GreenClips.40 01.31.96 ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE GRANTS Highly energy-efficient projects require more design time says the GreenDesign Services division of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in Snowmass, Colorado. They are offering grants up to $20,000 and other support to help designers and their clients defray the cost of design fees for energy-efficient projects. RMI seeks real estate projects - at least 50,000 SF - to illustrate how more intense design analysis will pay huge dividends. For more information call Gunnar Hubbard at 970.927.3807. – Architectural Record, January 1996, p. 23. SWORDS TO PLOWSHARES? American entrepreneurs and their Russian partners plan to ship Siberian conifer logs to sawmills in the Pacific Northwest. To make them safe for export to the US, the Russians will sterilize the logs with radiation to kill pests. Environmentalists are skeptical about the safety and effectiveness of radioactive cobalt treatment. But their main concerns focus on damage to virgin forests from unfettered logging and the economic merit of building a Russian timber industry based primarily on exports of unfinished goods. Supporters say the plan would directly employ 11,000 Russians in radiation plants and indirectly many more in the woods - and supply American sawmills that employ 100,000 workers. The plan received financial support from the little known Defense Enterprise Fund, which received its initial capital from the US Defense Department. The fund's mission is to convert the former Soviet Union's arms producers into businesses serving nonmilitary markets. – The New York Times, January 30, 1996, p. A3, by John H. Cushman, Jr. GREEN MATERIAL RESOURCES FROM THE UK The Green Building Digest and the CIRIA reports on Environmental Impact of Construction Materials are important information sources on resource depletion and pollution of air, land, and water. So says Stephen Curwell, Director of Green Gauge Environmental Consultants in Leeds, UK. The Green Building Digest, a detailed material report, compares environmental impact of materials. The nine monthly reports published to date cover mainly residential materials. The Environmental Impact of Construction Materials is the first significant UK attempt at life-cycle analysis of construction materials. It includes statistics on embodied energy, resource use, and environmental impact. The Green Building Digest is available from ACTAC by calling 0151.708.7607. For the Environmental Impact of Construction Materials contact CIRIA at 0171.222.8891. - The Architects' Journal, 11 January 1996, p. 38, by Stephen Curwell. DEVELOPING DREAMWORKS Construction of DreamWorks SKG's studio campus is scheduled to begin in June. DreamWorks SKG is the new multimedia company started by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Environmental consultant John Picard of E Square will bring ecological design awareness to the project that includes reusing existing structures, conserving energy, using alternative-fuel vehicles, and restoring an existing wetlands. To make the new 100-acre studios possible, DreamWorks SKG became a partner in a larger 1,087-acre development with a real estate firm and the landowning legacy of billionaire Howard Hughes. Besides the studios, the larger development will include 13,000 [sic] homes, parks, 260 acres of wetlands, schools, stores, and restaurants. A coalition of environmentalists is trying to halt the project because the development will occupy once prime wetlands. Rex Frankel of Save Ballona Wetlands says that, "This will amount to the paving over of the last open space in Los Angeles Basin." But because some long-established environmentalists have embraced the project and a group led by Mr. Frankel lost a similar suit years ago, observers say opposition to the project will not prevail. - The Christian Science Monitor, January 8, 1996, p. 3, by Daniel B. Wood, and Environmental Building News, January/February 1996, p. 9. PASSIVE COOLING TESTED Instead of traditional cooling or air conditioning, Ove Arup & Partners used thermal mass, window shading, and night cooling to cool the Inland Revenue Center in Nottingham, UK. Ove Arup monitored the building's passive cooling measures in one of the hotter Augusts on record, 1995. Ove Arup compared peak internal building temperatures to outside temperatures. Their study found that the passive cooling measures effectively lowered inside temperatures on the lower floors, but were not as effective on the top floor. The accuracy of outside temperature measurements is in question. Still, on August 17 for example, the second floor was at least 3.4 and as much as 6 degrees C cooler than outside. The top floor was 2.5 degrees C warmer than lower floors, but still cooler than the outside. While the lower floors take advantage of the substantial thermal inertia of a heavier structure, the lighter upper floor relies on a large air volume to control temperature. - The Architects' Journal, 21 December 1995, p. 37, by John Berry. SOLARWALL Solarwall, generically called a transpired solar collector, is a perforated metal building cladding that forms a plenum between itself and the building skin. In winter, the cladding absorbs solar heat and preheats air drawn through its tiny holes before it enters the building's ventilation system. In summer, the cladding shades the south wall and stack-effect pressure exhaust shot plenum air near the top of the wall. An installation underway at Montreal's Canadair building is the largest to date at 110,000 SF (10,200 SM). Solarwall panels cost about $2.50/SF for steel and $4/SF for aluminum. Blowers, ducts, and other components run about $5 to $7/SF. For more information, call Conserval Systems, Inc. at 716.835.4903. – Environmental Building News, January/February 1996, p. 9.