Green Building in the Pittsburgh Region

GBA's LEED Survey Now Open: The Green Building Alliance is conducting a survey on the LEED Green Building Rating System. Your participation and feedback are valuable and will assist GBA in the implementation of new programs and activities. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts at the GBA Survey Website Survey open till August 30, 2004.

Green Roofs ABB Materials on Web: GBA's Alliance Building Breakfast on green roofs was an overwhelming success! If you missed the excellent presentations by your fellow Pittsburgh peers, fret not! You can now download them on the GBA Education Website.

AIA-Pgh 2004 Green Design Citation: The Green Design Citation is presented through collaboration between the AIA Pittsburgh Committee on the Environment and the Green Building Alliance. This award recognizes built projects that have integrated sustainable building strategies and practices into design. This award also recognizes the growing impact that buildings have on human health, worker productivity, and natural, environmental and regional prosperity. The jury may elect to choose one or more entries to receive this citation. www.aiapgh.org/design_pgh_submissions.html

Allegheny County Economic Development Survey: Allegheny County is conducting a very important planning survey to help the administration better understand the economic development priorities of county residents. In addition, this survey will assist the county in its efforts to focus existing funding and to create policy for the future. As residents, it is necessary that we participate in this process and help Allegheny County to become a more livable and vibrant community. The survey can be taken online at: www.county.allegheny.pa.us/economic/survey04

Pittsburgh School District Elevated to "Star" Status: The Pittsburgh School District recently became the fifth school district in the nation and the first in Pennsylvania to become IPM STAR certified by the IPM Institute of North America in recognition of its school integrated pest management program. Read the story at InTheLoop

New statewide construction code makes it far easier to renovate existing buildings: Unless a developer was prepared to gut a building and start from scratch, he couldn't feel confident about meeting the code. And in many cases, it isn't financially feasible to gut a building to renovate it. That's a leading reason the upper floors of hundreds of commercial buildings throughout southwestern Pennsylvania have remained vacant for decades -- it hasn't made economic sense to bring them up to code. Read more here.

Historic Barn Available: The Winchester Thurston School must remove a 4,000 square foot barn to make way for a new building at its northern campus in Hampton Township, Allegheny County, PA. The structure was built circa 1940 and is in excellent condition. Rather than destroy the structure, The Winchester Thurston School is willing to give the barn to any interested party who will assume responsibility for dismantling, relocating and reassembling the structure on another site. For more information: Eric J. Harrison, Program Manager, The Winchester Thurston School, 555 Morewood Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15213. Mr. Harrisons phone number is 412-325-6713.

Events

August 27th Brown Bag Presentation Cancelled!: Due to summer vacations, GBA has cancelled the August 27th Brown Bag Lunch.

Higher Education Energy and Operations Forums: The Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy (PCIEP), the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP), and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Rebuild America program are sponsoring a series of forums to address the issues of increased energy use and operations costs in the age of shrinking budgets and interest in the environment. The PA DEP Southwest Region will meet on September 14 2004 at the Margaret Morrison Hall (Carnegie Mellon University) on the 4th Floor in the Intelligent Workplace. Contact Barbara Kviz, CMU's Environmental Coordinator bk11@andrew.cmu.edu 412-268-785 www.rebuild.org/events/eventDetails.asp?newsid=2248

NESEA Green Building Tour: On Saturday, October 2 from 10am to 4pm, hundreds of green homes and buildings will open their doors to the public for the Green Buildings Open House, featuring the National Solar Tour. This annual event, which is part of the American Solar Energy Society’s National Solar Tour, offers a unique opportunity for people to see firsthand how clean energy and green building practices can be put to work. The North East Solar Energy Association (NESEA) is organizing the Green Buildings Open House in the six New England States, Delaware, Washington DC, New Jersey, New York state and Pennsylvania. If you would like to include your Pittsburgh-area building in this open house, contact Ryan Snow at the Green Building Alliance: ryans@gbapgh.org

News from the USGBC & Abroad

Senators Introduce Bill to Encourage high-performance Buildings: In July, U.S. Senators Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., and Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, introduced legislation to promote environmentally friendly federal buildings and schools. The "High-performance Green Buildings Act of 2004," authorizes $35 million over five years to support federal buildings and schools that are designed and operated to boost environmental, economic, health and productivity performance over conventional buildings. The bill, S.2620, would fund numerous activities, including expanding existing green building research and creating an Office of High-performance Green Buildings at the General Services Administration to promote public outreach, research and development. More: www.senate.gov/~jeffords

Seeking speakers on "Green" Hospitals and Schools: Would you be interested in presenting a seminar at ED+C’s first annual Green Design Solutions Conference on hospitals and schools? The event, which will take place this spring in Chicago, will promote green building practices in the healthcare and education industries. If you or someone you know is an expert on green building and a great public speaker, please check out the online entry form available only on the ED+C Web site at www.edcmag.com/FILES/HTML/gds_FORM to submit an abstract, paper or topic proposal. Entries are due by Sept. 3, 2004.

Greenbuild ’04 Call for Posters: The USGBC is accepting poster submissions for Greenbuild 2004 in Portland, OR. All poster presenters will be afforded the opportunity to have their presentation included on the Greenbuild conference CD and each presenter will receive the reduced poster presenter registration rate of $350.00. Click here for more information.

USGBC Leadership Awards Nominations OPEN: Nominations are now being accepted for the third annual USGBC Leadership Awards. These prestigious awards recognize excellence in green building in the public and private sectors as well as within the USGBC‘s membership. Awards will be given in the following five categories: Green Public Service Awards Non-Government (NGO), Government, Green Building Business Award, Local/Regional Leadership Award and the USGBC Leadership Award. Any USGBC member may submit a nomination. Fill out the nomination form by Friday, September 10, 2004. Click here to begin the nomination process.

The Green Building Alliance is a nonprofit organization that integrates environmentally responsible -- and high performance --design, construction and operating practices into the Greater Pittsburgh market. As a result, GBA will increase the human health, economic, environmental, and social value of new and existing development.
64 S. 14th St. Pittsburgh, PA 15203 412-431-0709 www.gbapgh.org