Treating wastewater onsite can save owners money, but there are other good reasons too.

The Living Machine at Port of Portland features both indoor and outdoor plant beds for filtration.
Photo Credit: Eckert & Eckert, courtesy ZGF

Living Machines and other types of constructed wetlands are beautiful, but they’re not ideal for every client. Onsite wastewater treatment might make sense for your next project, though, depending on factors like the site, the local infrastructure, and the owner’s mission.

Here’s a quick guide to figuring out when and where onsite wastewater treatment makes sense. For a deeper look at the topic, read this month’s EBN feature article, “Waste Water, Want Water” (BuildingGreen member link).

Lower the flow first

Potable water has a massive energy footprint, even in water-rich areas. We don’t pay anything like the true cost of this nonrenewable resource, so most of us don’t think twice about polluting it just so we can make our own pee and poop go “away.”

Transporting and treating wastewater has energy and other environmental costs as well, but before you start doing the payback analysis on that membrane bioreactor, you first need to look at the water budget for the project holistically. What else can you do to reduce your use of potable water?

With an unusual keynote and tracks on resilience, systemic thinking, and cutting-edge pro tips, you’ll be lucky to catch BE13.

Photo Credit: NESEA.org screen capture

It’s always fun and educational to connect with friends and colleagues from afar at Greenbuild, AIA Convention, and the Living Futures “Unconference,” but the BuildingEnergy conference in Boston, slated for March 5–7 this year, has a special place in our hearts.

Hosted by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), BuildingEnergy is an annual pilgrimage for top designers, builders, and building science geeks from New England, New York, and Ontario—and beyond. The NESEA website says 4,000 people will attend this year, from 31 states and 14 countries.

Keynote speaker: NPR’s Alex Blumberg

Alex Blumberg, a National Public Radio commentator on Planet Money, will present the keynote talk on economics for environmentalists at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, March 6.

As contractor Paul Eldrenkamp puts it, “Alex presents and explains complex economics ideas with real wit and clarity.” Eldrenkamp also identifies economics as a “weak point” for the typical BE13 audience. (For a taste of how economics and green building intersect, see our primers on Discount Rates and Ecosystem Services.)

Stop procrastinating! Submissions for the 2013 COTE Top Ten Awards close on January 25.

The Woods Hole Research Center and many others have set a high bar for AIA COTE Top Ten awards. Does your project have what it takes?
Photo Credit: McDonough+Partners

Woods Hole Research Center. Sidwell Friends School. Vancouver Convention Center. What do these projects have in common, besides leadership in design and environmental measures?

They are all past winners of the Top Ten Green Project Awards sponsored by the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment, or COTE. (BuildingGreen is also a sponsor, providing technical and editorial support.)

If you want a chance to add your project to that list, you’ve got till 8 p.m. Eastern time on January 25 to submit.

What it takes

From their origins in 2000, the awards have come a long way. “The bar has been raised,” noted members of the jury about the 2011 awards. Having a beautifully designed and energy-efficient building is fantastic, but winning projects in recent years have done even more, like:

• Repair damaged communities
• Creatively embody an organization’s mission
• Focus on materials and whole-building life cycle
• Repurpose a historic structure
• Regenerate a site
• Recycle “waste” as a resource
  

A proposed change to the residential building code (International Residential Code) would eliminate the need for halogenated flame retardants in many applications

For this Passive House in New York's Hudson River Valley, 12 inches of XPS were installed beneath the concrete slab. With proposed changes to the IRC, subslab insulation wouldn't need to be treated with flame retardants. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Jordan Dentz

As readers of this blog know, I’ve come down fairly hard on certain types of foam insulation over the years. The downsides include the blowing agents used in extruded polystyrene (XPS) and most closed-cell spray polyurethane foam and the flame retardants that are added to all foam-plastic insulation to impart some level of fire resistance.

Now there’s an effort afoot to change building codes in a way that would allow manufacturers to remove the hazardous flame retardants. This is the subject of a just-published feature article in Environmental Building News (log-in required).

This is a significant energy issue, because layers of foam insulation provide the easiest way to achieve the level of energy performance needed to approach net-zero-energy performance. If we’re going to add a lot of foam insulation to our homes, we want that to be safe for the occupants and the environment.

This field test (AAMA 501.2) of a storefront assembly uses pressurized water and a special hose nozzle to detect water leakage in already-installed components. It’s just one of many such tests that may be performed on mockups or installed assemblies as part of building enclosure commissioning.
Photo Credit: Pie Consulting Engineering

When the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) first introduced the idea of building enclosure commissioning (BECx) as a prerequisite in LEED v4, the decision was widely protested—largely because many in the green building community feared clients wouldn’t pursue LEED certification because of increased commissioning costs.

Urban Green's EBies recognize professionals who work behind the scenes to make existing buildings perform sustainably.
Image: Urban Green

2/19/13 Update: Urban Green has posted a new EBie scorecard demonstrating how entries will be scored—worth checking out, with the submission deadline close on our heels!

The EBie Awards—the "Oscars of sustainable building"—will be announced by Urban Green, a chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, in New York City on June 19, 2013, so now is the time to throw your name in the hat.

In case you didn't tune in for the first EBie Awards, here's a rundown from the EBie website on what it's all about:

The Forest Stewardship Council honors four stunning projects at Greenbuild for their use of sustainable timber.

This rendering shows the Bullitt Center as envisioned.
Photo Credit: Miller Hull Partnership

We’ve been hearing more and more lately about wood framing for midsize (and even some high-rise) commercial buildings, and this year the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has given Design & Build awards to two pretty large examples of timber construction.

A vernacular West Indian cottage also took home the residential award, and there was a surprise “Judges’ Choice” award that I’ll explain below. The projects are chosen each year based on use of FSC wood, market impact, broader contributions to sustainability, and aesthetics.

I had the privilege to serve on the jury for these awards, which was a lot of fun—but we also had to make some pretty tough choices. 

There’s a lot to talk about after Tuesday’s elections: urban planning, Keystone XL, and whether America is in a death spiral.

German magazine Der Spiegel holds up a mirror to the U.S. as it lies on its purported death bed.
Photo Credit: Der Spiegel

Der Spiegel doesn’t mince any Wörter

In a four-part analysis titled “Divided States of America,” German magazine Der Spiegel takes the U.S. to task for systemic divisions that have led to political gridlock, third-world infrastructure that is a constant disaster waiting to happen, utter inability to act to slow climate change, and a retrograde 20^th-century economy.

Even during Superstorm Sandy, the staff writes, “The only effective walls of sandbags that were built in the city on a larger scale did not appear around power plants, hospitals or tunnel entrances, but around the skyscraper of the prescient investment bank Goldman Sachs.”

Be prepared for searingly painful (and occasionally over-the-top) criticism. We’re interested to hear what you make of this view from Europe.

What Obama can do for cities

On a more optimistic note, Emily Badger and Sommer Mathis at The Atlantic Cities lay out “8 Urban Policy Ideas for Obama’s Second Term,” including a national infrastructure bank and reforms to the rail regulations that make our high-speed rail such an embarrassment (incidentally, one of Der Spiegel’s complaints).

From the most shocking photos to the most piercing analysis, we look at some of the best Sandy coverage this week.

The Washington Post shows us before-and-after shots that somehow make the damage seem even worse.
Photo Credit: Richard Drew/AP

Before and after pix

Fahima Haque at the Washington Post brings us eleven stomach-twisting sets of Hurricane Sandy images, from New York City to Chincoteague. I’ll let the 22,000-word equivalent speak for itself.

Future pix?

Now imagine that flood would never recede—that the seawater infiltration is the new normal. That’s the kind of thing 3D maps from the Architecture 2030 report “Nation Under Siege” show us.

Jason Plautz at InsideClimate News talks about the striking similarity between images of post-Sandy NYC and the future reality of the city due to permanent sea-level rise. A long article but worth every minute. And check out 3D images of more cities on the Architecture 2030 website.

Expensive callbacks and lawsuits can result when you don’t attend to the assembly details.

Directional drying is designed into high-performance buildings, and all three control layers must continuously manage water, air, and heat. Note how the air barrier is primarily accomplished at the interior and how difficult it is to prevent thermal bridging at structural framing if exterior rigid insulation is not used.
Photo Credit: Steve Baczek Architect

We’ve all heard the nightmare scenarios: water leaks that mar the finest architectural features of a new building; air leaks that cause hidden mold or rot inside the walls; thermal bridges that compromise occupant comfort and energy performance.

Money on the line

These scenarios have two things in common: first, they could all land you in court. Second, they are all preventable if you’re giving each building assembly detail the time and attention it deserves.

During a recession, most firms are already working with knifeblade-thin margins, so it can be tempting to cut corners. While the “extra” work required to get the details right might seem expensive in the short term, it’s a good long-term investment.

In this month’s EBN feature article, Peter Yost and I take a look at how industry leaders are changing the way they practice architecture in response to the increasing complexity of—and increasing demands on—our buildings and building assemblies.