GreenBuild Blog
Thursday, September 20, 2007
German Cars and German Green Buildings: A Necessary Match?
This week I’m in Frankfurt talking to a group of 60 architects assembled by Somfy, a French manufacturer of dynamic building facades (exterior shades and shutters for high-rises), so I thought I’d venture 100 miles down the road to visit with David Cook, a partner at Behnisch Architekten in Stuttgart, best known as the home of Mercedes Benz. Behnisch completed the 350,000 sq.ft. LEED Platinum Genzyme building in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2003, which still stands as a monument to an incredibly attractive, people friendly and high performance building. Behnisch almost always works closely from the outset of a project with a Stuttgart-based climate engineering firm, Transsolar Energietechnik. The collaboration has gone on all over the world for the past ten years and has produced some incredibly well performing, green, great-looking buildings. Good lessons in fostering creativity for American architects, who tend to keep their engineers on a tight leash.
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Friday, September 14, 2007
Why Build It Green?
I’m quoted in the online Matter magazine recently talking about the business case for green buildings. It’s not at all about energy savings. To quote the interview: Builders of green commercial properties may not be able to recover the higher costs in rent, but other factors can make the enhancements justifiable, according to Yudelson. “You can attract higher quality tenants who are willing to sign longer leases and reduce your carrying costs by leasing properties quicker,” he says. Green buildings also have higher resale values, Yudelson says.
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Thursday, August 30, 2007
Retail Green Set to Grow Dramatically!
The retail industry builds or renovates $25 billion of stores every year, second only to the $31 billion spend on offices in the commercial building sector. (Engineering News-Record statistics, issue of July 30, 2007, p. 23). Earlier in August, Best Buy announced that all their new stores would be LEED-certified. Now, later in August, the Retail Industry Leaders Association announced the unveiling of the RILA Sustainability Initiative, designed to advance “socially sustainable” activities and gain recognition for members engaged in environmental stewardship. “For years, our members have been embracing stewardship and sustainability,” said RILA President Sandy Kennedy, in a statement. “Through the RSI, we will gather the leading retail companies in the country to advance activities and business practices that will move the industry forward as a whole.” Casey Chroust, RILA’s senior vice president of retail operations, who will spearhead RSI, said the new initiative will be a forum for the retail industry “to design programs and solutions for environmental compliance and voluntary sustainability leadership.” We expect this program to result in major green building initiatives by many leading retail chains.
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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Growth rates in energy-efficient lighting lead green building technologies
The Freedonia Group’s market research shows an advanced lighting products market of $4.4 billion by 2011, led by compact fluorescent bulbs, which should totally displace incandescent bulbs from the residential and commerical markets by that time. Building applications will lead the way for advanced lighting products. Gentlemen, replace your bulbs!
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