Our guide, 10 Strategies for Sustainable Construction was created as a quick reference to remind construction professionals about good principles that can be incorporated into virtually any project that has sustainability requirements.
Scan the guide for headlines, bring it into the field, or pass it on to a colleague or to a client. If you need more help or an estimate for services you can write to us at .
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has announced $13.5 million in funding for 14 projects in the third round of the Buildings of Excellence Competition to support the design, construction, and operation of clean, resilient, and low-carbon or carbon-neutral multifamily buildings. The initiative supports the state's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050 and ensure at least 35%, with a goal of 40%, of the benefits of clean energy investments are directed toward disadvantaged communities.
The competition has provided awards for the construction of 56 new construction and gut-renovation projects, including over 1,300 units that will serve low-to-moderate income households with 52% of the projects in disadvantaged communities.
We're honored to have one of our projects, the Watchtower Headquarters in Ramapo, New York, selected as a NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence Winner.
This multi-building campus project sits on a 249-acre site in Rockland County and includes a total of 10 residential buildings with 645 apartments housing 1,200 residents. Preservation of the natural landscape, as well as the efficiency and sustainability of the site’s operations, was at the forefront of design for the project teams. To support sustainability goals, Above Green is providing LEED Consulting Services throughout the core buildings of the site, including its offices, multi-family facilities, audio/video studios, and visitors center.
We're grateful for the opportunity to work with the Watchtower project team and can't wait to see how these sustainable projects shape up.
Learn more about the NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence and get in touch to see how our team of sustainability consultants can help you meet your project goals.
Hickok Cole Architects Office.
Building envelopes are the gateway between a building's interior and exterior. They're vital for a building's aesthetics, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and overall performance.
To ensure a building’s envelope is performing as intended, envelope commissioning, a comprehensive quality assurance process, is utilized. Through design and submittal reviews, field inspections, testing, and ongoing monitoring, envelope commissioning helps to meet specific performance criteria.
Our seasoned building envelope commissioning pro and firm Principal, Bala Srini, shares his knowledge and insights, including how to combine strategies to develop a comprehensive and integrated approach. Whether you're a building owner, operator, architect, or designer, you can employ the following strategies to ensure your building envelope meets the desired performance criteria.
1. Establish clear goals: To begin envelope commissioning, set clear goals and performance targets. These goals can be based on site potentials, climatic conditions, heat island reduction targets, optimizing energy use, environmentally preferable products, enhancing indoor environmental quality, and optimizing operations and maintenance.
2. Conduct a comprehensive design review: Review the building envelope design to ensure it aligns with established goals and performance targets. The design review identifies challenging problems early before construction, saving costs and time. Assess key issues, such as orientation-based facades, facade fenestrations, glazing types, continuous thermal barriers, water drainage plane, waterproofing vapor drive, continuous air barriers, roof and wall junctions, sealants, openings, and penetrations.
3. Pre-Construction: Identify mock-ups, mock-up testing, product submittal reviews, construction checklists, and finalize the performance testing list for the project.
4. Conduct inspections and testing: Site inspections are crucial to identify any potential envelope performance issues before the envelope is closed with finishing materials. Testing may include air leakage testing, thermal imaging, and moisture testing to confirm that the envelope is performing as intended.
5. Identify and address performance issues: Raise issues log and follow-up to address any deficiencies that arise during construction inspections. Testing can validate performance and identify problems. Possible solutions include adjusting the design or construction of the envelope, such as sealing air leaks, adding insulation, or improving ventilation.
6. Monitor performance: After completing the envelope commissioning process, continue to monitor the performance of the envelope to ensure it maintains established goals and performance targets. Regular testing and inspections are necessary to catch any issues that arise and make necessary adjustments.
7. Engage stakeholders: Involve stakeholders, including building owners, operators, and occupants, throughout the envelope commissioning process. This participation ensures that all parties are aware of the goals and objectives and can provide valuable feedback during the process.
By combining all the strategies for envelope commissioning, you can develop a comprehensive and effective approach that improves the energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality of the building envelope. It is important to have a systematic and integrated approach to ensure that all the steps are followed, and that the envelope performs as intended.
For more resources, check out our Knowledge Base.
Looking for project support? Get in touch to see what our team of multidisciplinary consultants can do for you.
The White House has released a guidebook for navigating the climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Fiscal Year 2023 Appropriations Bills, which were recently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden.
GREEN ENERGY INCENTIVES
There are new incentives and rebates for energy efficiency updates to new and existing buildings. New construction projects performing 25%-50% better than ASHRAE 90.1 are eligible to receive a corresponding, sliding-scale 179D deduction of $2.50 to $5.00 per square foot.
STRATEGIES FOR MEETING STANDARDS AND SECURING FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
1. Design For Efficiency
Incorporate energy-efficient design principles and technologies into new construction and retrofit projects to meet the requirements for the 179D tax deduction and the Federal Building Performance Standard.
2. Seek Funding
Look into funding opportunities offered by the DOE's building energy code implementation program and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reductions fund to support buildings.
3. Collaborate
Collaborate with sustainability consultants, such as Above Green to simulate building energy performance and optimize your 179D deductions.
Does your project qualify for tax deductions under the new Climate Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act? Sign up for a complimentary consultation to walk through the incentives and learn more about the qualification process.
It's a new year and the construction industry is rising to the challenge of meeting higher consumer expectations with a shrinking workforce and increased costs.
We predict utilizing technology and focusing on eco-conscious design will reign supreme in 2023.
Here are our top 5 predictions for the year.
- Green Building
Building operations and construction create nearly 40 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. With increasing awareness of the severity of climate change's impact on the environment, people's health, safety, and assets, corporate investors, building owners, homeowners and renters alike are showing a growing demand for greener, healthier, sustainable real estate.
Year over year, green buildings are consistently delivering higher returns on investment compared to their non-green counterparts.
Green building certifications demonstrate a building’s green attributes. We believe there will be an increased demand for the following certificates in 2023: - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
- Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEM)
- ENERGY STAR for buildings
- Modular Design
As we predicted for 2022, the modular design and prefabricated materials market is continuing to grow in 2023 and beyond. Industry experts forecast the market to balloon in value to $120 billion by 2027. General contractors and owners are leaning towards prefabricated methods of design because it provides flexibility in the structure.
Unlike traditional materials and building sites where waste goes directly to a landfill, prefabricated materials are recyclable. Demountable partitions allow offices to enhance daylight and insulation for improved energy efficiencies, while reducing the volatile organic compounds (VOC) and air quality concerns associated with traditional drywall and finishing.
3. Biophilic Design
Biophilic design is an approach to architecture that seeks to connect building occupants closely with nature. It mimics outdoor environments’ shapes, textures and colors to make occupants feel more in tune with nature. This style continues to gain more relevancy with designers and architects incorporating it into the places we live and work.
Green infrastructure has the potential to attenuate CO2 emissions, increase the biodiversity of plants and wildlife, help regulate the temperature of buildings, all while enhancing the occupant's experience in the space.4. Design Technology
The most popular tech utilized by the industry today, Building Information Modeling (BIM) enables project teams to optimize design. Using BIM, project members can create virtual building models and perform virtual walkthroughs to pinpoint issues before contractors even break ground.
As a whole, this design technology offers a more safe, efficient, and accurate approach to the design process, so we expect to see more project teams leveraging it this year and in the future.
5. Artificial Intelligence
Another technology we expect to see on the rise in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The construction industry has much to benefit from AI to improve profitability, performance, and project safety.
One of the six subsets of AI, Machine Learning, can make predictions on the best layout and recommend cuts to unnecessary material. Another subset, like Optimization could provide enhanced work schedules, cut materials costs, and/or improve energy efficiencies.
With AI technology becoming more accessible and project teams seeing the benefits, we expect it to be leveraged more this year.
Looking for support with your 2023 project? Get in touch.
Hickok Cole has relocated its 100-person office to the Union Market neighborhood, leasing office space on the top two floors of the historic Press House building.
Visitors are immediately greeted in a colorful lobby space, reflective of Hickok Cole's creative culture and forward-focused designs.
The office unifies the design studio on one floor in an open-office concept intended to promote collaboration, communication, and connectivity among sectors and services.
Breakout spaces, conference rooms and a design library offer spaces for internal collaboration and client-facing design meetings.
Above Green worked with Hickok Cole to design their new interior office space to LEED Gold certification.
Learn more about Hickok Cole's new office here.
Looking for support on a project? Get in touch.
The largest climate legislation in U.S. history passed the House of Representatives on Friday, August 12th. Part of the Inflation Reduction Act, $370 billion will be invested to transform markets for energy efficiency and renewable energy to drive down greenhouse gas emissions by 40%.
The bill also includes monumental incentives and investments to expand the green building market. Companies and consumers will be given tax incentives for energy efficiency improvements to buildings, renewable power generation, electric vehicles, distributed energy resources and other clean energy technologies.
Billions of dollars will also be invested into public building upgrades, green building improvements to affordable housing and low embodied carbon construction materials. It will even offer tens of billions in new clean energy financing opportunities, such as Department of Energy loans, a clean-tech accelerator green bank, and environmental justice and community redevelopment grants.
For more information on the Inflation Reduction Act, check out our highlights.
We’re excited for this bill to be passed into law. We believe this is a huge moment in American history and we’re looking forward to a more sustainable future.
Have a green building project you’re in need of sustainability support on or just looking to understand what this can mean for your business? Get in touch.
Our guide, 10 Strategies for Sustainable Design was created as a reference to help design professionals achieve sustainable building performance.
It lists principles that can be incorporated into virtually any project - taking into account embodied carbon, water and energy usage, material standards and more.
Sustainable design is complex and multi-faceted. Need help with your project?
Contact us for a free consultation.