Archinect - News

AIA updates sustainable design contract suite to streamline green building

2020-05-15T17:39:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has published new and updated AIA contract documents that are designed to "support businesses with reaching their sustainability goals and programming."

The latest set of documents focuses on AIA's renewed efforts to center environmental design in architecture practice as talk of a potential Green New Deal and other green stimulus efforts begin to coalesce in earnest within the profession.

Previously on Archinect: "AIA issues statement of support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal." Park Passive, the first certified passive house in Seattle. Photo by Aaron Leitz.

According to an announcement published by AIA, the documents offer a "roadmap to integrate sustainability into design and construction projects, as well as ensure less confusion when green project discussions begin."

The organization writes, "While there are already four versions of AIA sustainable project exhibits that attach to standard contracts, this update includes th...

"Hygiene ventilation" and the case for Green Stimulus

2020-05-04T13:29:00-04:00

As society plans its transition out of the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic response and into a new era of social distanced, post-quarantine life, the gradual re-inhabitation of existing buildings will necessitate that many aspects of daily life be re-examined, both in terms of social custom and functional layout.

Lecture halls and performance spaces that once held hundreds will now accommodate dozens; High-rise office buildings will see their capacities drastically reduced, as well; Grocery aisles will be redesigned to allow for more space between shoppers; Restaurants could see their dining rooms transported outdoors; Banks, post offices, government buildings, and all sorts of commercial, cultural, and entertainment facilities will likely, either periodically or for a period of time moving forward, will be impacted by this shift.

Previously on Archinect: "MASS Design Group brings pandemic design expertise to American hospital wards." A diagram showing interventions that the ...

NYC adopts new energy code to build more efficient buildings

2020-03-04T17:43:00-05:00

New York City will require all new and existing buildings to meet stricter energy efficiency requirements under a new energy code approved by the city council and passed by Mayor Bill de Blasio last week. The 2020 NYC Energy Conservation Code is part of the city’s implementation of its Green New Deal.

According to Construction Dive, the new code will require builders to improve the building thermal envelope with modified walls and windows to limit heat loss in addition to air leakage mitigation. Heating and cooling systems will also have stricter requirements.

The Architecture Lobby endorses Bernie Sanders ahead of Super Tuesday election

2020-03-02T18:55:00-05:00

The Architecture Lobby (TAL) is endorsing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic Party primary contest.

In a statement published to the group's website, TAL writes, "With this endorsement, we invite architectural workers to rise in the vision of a movement."

Previously on Archinect: "The Architecture Lobby decries 'a blatant attempt to leverage aesthetics in the service of white supremacy'." Image courtesy of Flickr user Jorge Láscar.

The statement adds, "Whether you are a graduate student balancing work in school with work as a TA and watching your student debt climb, a junior architect anxious over climate impact but powerless to make your supervisor act, a business development professional enraged by an RFP for an immigrant concentration camp, or a firm partner watching healthcare costs balloon every year, there is a place for you in this movement. We see a profession capable of change. With that vision in mind, The Architecture Lobby officially endorses Senator Be...

Los Angeles adopts all-electric, embodied carbon standards for municipal buildings

2020-02-12T13:52:00-05:00

With a new Executive Directive issued by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the City of Los Angeles has become the latest California municipality to make a plan to decarbonize its municipal building stock.

Under the recently unveiled Executive Directive No. 25, L.A.'s Green New Deal: Leading By Example vision, the city will, among other broad efforts aimed at bringing environmental sustainability and economic and social justice initiatives to the fore, "ensure that all new municipally-owned buildings or major renovations be designed to reach carbon neutrality by 2030," according to the memo's text.

In addition, the directive will make the city the first in the state to adopt the guidelines of the Buy Clean California Act, a measure that indexes and rates on the embodied carbon of building materials for new building projects and renovations. The move aligns "procurement decisions for steel, flat glass, and mineral wool using Sate of California-adopted Global Warming Potential limits"...

The case for pitting big infrastructure against climate change

2020-01-22T15:26:00-05:00

The US has become terrible at building big things, and negligent in even maintaining our existing infrastructure. [...] That all bodes terribly for our ability to grapple with the coming dangers of climate change, because it is fundamentally an infrastructure problem.

MIT Technology Review senior editor, James Temple, penned an urgent plea for a renewed, but sustainable, American public works boom that could significantly speed up the painfully slow infrastructure planning process in the face of rapidly changing climate conditions.

"To prepare for the climate dangers we now can’t avoid, we’ll also need to bolster coastal protections, reengineer waste and water systems, reinforce our transportation infrastructure, and relocate homes and businesses away from expanding flood and fire zones," Temple writes. "Given those staggering costs and tight time lines, we can’t afford to take decades to build—much less not build—a single project."

Debra Gerod takes the helm of AIA California

2020-01-21T20:05:00-05:00

Gruen Associates Partner Debra Gerod has been inaugurated as the AIA California 2020 President.

According to the AIA California website, Gerod aims to focus on expanding the group's efforts to push the state to adopt proposed Zero Code measures that would mandate emissions-free buildings across the state.

According to the AIA California website, Gerod made the following statement at her inauguration: “This is a pivotal time where architects are in a position to show leadership in the climate action arena. I wanted to be part of an influential conduit such as the AIA CA. I can think of no better group to work with.”

Gerod succeeds AIA California 2019 President Ben Kasdan of the firm KTGY.

Voicing support for Gerod as she embarks on her year-long journey at the top of the state's AIA group, Kasdan stated, "Debra Gerod, FAIA, represents AIA California and the architectural profession in such a quintessential way. She leads by example with tactful wisdom, seemingly effortless grace,...

NYC's architect-led Climate Advisory Board takes shape

2020-01-07T13:34:00-05:00

Jill Lerner, Managing Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), Stas Zakrzewski of Zakrzewski + Hyde Architects, and Arup Principal Fiona Cousins have been appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to the city's 16-member Climate Advisory Board to help steer the city's implementation of an ambitious climate agenda for new and existing buildings.

The board helped to enact Local Law 97, the emissions reduction-focused Climate Mobilization Act (CMA) passed in 2019 that was initially billed as banning all-glass skyscrapers in conjunction with the city's "Green New Deal" plan. de Blasio has since walked back from those aspects of the plan, but the initiative's potential to reshape the city's built environment remains.

Local Law 97 creates, for example, a new Office of Building Energy and Emissions Performance (OBEEP) housed within a new Office of Sustainability at the city's Department of Buildings. The OBEEP, according to the legislative text, will be directed by a yet-t-be-named "r...

Illustrating the massive scale of America's decarbonization challenge

2019-12-15T12:00:00-05:00

The McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania has published a digital atlas that attempts to communicate the wide-ranging implications of both climate change and a potential Green New Deal for the United States.

A color-coded breakdown of land uses across the country that includes agriculture, urban areas, natural landscapes, and other uses. (Courtesy of McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology.)

The 2100 Project: An Atlas for the Green New Deal, as the project is officially known, brings together work conducted over the last two years by researchers at the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, an initiative housed within the Weitzman School of Design at UPenn led by landscape architect and academic Billy Fleming. With the Atlas, the research center aims to answer perhaps the most pressing question of our time: "What will be lost—economically, culturally, psychologically, physically—should the climate crisis continue unabated?"

Taking stock

Top: The geographic range and...

Rep. Ilhan Omar unveils 12 million unit "Homes for All" plan

2019-11-21T16:29:00-05:00

Homes For All

United States Representative Ilhan Omar has unveiled a new piece of legislation that seeks to reinvigorate public housing construction across the country by building 12 million new public and affordable housing units over the next decade.

The so-called “Homes for All Act” unveiled this week would bring a whopping $1 trillion in federal funding for the construction of these new units and would also establish a permanent federal funding steam to ensure housing affordability in the United States, according to The Star Tribune. As proposed, $800 million of the overall total would go toward the construction of 9.5 million new public housing units while the remainder will be used to finance a federal Housing Trust Fund used to fuel the construction of 2.5 million new affordable housing units by nonprofit and municipal entities, The Huffington Post reports.

Colorado Court Affordable Housing, designed by Brooks + Scarpa in Santa Monica, California. Image courtesy of Wikimedi...

AOC and Bernie Sanders unveil "Green New Deal for Housing" plan

2019-11-14T10:05:00-05:00

New York City Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders have unveiled a bold initiative aimed at rejuvenating and decarbonizing the nation’s public housing stock.

The visionary Green New Deal for Public Housing Act aims to bring sorely needed maintenance upgrades to America’s 500,000 public housing units through a series of repair, weatherization, and retrofitting efforts. The improvements will come via seven grant programs aimed at addressing specific design and material shortfalls currently plaguing public housing complexes across the country.

Triple bottom line plan

The plan is expected to cost somewhere between $119 billion and $172 billion over the next decade, according to a study conducted by progressive think tank Data for Progress and the University of Pennsylvania’s McHarg Center and Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative research centers. The Data Progress study estimates that the plan could create up to 240,723 jobs per year. Those jobs, u...

Michael Green Architecture, Oregon State University debut mass timber innovation lab

2019-10-14T19:55:00-04:00

Oregon State University (OSU) has opened a new 17,500-square-foot research and fabrication lab designed by Michael Green Architecture (MGA) dedicated to mass timber design, engineering, fabrication, and construction.

The A.A. "Red" Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Laboratory, as the space is known, brings together university and industry partners that include OSU's colleges of forestry and engineering and the University of Oregon's College of Design to create the TallWood Institute. The lab is the cornerstone of a new Oregon Forest Science complex on OSU's Corvallis campus, also designed by MGA. The interdisciplinary partnership, according to OSU's website, will focus on the "advancement of structural wood products and mass timber design in constructing high-rise and other multistory buildings."

Exterior view of the A.A. "red" Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Lab. Image courtesy of TallWood Institute.

In a press release announcing the opening of the complex, TallWood Design Institute ...

Penn renames School of Design in honor of footwear designer Stuart Weitzman

2019-10-07T13:45:00-04:00

The University of Pennsylvania's newly-inaugurated Stuart Weitzman School of Design was officially renamed last week in honor or Penn graduate and global footwear designer Stuart Weitzman.

The school, which houses undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and historic preservation, among other subjects, originally announced the name change in February of this year. According to a university statement, "The new name, the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, reflects Weitzman’s enduring influence in the world of design and his extraordinary support of the School."

The renaming will be accompanied by the redesign of a plaza fronting the school's main building. The new Stuart Weitzman Plaza will be redesigned by landscape architecture firm OLIN, whose principal, Laurie Olin, is practice professor emeritus of landscape architecture of the Weitzman School. The initiative also includes additional scholarships for Wei...

National rent control takes a step forward as AOC unveils housing-focused poverty amelioration plan

2019-09-26T20:00:00-04:00

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has unveiled a series of sweeping legislative proposals that could, among other things, reshape access to housing in America.

The so-called A Just Society: Uplift Our Workers Act plan is made up of six separate legislative proposals that each addresses a different facet of ameliorating poverty in the United States.

Among them, The Place to Prosper Act would, for example, institute nationwide rent control, regulate corporate landlords, and provide federally-mandated tenant protections. The bill would cap rent increases at three-percent per year while also mandating that landlords keep rental units in good repair, and includes $10 billion over a decade to remove building-borne toxins like lead contamination.

The bill would also hold back highway funding from areas that do not actively support equitable development strategies. Along this vein, the bill takes aim at the imposition of parking and lot size minimum requirements by municipalities, a...

UPenn and The Architecture Lobby to livestream "Designing a Green New Deal" symposium

2019-09-12T07:00:00-04:00

This Friday, the University of Pennsylvania will hold Designing a Green New Deal, a day-long symposium aimed at articulating a design perspective for "a still-abstract set of proposals for decarbonizing the economy, eliminating poverty, creating green, working-class jobs, and retrofitting communities for the coming effects of climate change."

The day-long event features a series of panel discussions made up of some of the leading voices in the climate, sustainability, labor, and design communities, including Peggy Deamer of The Architecture Lobby, landscape architect Kate Orff of SCAPE, and Billy Fleming, director of UPenn's Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism + Ecology.

A description for the event, which will be livestreamed below, says, "Domestically, a Green New Deal would constitute a generational investment in planning and design, reshaping the social and physical landscape of the U.S. in ways matched only by the Industrial Revolution, New Deal, and postwar suburban boom. But th...

Bernie Sanders unveils $16 trillion Green New Deal plan

2019-08-22T19:30:00-04:00

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has unveiled a transformative Green New Deal climate action plan that aims to eliminate fossil fuel use in the United States entirely by 2050.

Labeling the increasingly apparent effects of climate change “a national emergency,” Sanders seeks to direct a “$16.3 trillion public investment toward these efforts, in line with the mobilization of resources made during the New Deal and WWII, but with an explicit choice to include black, indigenous and other minority communities who were systematically excluded in the past.”

The Sanders plan would completely decarbonize the country’s electrical grid and transportation systems with 100% renewable electricity by 2030, according to The New York Times, with full decarbonization for the American economy by 2050. That effort includes removing some $15 billion in annual subsidies for the fossil fuel industries, forcing fossil fuel companies to “pay for their pollution,” and “scaling back military sp...

Los Angeles's sad trees have reason to hope

2019-08-06T17:03:00-04:00

For the first time in its history, the City of Los Angeles will have a single individual dedicated to overseeing, managing, and expanding the city's urban forest.

Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetii recently selected Rachel Malarich as the new "city forest officer," a post housed within the city's Board of Public Works that will help to implement the city's aggressive urban forestry goals, according to a press release from Garcetti's office. The vision, part of the mayor's municipal Green New Deal framework, envisions planting 90,000 trees in the city by 2021 to improve the city's pedestrian experience, create shade in under-served areas, and help lessen summer cooling loads on homes and businesses.

In a statement praising Malarich's experience, Garcetti said, "Every tree we plant can help stem the tide of the climate crisis, and when we expand our urban forest, we can sow the seeds of a healthier, more sustainable future for communities across our city.”

The city is well known for its...

Public banking could finance the Green New Deal

2019-06-28T20:09:00-04:00

In contrast to the big, privately owned banks in the U.S., public banks are owned by government entities; theoretically, they could operate at the city, state, or federal level. They’re funded with revenue from constituent taxes or from the federal government, and as such, are intended to be accountable to public interest and demands, as opposed to big private banks, which are beholden to shareholders.

Critics of the Green New Deal often decry that the transformative effort aimed at aggressively decarbonizing the American economy will be expensive to pull off.

The answer, according to a report in Fast Company, could lie in how preliminary Green New Deal legislation is written. The initial Green New Deal legislation forwarded by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Oregon senator Ed Markey reads in part: "Providing and leveraging, in a way that ensures that the public receives appropriate ownership stakes and returns on investment, adequate capital (including through community grants, public banks, and other public financing), technical expertise, supporting policies, and other forms of assistance to communities, organizations, federal, state, and local government agencies, and businesses working on the Green New Deal mobilization."

Some experts argue that increasingly-popular public banking initiatives could provide a sustainable pathway for funding Green New Deal initiati...

Renewable energy production overtakes coal nationwide

2019-06-26T11:33:00-04:00

America's coal industry has already been left in the dust by natural gas. Now it's under immense pressure from the renewable energy boom. The renewable energy sector had slightly more installed capacity than coal in April, according to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report.

Surging renewable energy production capabilities have finally overtopped coal-fired power production in the United States in recent months, a historic first. The milestone is the latest development in a decade-long slide for coal-fired energy production, which peaked in 2008.

CNN reports that coal consumption has fallen 39% since then, while energy generated from solar, wind, and other renewable sources has climbed ever higher. Energy production capabilities from renewable sources now slightly exceed those of coal, a discrepancy that is expected to continue to climb. No new coal-fired power plants were put online last year, for example, while renewable energy potentials soared during the same period. Despite the shift, renewable energy production is not expected to overtake coal-generated power production on an annual basis for a few years.

The writing is on the wall, though. Jeff McDermott, a managing partner at clean energy investment bank Greentech Capital Advisors, told CNN, "C...

McHarg Center exhibition highlights global ecological urbanism

2019-06-20T13:28:00-04:00

In the face of increasingly destructive climate collapse, the University of Pennsylvania's McHarg Center for Urban Ecology is launching Design with Nature Now, a sprawling survey of some of the most inventive ecologically-driven landscape infrastructure projects from around the globe.

The exhibition comes as the recently-launched McHarg Center takes shape and begins to tap into the growing national and international conversation regarding the proposed Green New Deal.

Some of the projects highlighted in the exhibition are well-known, others, less so. Divided into five discrete categories, the collected projects present a vision for how humans can use the principles of ecological urbanism to meet their own needs while also staying out of nature's way.

Some projects, like BIG's Big U plan for Battery Park in New York City, aim to retrofit existing urban ecologies for the coming era of sea level rise.

Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. Animal crossing overpass, Banff Nati...

The Architecture Lobby puts forth Green New Deal vision

2019-06-19T14:49:00-04:00

The Architecture Lobby (TAL) has put forth a set of guiding principles for architects to follow as debate over a potential Green New Deal takes shape across the industry.

According to a recently-published memo, TAL is pursuing a four-pronged approach for envisioning how architects can contribute to the decarbonization of the built environment while also instilling socially-just practices across the profession. While noting the incredible financial and professional opportunity architects can expect from the transformative set of public works that will be required to achieve decarbonization, the organization warns, "architectural work for the Green New Deal must not become another conduit for accumulating wealth at the top."

Instead, TAL argues, architects should "embrace decarbonization as a social justice issue that calls for a reconstruction of our way of life," adding, "We must redefine sustainability to acknowledge the economic, social, racial, and class-based dimensions of the ...

Carlo Ratti proposes 2050 vision for Boulevard Périphérique in Paris

2019-06-17T15:13:00-04:00

As part of a recently-opened exhibition envisioning the future of Paris's urban highway system, a team led by Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) has unveiled a dramatic, two-pronged vision for what the city's Boulevard Périphérique might look like in 2050.

Ratti, working with research carried out by the MIT Senseable City Lab he directs, proposes a vision that maintains the boulevard's status as a ring road, albeit one ruled by autonomous public and private transit.

One aspect of the plan, dubbed "Living Laterality” by the designers, envisions removing half of the traffic lanes for the 22-mile ring road in order to provide space for a series of reconfigurable playgrounds and other urban amenities. Renderings for the proposal showcase autonomous bus pods running side-by-side with autonomous vehicle traffic, as well as generous, dedicated shared mobility spaces for urban scooting, bicycling, and walking.

View of the "Living Above" proposal, image courtesy of Carlo Ratti Associati.

“Living...

Elizabeth Warren proposes "Green Marshall Plan"

2019-06-04T14:33:00-04:00

On Tuesday, the Warren campaign released its most comprehensive climate plan yet, a $2 trillion package that commits the federal government to spend $150 billion a year over the next decade on low-carbon technology, increases energy research funding tenfold and funds a $100 billion Green Marshall Plan to aid the poorer countries projected to suffer the worst as global temperatures rise.

In specifically identifying a post-World War II-style Marshall Plan-like aid package aimed at assisting international countries lower their carbon emissions, Warren's plan seeks to go further than the other Green New Deal-style visions put forward by competing presidential candidates.

In a Medium post announcing the plan, Warren writes: “The climate crisis demands immediate and bold action. Like we have before, we should bank on American ingenuity and American workers to lead the global effort to face down this threat — and create more than a million good jobs here at home.”

Warren's plan includes the creation of a new "federal office dedicated to selling American-made clean, renewable, and emission-free energy technology abroad and a $100 billion commitment to assisting countries to purchase and deploy this technology." The effort, according to the Massachusetts senator, would help to address global carbon emissions that will need to be eliminated after the US reaches net-zero car...

Bill de Blasio's Green New Deal for NYC targets glass and steel skyscrapers

2019-04-22T13:30:00-04:00

"We're going to ban the classic glass and steel skyscrapers, which are incredibly inefficient," Bill de Blasio said on "Morning Joe." As the New York City mayor lays out plans for a municipal Green New Deal, he is looking to target one of the biggest sources of emissions in the city: buildings.

De Blasio explained that traditional skyscrapers would become difficult to build due to strong energy efficient mandates. "If someone wants to build one of those things, they can take a whole lot of steps to make it energy efficient", he told the MSNBC crew.

The mayor added that the city will also target private building owners for not retrofitting for energy efficiency. In his Green New Deal, owners that don't slash emission by 30% by 2030 will receive fines, with the largest buildings potentially facing penalties as high as $1 million or more.

He also went on to promise that the city will get all of its energy from renewable sources within the next five years.

AIA issues statement of support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal

2019-02-08T21:13:00-05:00

AIA President William Bates has issued a statement praising the efforts of a Green New Deal, an ambitious resolution put forth by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that addresses the immense threat of climate change while stimulating the economy through sustainable job creation across various sectors.

The transformative package of policies, announced yesterday, is both broad and bold, giving attention to everything from environmental justice and labor to health care and education. And to get there, the road map calls for a range of policy-driven projects that would heavily touch on the building industry, which accounts for nearly 40% of CO2 emissions in the United States.

Most notably, the bill calls for densifying urban areas and demands the U.S. “upgrade all existing buildings and build new buildings, to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability"—both of which would have huge impacts for how and wh...