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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...

Energy department commits $6 billion to decarbonizing industrial manufacturing

2023-03-13T19:14:00-04:00

The Biden Administration announced a plan to help decarbonize the industrial manufacturing sector through a new $6 billion investment it says will eventually help lower emissions while signaling a newfound demand in the “marketplace for clean products.”

As part of the government’s largest-ever investment into industrial decarbonization, manufacturers of things like concrete, cement, and steel that are known to be heavy polluters will be bolstered by support through the new Industrial Demonstrations Program, which in turn advances grants to early-stage projects in line with the administration’s broader 2050 carbon economy goals.

The White House says grants will cover up to half of the costs for qualifying projects. The funding was made possible as part of the new Inflation Reduction Act and previous Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Roughly one-third of all domestic carbon emissions come from the industries included in the decarbonization package, according to the Department of Energy (...

Architecture 2030's new CARE Tool helps measure the carbon reduction of retrofit projects

2023-02-15T14:38:00-05:00

A new metric measuring the amount of carbon reduced in reuse projects is changing the way practitioners of the built environment can quantify the success of retrofit projects of all types and sizes.

Architecture 2030’s new CARE (Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator) Tool is a way of providing valuable statistics that show the carbon savings of each project accurately and using a standardized methodology. Its tool was developed by Siegel and Strain Architects principal Larry Strain along with Architecture 2030’s Erin McDade and Goody Clancy’s Lori Ferriss and is already in use at several leading firms nationwide.

CARE Tool works by taking user inputs about energy targets and potential building interventions to estimate operational carbon emissions and embodied carbon emissions in each project.

According to the group: “Outputs are visualized as total embodied and operational em...

New first-of-its-kind office tower in Melbourne sports an integrated solar façade

2022-06-07T17:55:00-04:00

Australia’s first office tower with a “solar skin” is expected to be built next year in a landmark moment for the construction industry and decarbonisation efforts. The eight-storey building at 550-558 Spencer Street in West Melbourne will cost $40m and has been designed by the architecture firm Kennon on behalf of Dr Bella Freeman.

The first-of-its-kind structure for Australia will be covered by 1,182 solar panels with the equivalent thickness of a conventional glass façade. The cladding is called Skala, developed by German solar energy technology company Avancis. The system utilizes a thin-film PV module that sits atop a network that channels the generated electricity into the building’s power supply. As reported by The Guardian, it has the ability to produce 50 times the energy of an average rooftop photovoltaic array used in residential housing.

When the building is completed, the solar skin will reportedly provide nearly all its energy needs. The addition of extra roof panels will cut almost all ongoing power costs, and after a few years, the site is expected to be carbon-neutral. While involved in projects in Europe, the technology is a first for Australia, given its strict building codes. It is currently undergoing a final round of testing before it can be approved, which would make Skala available to u...

One of Zaha Hadid's final designs opens in the UAE

2022-04-11T18:50:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has officially ushered in what it says will become a “new benchmark for future workplaces” in the form of a brand new high-tech headquarters for the sustainably-minded BEEAH Group in Sharjah, UAE.

Echoing the surrounding desert landscape, the design incorporates two interconnected dune-like structures that house the company’s main offices with a central courtyard and an oasis-like water feature in between to aid in the overall ventilation of the structures.

Image © Hufton+Crow

Lightly glazed facades made of glass with reinforced fiber panels reduce the need for artificial light in the hall. The new headquarters also comes equipped with a host of green innovations such as on-site water treatment and solar-charged Tesla battery packs and will strive for LEED Platinum standards and a net-zero emissions rating using materials taken primarily from local sources.

Image © Hufton+Crow

Much like the city it inhabits, BEEAH is trying ...

The world's first fossil-free steel

2021-08-23T16:52:00-04:00

Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB has announced that it has produced the world’s first fossil-free steel. As part of a trial delivery, the steel was sent to its first customer, Swedish automaker Volvo Group.

The first-of-its-kind steel was developed through HYBRIT, an initiative formed in 2016 between SSAB and state-owned firms LKAB and Vattenfall, who specialize in energy and mining, respectively. Its aim was to develop a technology for fossil-free iron and steelmaking.

The group was able to replace coking coal, the process traditionally used for steelmaking, with fossil-free electricity and hydrogen. The result is a porous material called sponge iron, which is a combination of fossil-free hydrogen and iron ore. This past June, the team showcased the successful execution of this process at HYBRIT’s pilot plant in Luleå, Sweden. Volvo plans to experiment with the initial batch of steel through the production of prototype vehicles and parts.

This candle holder is the first object mad...

Passive House towers are good

2019-07-30T13:17:00-04:00

Over the last 10 years, the passive house, a form of green design that originated in Germany, has surged in popularity. By creating an airtight building envelope with thick, insulated walls and triple-paned windows, passive houses can eliminate the need for heating and cooling systems in temperate climates and greatly minimize it in a place like New York. But applying those design principles to the construction of a 26-story high-rise is more complicated than it is in a single-family home.

The New York Times profiles Fernando Gómez-Baquero, a visiting doctoral researcher at the new Cornell Tech campus on New York's Roosevelt Island who lives in a 28-story, Handel Architects-designed Passive House residential tower. The tower is the world's tallest and largest Passive House building, according to the architects.

Photo of Cornell's Roosevelt Island complex. Image courtesy of Handel Architects.

Life in the tower, where thermostats are kept between 68 and 75 degrees and a floor-by-floor energy usage is tallied in the lobby, is good, according to Gómez-Baquero. He told The New York Times, “I geek-out on this building. I was really fascinated by how you make a building this tall consume 60 to 70 percent less energy.”

Gómez-Baquero is the founder of ipHaus, an off-the-grid affordable housing development company.

Celebrate Earth Day with the latest in green architecture from 2018

2018-04-22T09:00:00-04:00

In honor of Earth Day today, we look at the latest in sustainable architecture revealed in 2018 so far. Working with our natural environment, upcoming green projects range from sculptural electric charging stations to the world's largest single-domed tropical greenhouse. Our future is being shaped by new technologies such as a machine to recycle demolition waste, progress in nuclear fusion power, and mass timber building techniques.

Scroll down and get inspired to further harmonize our built and natural environments:

Social housing goes green with another urban forest designed by Stefano Boeri

Charging in Style: Danish firm COBE is rethinking fueling stations

Signum Architecture designs sustainably minded Napa Valley winery and office

The case for a semi-permeable architecture

Biocylcer wants to recycle construction waste into new building materials

Largest timber-constructed office building in the nation planned for Newark’s waterfront

The Solar Decathlon Competition Showcases Cut...

How this new gigafactory may popularize residential solar power technology

2016-03-04T21:24:00-05:00

When production begins, SolarCity, already the leading installer of residential solar panels in the [U.S.] will become a vertically integrated manufacturer and provider...At a time when conventional silicon-based solar panels from China have never been cheaper, investing in a new type of solar technology is a risky undertaking. However, the potential benefits are huge. The new factory...could transform both SolarCity’s business...and the economics of residential solar power.

The MIT Technology Review profiles the upcoming Buffalo-based SolarCity factory and their ambitious plans that could potentially make solar power technology more widely available to consumers.

More news about alternative energy:

Cloud-harvesting skyscraper: renderings of proposed new sustainable Tokyo development

Michigan State University researchers develop completely transparent solar panels

Could 'quantum dots' be the key to turning windows into photovoltaics?

Turning Japan's golfing greens into solar farms

Ostim Eco-Park competition entry by ONZ Architects

2013-12-30T20:49:00-05:00

ONZ Architects participated in a restricted competition - among eight other teams - to design the Ostim Eco-Park, a green technological and research hub for the industrial region of Ostim in Ankara, Turkey.

Although ONZ Architects' proposal did not come out as the competition winner, we're happy to present it in more detail below.

All images courtesy of ONZ Architects.

Click the thumbnails below for additional images.

Luminous Talks

2013-11-01T16:36:00-04:00

On November 8, Philips and Parsons The New School for Design will bring together architects, lighting designers and researchers for a symposium on the dualistic relationship between natural light and the latest electric lighting technologies, and the influence these systems have on human well being. The event is part of Luminous Talks, a programming series now in its second year, which was developed by Philips and Parsons to inspire dialogue around relevant topics in the field. This year’s theme, Nature and Man-Made, builds on last year’s focus on human health and well being to consider the human presence amidst these forces and their psychological and physiological impact.

The November 8 event will feature presentations by:

George Craford, a research scientist and lighting fellow at Philips, whose work focuses on LED technology, who will discuss the history, evolution and future trends of LED technology the design possibilities they enable for architects and lighting designe...

Biobulb turns E. Coli into sustainable light source

2013-08-30T14:29:00-04:00

The ecosystem will consist of several different microbes, each of which plays a role in nutrient recycling and population control. The result is a closed ecosystem that will sustain itself with the addition of just light [...] The result will be a stable, closed, microbial ecosystem that glows in the dark.

Undergraduate researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, are developing a sustainable bacterial ecosystem that will be able to produce light. The "Biobulb" will use a lab-neutered version of the E. Coli bacteria (totally harmless) that has been encoded with the gene for bioluminescence, the same phenomenon that accounts for a firefly's glow. A cocktail of other bacteria will support the E. Coli in a closed ecosystem that needs only light to stay alive -- and the entire thing can fit in a jar.

The three undergraduates working on Biobulb (AnaElise Beckman, Alexandra Cohn, and Michael Zaiken, part of the Frontier Fellows program) are seeking funding for the project through RocketHub, an online crowd-sourcing platform tailored more toward scientific and philanthropic ventures than consumer/creative goods. For a donation of $1,000 or more, the team will encrypt a personalized message of up to 40 characters onto the E. Coli DNA.

Just how bright the Biobulb will be is unc...

AIA Selects 2013 COTE Top Ten Green Projects

2013-04-22T21:13:00-04:00

The top ten examples of sustainable architecture and green design solutions have been selected by the American Institute of Architects and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) today. The COTE Top Ten Green Projects program, now in its 17th year, celebrates projects that are the result of a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems, and technology.