The steel structure of the new Center for Building Energy Education and Innovation was completed last week at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The rendering below shows the building's finished form.
The Consortium for Building Energy Innovation (CBEI)—formerly the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub—at Philadelphia's Navy Yard is a research initiative funded by the Department of Energy and led by Penn State University that seeks to reduce the energy usage of commercial buildings 20% by 2020. We are currently undertaking the retrofitting of a 1940s recreational facility for CBEI's headquarters, along with the construction of a new classroom building across the street. Both projects aim to be completed by mid-summer of 2014.
Over the past month, structural steel was erected for the classroom building, known as the Center for Building Energy Education and Innovation, revealing the form the eventual building will take. In keeping with the industrial character of the Navy Yard, the structural steel is left exposed in many of the building's public spaces, making the erection of the steel a critical milestone for the project. Now that the steel is in place, a second floor concrete slab can be poured and work on the exterior façade can begin.
A shredder hopper is loaded at Richard S. Burns & Company Inc. Our visit to this local facility allowed us to capture a series of images of waste recycling and recovery processes.
An important aspect of environmental sustainability is the careful management of construction waste through recycling or landfill diversion. Normally, the contractor specifies a waste management company responsible for dumpsters on site, transportation, sorting, processing, landfill diversion, and accounting. In order to ensure that design and construction methods efficiently integrate with the processing of construction waste, KieranTimberlake recently made a visit to a local waste recycling and recovery facility.
Richard S. Burns & Company Inc. is a family-owned business that has been in operation for over 40 years. The company pioneered landfill diversion techniques long before the practice was commonplace because of its ability to monetize the recycling streams. It operates a 10-acre facility in North Philadelphia and employs many individuals in the surrounding community.
Our visit helped us understand what happens once waste leaves the construction site and allowed us to see first-hand how it is repurposed into a variety of recycling streams, often achieving a landfill diversion rate of 99%.
New application helps achieve LEED® v4 Materials and Resources credit, MRc1
KieranTimberlake, in conjunction with PE INTERNATIONAL and Autodesk® Sustainability Solutions announce the commercial availability of Tally™, a software application for Revit® that calculates the environmental impact of building materials. It is the only application to be fully integrated into Revit, providing architects, engineers, and building professionals with insight into how materials-related decisions made during design influence a building's overall ecological footprint. Backed by the rigor and credibility of GaBi data from PE INTERNATIONAL, the application enables Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on demand, documenting information across eight life cycle impact categories that align with LEED® v4 and other rating systems.
The commercial release follows a three-month public beta, in which nearly 500 users tested Tally and provided feedback on a broad range of design scenarios. The application is already garnering an enthusiastic response for its simplicity and ease of use.
