GAB Report library
Energy Efficiency
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Taiwan National Stadium Sculpted from Concrete, Steel, and BIPV Panels
Taiwan has one of the coolest looking and greenest stadiums in the world. I first saw photos of this amazing building, the Taiwan National Stadium, at the Symposium on Taiwan-France Cooperation in Intelligent Green Buildings. Last fall, on a perfect sunny day, I joined a group hosted by the Taiwan Green Building Council for a…
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Växjö Tennis Hall Concept Wins World Architecture Community Award
Editor’s Foreword: Italian architect Alessandro Rollino recently won an award from the 20+10+X World Architecture Community Awards (2013 -14th cycle) for his conceptual project, Växjö Tennis Hall. The project was initially developed for an international architectural design competition held in Växjö, Sweden. The 20+10+X World Architecture Community Awards promotes the talent of young architects and students from all over the…
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5 Terre Vertical Farm Concept Addresses Urban Population Growth
Editor’s Foreword: Capellini Architects is an architecture studio based in La Spezia, Italy. The firm was selected as one of the 30 finalists among hundreds of contestants for the 2013 Vertical Farm & Botanical Garden SkyScraper (Seoul) Competition organized by SuperSkyScrapers. For its competition entry, Capellini Architects created a 250-meter tall skyscraper built to cultivate fresh, high…
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Station Center Family Housing Wins 2013 ULI Global Award
Congratulations to developer MidPen Housing and David Baker Architects, one of my favorite San Francisco architecture firms to work with, for winning the 2013 ULI Global Award for Excellence for its LEED Platinum certified project, Station Center Family Housing in Union City, California. Station Center consists of two buildings housing 157 high-density affordable rental apartments, community gardens,…
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Drawing More Power Than You Think
Energy efficient building design has come a long way to improve building system energy performance. But what happens when the users move in? Additional equipment and appliances added after occupancy can dramatically impact actual building performance with surprising and expensive results. Plug loads and process loads have been long considered outside the design team’s scope…
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New Orlean’s First LEED NC-Silver Multi-Family Development
In just over two weeks, it will have been six-years since the the category-5 Hurricane Katrina crossed into the United States and rebuilding efforts continue to this day. New Orleans, Louisiana, was one of the hardest hit areas along the Gulf of Mexico. It received much attention from people across the country and many organizations…
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Exploratorium’s New Home Addresses Historic Preservation Design and Construction Challenges
When I was working as a construction manager, I was involved with a handful of complex historic preservation projects including the conversion of a historically significant church into affordable housing (Buena Vista Terrace) for seniors and the renovation of a small historic landmark (The Fireside) into a community center. Historic preservation often presents additional challenges…
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San Francisco Exploratorium’s New Home to Become Largest U.S. Net-Zero Energy Museum
Salty air breezes off of the Bay. Seagulls are flying about. A six foot diameter concrete pile gets driven into the sea floor. An energizing hum of activity reverberates throughout a waterfront construction site–the future new home of San Francisco’s Exploratorium. In October of 2010, the Exploratorium–the Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception, broke…
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Energy Strategy Brings About ROI for Santa Clara University
Few universities can claim to have a 1-megawatt solar PV system, a wind turbine, a 60-collector solar thermal system, and a smart microgrid system that monitors and regulates the campus energy sources. Santa Clara University isn’t afraid of experimenting with renewable, clean technology that will help it work towards achieving reduced energy consumption and climate…
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A Green Transformation of Eichler House Model MS-134
My first in-depth encounter with Eichler homes was a few years ago on a blazing hot 90°F Saturday afternoon in Palo Alto, California. I participated in a self-guided Eichler Home Tour which benefited Habitat for Humanity. It was such a treat to get a glimpse into what lay within the Eichler homes that modernized the…