Northglenn, a Denver suburb, opens a net zero, all-electric city hall with a mass timber structure

Northglenn, Colo., a Denver suburb, has opened the new Northglenn City Hall—a net zero, fully electric building with a mass timber structure. The 32,600-sf, $33.7 million building houses 60 city staffers. Designed by Anderson Mason Dale Architects, Northglenn City Hall is set to become the first municipal building in Colorado, and one of the first in the country, to achieve the Core certification: a green building rating system overseen by the International Living Future Institute.

K-12 Schools

The importance of selecting healthy materials for K-12 projects

Clark Nexsen interior designers Anna Claire Beethoven and Brittney Just, CID, IIDA, LEED Green Associate, share why it is imperative to specify healthy building materials in K-12 schools.

Industrial Facilities

UK-based tire company plans to build the first carbon-neutral tire factory in the U.S.

ENSO, a U.K.-based company that makes tires for electric vehicles, has announced plans to build the first carbon-neutral tire factory in the U.S. The $500 million ENSO technology campus will be powered entirely by renewable energy. The first-of-its-kind tire factory aims to be carbon neutral without purchased offsets, using carbon-neutral raw materials and building materials.

Government Buildings

GSA posts new RFI for enabling energy efficiency, decarbonization in commercial buildings

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, recently released a new Request For Information (RFI) focused on enabling energy efficiency and decarbonization in commercial buildings. GSA wants to test innovative technologies through GSA’s Center for Emerging Building Technologies.

May 9, 2013

Post-tornado Greensburg, Kan., leads world in LEED-certified buildings per capita

Six years after a tornado virtually wiped out the town, Greensburg, Kan., is the world's leading community in LEED-certified buildings per capita.

May 3, 2013

'LEED for all GSA buildings,' says GSA Green Building Advisory Committee

The Green Building Advisory Committee established by the General Services Administration, officially recommended to GSA that the LEED green building certification system be used for all GSA buildings as the best measure of building efficiency.

Apr 25, 2013

Colorado State University, DLR Group team to study 12 high-performance schools

DLR Group and the Institute for the Built Environment at Colorado State University have collaborated on a research project to evaluate the effect of green school design on occupants and long-term building performance.

Apr 24, 2013

North Carolina bill would ban green rating systems that put state lumber industry at disadvantage

North Carolina lawmakers have introduced state legislation that would restrict the use of national green building rating programs, including LEED, on public projects.

Apr 8, 2013

Most daylight harvesting schemes fall short of performance goals, says study

Analysis of daylighting control systems in 20 office and public spaces shows that while the automatic daylighting harvesting schemes are helping to reduce lighting energy, most are not achieving optimal performance, according to a new study by the Energy Center of Wisconsin.

Apr 2, 2013

Green building consultant explores the truth about green building performance in new book

A new book from leading sustainability, green building author and expert Jerry Yudelson challenges assumptions about the value of sustainable design and environmentally-friendly buildings.

Mar 29, 2013

Stanford researchers develop nanophotonic panel that reflects sun's heat out of the atmosphere

Researchers at Stanford University have developed a nanophotonic material that not only reflects sunlight, but actually beams the thermal energy out of the earth's atmosphere.

Due to open in August 2013, the West Branch library in Berkeley, Calif., replace

Mar 27, 2013

Small but mighty: Berkeley public library’s net-zero gem

The Building Team for Berkeley, Calif.’s new 9,500-sf West Branch library aims to achieve net-zero—and possibly net-positive—energy performance with the help of clever passive design techniques.