ F ovens are so well insulated that the heat does not radiate to visitors. The buildings are so vast that employees move around by bicycles. I was expecting to find benches and benches filled with hunched-over grandmothers painstakingly hand-glazing ceramic tiles. Not so. Abuela must have been sunning herself at la playa. These factories are heavily automated (check out the videos). I swear that our delegation was larger than the day shift.
In later posts, I’ll show you some new tile designs. —Jim Carper
Many years ago we used to say “Everything’s made in Japan.” These days we can easily say that about China. Proof-positive is a business-to-business website called Made-in-China.com. The site operators recently announced that they have reached the 3-million-customer plateau and now offer 12 million products. And they’re the number two Chinese business-to-business online trading platform! Suppliers cover a vast range of products from electronics, consumer electronics, and light industrial goods to construction equipment and automobiles. Browsing the site is quite an experience. It’s not every day you can add a 17,000-kg, 4.5-cubic-meter-bucket, front-end loader to your online shopping cart. I didn’t try to check out because I was pretty sure I’d get an immediate call from American Express.—Gary L. Parr
The Jan/Feb issue is in the mail, but if you want to see what’s new before your issue arrives, the features, project stories, and new products are all available at our website. Click here to start reading.—Gary L. Parr
YHR Partners, Moorhead, MN, was the design architect for St. Anne Cathlolic Church, Barrington, IL.
This photo of St. Anne Catholic Church, Barrington, IL, appeared in the November/December 2009 Commercial Building Products magazine, courtesy of RuckPate, the architect of record.
We since learned that YHR Partners, Moorehead, MN, was the design architect responsible for the layout of the spaces, finish selection, and the ceiling design. What’s notable about the ceiling is that the pattern is printed on fabric and glued to the substrate. Seen from the pews, the pattern appears to be hand painted. James Simpson is principal of YHR Partners. We want to give credit where credit is due.
In case you missed the issue, we showed eight ceiling treatments in all. See “Ceilings Define Spaces.” —Jim Carper
The CBP December E-Newsletter will be sent to subscribers in the next couple of days. Blog readers and Twitter followers can read it now by clicking here. Be sure to check out the award-winning activity by various USGBC chapters, many tips offered by Trane Inc. for sustainable building, and a new online training program from the BlazeMaster CPVC plumbing people.—Gary L. Parr
We have an unusually long clothes-dryer exhaust duct. It travels along the floor, makes three elbow turns to go up about 8 ft., then a horizontal run to the outside. It’s always been a pain to keep the lint from collecting in the ductwork and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the exhaust efficiency is pathetic.
Many months ago, I acquired the No-Clog Dryer Duct Booster, manufactured by Tjernlund Products Inc., White Bear Lake, MN, one of our regular advertisers. At the time, I put it in the laundry room to be installed “when I get some free time.” Every time I had to move it, I thought to myself, “I really need to install that thing and see if it works as advertised.” It sure wasn’t going to boost any air sitting in its box.
About three weeks ago, I discovered that a contractor we hired for some remodeling had knocked the dryer duct off of the back of the dryer. Every time my wife dried clothes, most of the exhaust was getting pumped into the laundry room. That was the tipping point.
The time had come to install the booster. I dismantled and cleaned the ductwork and, before reassembling, cracked open the Duct Booster box, braced for a some-assembly-required, duct-tape-wrapping, new-wiring, wood-cutting, 10-trips-to-Home-Depot, all-day project. I’m more than happy to report that none of that materialized.
I had to make one trip to Home Depot and had the Booster installed and all ductwork back in place in about an hour. I plugged the Booster in and it did its calibration, as described in the instructions. Yes, I’m one of those who actually reads the instructions.
The real test was the first load of laundry. That happened the next day. My wife and I were at full attention when she punched the start button on the dryer. The dryer started and a brief moment later the Booster fired up. I expected to hear the screaming of a small jet engine. Instead, whatever sound the Booster made/makes, is drowned out by the dryer.
Though quiet, it moves some SERIOUS AIR! I went outside and immediately was concerned that lint would soon be plastered on the neighbor’s house. Warm, moist dryer air was howling out of that vent. Back in the laundry room, the usual buildup of heat during a drying session didn’t happen. Bad in the Illinois winters, but great in the summer when drying clothes was always accompanied by extra AC operation. According to my wife, clothes now dry better and much faster.
My only regret? That I didn’t install the Booster many months ago. I don’t make it a habit of endorsing products (it’s an integrity thing), but there have to be many commercial situations that involve long dryer-exhaust runs. If you have one, put the Booster on your upgrade list, and no, I don’t offer installation services.—Gary L. Parr
Rock ‘n roll I get. Same deal with fish ‘n chips. But Rock ‘n Fish? As the name of a restaurant? When a press release crossed my desk (e-mail inbox, actually) about Rock ‘n Fish, and I said, “OK, I’ll take the bait” (so to speak). I opened up the message and looked at the jpegs. The light fixtures grabbed me. I was hooked.
Rock ‘n Fish is a restaurant at the L.A. Live Entertainment Campus in Los Angeles. The 5.6-million-square-foot mixed-use development is on 27 acres, covering more than six blocks in the city’s South Park district. The Art Deco-style complex includes broadcast studios, restaurants, cafes, cinemas, bowling lanes, music clubs, and a music museum.
For his fine-dining restaurant, owner Michael Zislis wanted to match the architecture of L.A. Live. Zislis and designer Larry Drasin of Beverly Hills created their own intepretation of Art Deco inside Rock ‘n Fish. Toward that end, they wanted one-of-a-kind lighting fixtures.
“We had a preliminary design completed,” Drasin said. “But we counted on the expertise and experience of Sunset Design to take our artistic ideas and make the work as lighting.”
Sunset Designs, South El Monte, CA, works in most media, including crystal, silk, and metal (brass, copper, stainless steel, aluminum, wrought iron and many more).
“We gave them the working drawings and they engineered the fabrication. It was a piece of cake,” Zislis said.
That would be “crabcake,” I assume. —Jim Carper
The Alhambra is on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
Put down the shopping list. Stop trimming the tree. Forget about what you want tell the boss at the holiday party. You have to start working on your “Why I Want To Go To Spain” essay. Seriously. Tile of Spain is taking three architects and/or designers on a free trip to Spain.
The “Reign in Spain” tour starts in Madrid and moves on to Granada, home to the world-famous Alhambra Palace. Then you will travel to Valencia (birthplace of paella) for Cevisama 2010, the big ceramic tile trade show.
Here’s the deal: You must be an accredited architect or interior designer with current affiliation with AIA, ASID and/or IIDA and living in the United States. You must be available to travel from Feb. 5-13, 2010. Finally, you are expected to participate in all activities of the junket. Tile of Spain says, “there will be free time for exploring the cities on your own but most activities, meals and excursions are planned beforehand and are required.”
What’s next? Download and complete the application form at http://www.spaintiles.info/eng/index.asp then return the application by deadline of Dec. 23, 2009. Good luck. —Jim Carper
In the past couple of months the economy has been moving from a mixed-bag of news to primarily positive reports. The millstone has always been continued deterioration in the job market.
Finally, with today’s announcement, the job market seems to be showing signs of a turnaround. According to a CNNMoney.com report, in November, the unemployment rate showed the largest decline in more than three years. Only 11,000 jobs were lost in November. Experts were expecting 125,000. September and October job losses were also adjusted down, resulting in a three-month positive trend.
This comes on the heels of the most-recent Architecture Billings Index, as reported in the November issue of CBP’s E-Newsletter. The October index of 46.1 was the highest mark since August 2008 and a notable increase from the 43.1 September number. The new-projects inquiry score remained strongly in the growth category at 58.5.
We all know that the job market is still rather lousy and the Architecture Billings Index, though improving, is still showing a declining market. But, as we reach the end of a very difficult year, it’s encouraging to see these key numbers heading north instead of south.—Gary L. Parr