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Last week at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, the UNEP-hosted Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) announced the formation of the Intergovernmental Council for Buildings and Climate (ICBC) in order to administer goals set forth by the Chaillot Declaration from earlier... View full entry
Populus goes one step further in its boast of being 'carbon positive', not just offsetting the hotel’s carbon footprint but actually taking out far more carbon than it puts in – a promise few businesses would dare to make, for both financial and publicity reasons.
As a term, however, 'carbon positive' can be linguistically confusing [...] and with no clear definition of what 'carbon positive' means, there are no metrics by which to determine its validity.
— The Guardian
The project, first announced in February 2021, has since garnered skepticism amidst its developer Urban Villages' claims of being a first-of-its-kind carbon-positive American design in the typology. The true sustainability of the firm’s 2009 Aqua Tower in Chicago has been scrutinized in the past... View full entry
In the interest of improving building performance standards industry-wide, Phius (the group that developed the first Passive House international standards in 2015), has announced a new standard for retrofits called REVIVE 2024. According to Phius, the four components of the new REVIVE... View full entry
The Environmental Protection Agency has published details of a new label program aimed at increasing the amount and quality of more sustainable U.S.-made construction materials in the marketplace. It supports the agency’s new $160 million grant initiative to spearhead new Environmental Product... View full entry
AI's capacity to initiate energy use reductions and decarbonization of the building sector was documented recently by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A new study of medium-sized office buildings in the United States revealed the potential for an 8% emissions reduction by... View full entry
Researchers from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute have discovered a new bioconcrete solution made using cyanobacteria (formerly known as blue-green algae) that sequesters carbon through a process of photosynthesis. Their work for the “BioCarboBeton” project examined the potential of... View full entry
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a new round of grants worth nearly $160 million to support the clean manufacturing of domestically produced construction materials. The funds are being distributed to 38 entities, including the University of Massachusetts Amherst... View full entry
TenBerke, in collaboration with Ballinger, has revealed designs for a new center for quantum science, engineering, and materials initiatives at Yale University. Called the Upper Science Hill Development (USHD), the 611,000-square-foot complex will be one of Yale’s largest and most complex... View full entry
UK mainstay Grimshaw has announced the launch of a new online platform that will help accelerate the decarbonization of buildings. It follows a two-year development phase that relied on the support of 20 other industry organizations, including the World Business Council for Sustainable... View full entry
MAD Architects has announced the completion of the ZGC International Innovation Center in Beijing. Spanning a total floor area of approximately 699,654 square feet, the structure was designed to serve as the permanent venue for the annual Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum). Photo: Zhu Yumeng The forum... View full entry
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill has announced a new partnership with the Swiss energy storage company Energy Vault Holdings that will produce a series of prototype designs for deployable structures and vertical energy storage units up to 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). Led by SOM Partners Adam... View full entry
To combat the intense summer heat in France, a geothermal energy system will cool the athlete apartments in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb. This technology utilizes natural resources and is expected to reduce carbon impact by 45 percent compared to traditional air conditioning systems. The system will maintain a temperature below 79 degrees Fahrenheit during the night, even in the event of a heatwave, according to Laurent Michaud, the director of the Olympic and Paralympic Villages. — Runner's World
The planned alternative system will distribute cold water from underground to cool through the floors of the apartments, which will later become home to more than 6,000 permanent residents after the more than 15,000 Olympic and Paralympics athletes vacate in September. The buildings all have green... View full entry
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.
— NPR
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. Related on Archinect: Biden administration... View full entry
Henning Larsen has unveiled a new tool for designers that allows them access to a database of biogenic materials examples taken from around the world. The firm debuted its new Open Detail resource at the AEC Hackathon in Copenhagen. Together with collaborators Copenhagen School of Design and... View full entry
In a landmark initiative, the Biden-Harris Administration has released the draft National Definition for a Zero Emissions Building, setting a transformative standard for the construction sector. This comprehensive definition targets all new buildings not owned by the federal government... View full entry
