Archinect - News

Chicago preservationists just saved two landmark early skyscrapers from the GSA wrecking ball

2024-08-05T20:13:00-04:00

The Chicago Tribune is reporting on the successful effort by Windy City preservationists to save the landmarked vacant Century and Consumers buildings, the “last vestiges of the Chicago School of Architecture” after two years of fighting. Their owners, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), have decided in favor of an adaptive reuse scheme that will save them from the wrecking ball, albeit with a list of 15 restrictions pertaining to any future redevelopment. These include limitations on residential development.

"We’re hoping the remaining $45 million of this demolition earmark could be invested in the terra cotta and the exterior cladding and roof structures, along with the windows," Preservation Chicago’s executive director Ward Miller told the outlet. "I think at a minimum, the GSA and federal government could help with restoring some of these features of the exterior that have languished for so long, almost 20 years, under their ownership."

The buildings were completed...

The GSA's emerging building technologies chief talks about the advent of its Green Proving Ground program

2024-07-29T15:28:00-04:00

During two decades with GSA, [Kevin] Powell has had a front seat view of how technologies in facilities have evolved over the years. As electrification and decarbonization efforts continue to emerge for buildings, Powell remains excited about seeing the future of buildings unfolding.

The architect behind the U.S. General Services Administration’s Green Proving Ground program is Berkeley CED graduate Kevin Powell, who spoke recently with FacilitiesNet about emerging technologies and decarbonization efforts in the building sector. As the manager of the country’s largest portfolio of buildings (the GSA has some 8,400 nationwide), Powell is in a unique position. He says his office has proven 30 new products, touting the program as a "once-in-your-career moment" that will augur positive trajectories for building standards for the next generation.

"The program really helps a lot of the industry innovators bridge what folks call the Technology Valley of Death because we’re really taking that first user risk," Powell told the outlet. "We’re the first buyer, and then we’re validating that it works, and that helps both us and the commercial real estate industry. The facility community can have confidence in what to invest in, and that’s what it’s all about."

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Federal Green Proving Ground program secures $9.6 million to test emerging building technologies

2024-07-24T13:08:00-04:00

Last week marked the announcement of the U.S. General Services Administration’s collaborative Green Proving Ground program with the Department of Energy. The initiative is aimed at producing “real world” evaluations of 17 different emerging technologies that may have a considerable impact on the future of the building industry and architectural design. Funding for the GSA’s latest $9.6 million investment comes from the Inflation Reduction Act.

This year’s program focuses on the following areas: building envelopes and enclosures, healthy and resilient buildings, HVAC systems for commercial buildings, and on-site renewables. The group being evaluated includes everything from heat pumps to geothermal retrofitting solutions and energy-saving ceiling tiles. Select testing will occur at the GSA's Applied Innovation Learning Labs with the first evaluations becoming available in 2026.

The GSA hopes this will ensure a transition to a net-zero emissions federal building portfolio by 2045. On...

Federal 2007 ban on fossil fuels in government-owned buildings finally kicks in

2024-04-28T08:00:00-04:00

Fossil fuels will be banned from new and remodeled federal buildings under a rule finalized by the Department of Energy this week. The rule stems from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). Section 433 of that law says new federal buildings and those undergoing major renovations have to phase out "fossil fuel-generated energy consumption" by 2030. But that provision never went into effect because the Energy Department failed to finalize regulations, until now.

All buildings (and vehicles) owned by the U.S. Government are currently under mandate to run on renewable energy by 2050. The EISA mandate was not fully effected until now because the DoE never finalized its regulations, NPR reported a year ago.

Now, the enactment will save an estimated 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions and another 16,000 tons of methane emissions within three decades. That's equal to 4.92 billion kWh of electricity (enough to power a city the size of San Diego for a year) according to standard conversions.

U.S. General Services Administration will spend $2 billion on low embodied carbon construction projects nationwide

2023-11-10T16:26:00-05:00

The Biden Administration has announced a new investment of $2 billion into 150 different federal building projects meant to minimize carbon emissions in 39 states.

The funding will be dispersed through the U.S. General Services Administration and used to purchase low embodied carbon materials in furtherance recommendations produced by the previously-established Buy Clean task force agenda. It is sourced from the Inflation Reduction Act and supports the reduction of 41,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions while creating over 6,000 jobs annually, according to a press release.

"The U.S. government has a huge share of the market -particularly of concrete and asphalt- and that I think helps drive the industry towards meeting an ever-increasing level of innovation when it comes to decarbonizing," White House Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation John Podesta told Reuters.

According to the GSA on November 6, the breakdown of procurements is: $384 million f...

The Congressional fight over preferred architecture styles may be short-lived

2023-07-14T14:38:00-04:00

Of the two bills before Congress, one has flowery language about the need to “uplift and beautify,” “inspire the human spirit,” “ennoble the United States” and “command respect from the general public.” The other codifies old guidance that directs federal builders to “reflect the regional architectural traditions,” to emphasize “the work of living American artists” and to not have bureaucrats force an official style on the folks who do the designing.

The duel between the Democrats’ updated ‘Democracy in Design’ (S.366) and the Republican-backed ‘Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act’ (H.R.3627) that was introduced in May recently got the attention of a (paywalled) Wall Street Journal op-ed along its way to spurring action on the part of the Government Accountability Office, which last month recommended the GSA begin to require community inputs in the design process for new federal buildings.

The former AIA-backed bill would codify the 1962 Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture that calls for the disclusion of “official” styles. Its opposite, perhaps intentionally, preferences styles whose historic context can be deemed problematic given its undeniable connection to wealthy landowners in the Antebellum South who used architecture to present themselves as the anointed heirs of classical Greek and Roman civilizations.

Politico reports, "One familiar tendency, though, is that both sides are claiming the mantle of democrac...

Inflation Reduction Act is ready to make climate impact on building sector

2022-08-15T12:37:00-04:00

Industry groups are applauding lawmakers after the passage of the Biden Administration’s recently proposed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, pointing to its more than $5 billion in provisions they say are “critical” to enacting climate change-related policies and modernizing transportation infrastructure across the United States.

Once implemented, the bill, officially titled H.R. 5376, will help incentivize the use and development of low-carbon building materials in government buildings as well as provide grants and other forms of funding that will aid in the country’s effort to match CO2 emissions mandates outlined in the Paris Agreement from 2015.

In a statement, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) president Peter Templeton commented that “the Inflation Reduction Act would put in place the most critical and consequential climate policies we have ever seen, and it would do so while reducing energy costs for American families and businesses and shoring up our energy security with a ...

Influential GSA chief architect Ed Feiner passes away aged 75

2022-08-03T13:29:00-04:00

The world of public design is mourning the loss of an influential figure at the news that former General Services Administration chief architect Ed Feiner passed away on July 1st at his home in suburban D.C. Feiner was known as the GSA’s first chief architect and a “driving force” behind some of its most successful programs, including his spearheading of the acclaimed Design Excellence Program, which is now in its 28th year.

"He changed the design and construction of public buildings," Feiner’s former colleague Leslie L. Shepherd remembered last month in the Engineering News-Record.

Among the GSA projects Feiner’s influence was cast over were Thom Mayne’s Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse and San Francisco Federal Building; the Oklahoma City National Memorial design and subsequent Carol Ross Barney-designed Federal Building; and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners pot-stirring John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston. The list of architects he worked directly with inclu...

Two landmark Chicago skyscrapers are teetering on the brink of demolition by the GSA

2022-04-14T19:06:00-04:00

Why would the U.S. General Services Administration now raise a hind leg to this legacy by wrecking the Century and Consumers buildings, two early 20th Century skyscrapers at 202 and 220 S. State Street? The buildings’ demolition would create an economic and pedestrian dead zone on State Street, something neither the street nor the city can afford. And it would be a shameful waste of some really good Chicago architecture.

A $141 million adaptive reuse plan was initially approved in 2017 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but the city decided to change direction only a few months later after an FBI security assessment determined that the two buildings’ continued existence creates too much risk for the iconic adjacent Chicago Federal Center.

Per the group Preservation Chicago: “The Century Building is historically unique for two important reasons. First, the distinct vertical expression of the building’s exterior elevations portends the transition from the Chicago School buildings of the late 19th century to the early decades of the 20th century. Emphasis of verticality is achieved with strong vertical bands and understated recessed spandrels. Second, the overall design of the façade ornament is a rare example of Neo-Manueline (inspired by the historic Portuguese style) influenced architecture in the Midwest. The proliferation of complex ornament around building openings, such as windows and doors, features s...

Proposed law would prevent President Trump from imposing classical architecture style for federal buildings

2020-07-15T16:58:00-04:00

A bill introduced on July 13th by Nevada Representative Dina Titus aims to write the General Services Administration's "Guiding Principles" for federal architecture into federal law.

The bill, titled the "Democracy in Design Act," represents an effort to stop the implementation the "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" initiative proposed by President Donald Trump earlier this year. Though text of the proposed law has yet to be published, passage of the bill would prevent the president from using an executive order to change or undermine them.

Previously on Archinect: "New executive order could make classical architecture 'the preferred and default style' for America's public buildings." The Jamie L. Witten Federal Building in Washington, D.C., designed by Philadelphia architects Rankin, Kellogg and Crane in 1901. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The principles advocate for open-ended design approaches for public buildings and the artworks displ...

Read the draft text of President Trump’s classical architecture executive order

2020-02-06T00:34:00-05:00

In a seven-page draft executive order obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, Trump declares that the federal government since the 1950s has “largely stopped building beautiful buildings that the American people want to look at or work in.” Future federal government buildings, he decrees, should look like those of ancient Rome, Greece and Europe. “Classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style,” he states.

The Chicago Sun-Times has published the draft text of President Donald Trump’s proposed “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” executive order that seeks to impose a classically-inspired architectural style on the nation’s federal buildings.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has voiced opposition to the measure.