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Nonprofit Helps Communities to Rebuild After Disasters

During the Kosovo refugee crisis in 1999, the husband and wife team of architect Cameron Sinclair and journalist Kate Stohr realized that not many architects were involved in rebuilding after the war. So the couple formed Architecture for Humanity, a not-for-profit design services firm originally located in New York City that helps communities to rebuild infrastructure devastated by human or natural catastrophes.

Throughout the United States, thousands of students are spending the majority of the day in unhealthy and aging portable classrooms. Not only is their presence required, students are expected to thrive and flourish educationally in such environments. “The aging infrastructure of K–12 schools throughout the nation is a serious problem that is presenting unacceptable health and safety risks for our children,” says Marshall G. Zotara, co-founder and senior managing partner of Cause and Effect Evolutions. “In school districts throughout the country, budget deficits are making it very difficult to fund replacements.” Enter the Green Schoolhouse Series and their commitment to replace dangerous portable classrooms with LEED Platinum designed structures.

The kitchen is one of the most expensive parts of the house to remodel – they contain a good deal of specialty equipment and many major appliances. The fundamental concepts behind green building also apply to remodeling: energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and renewable or sustainable materials.

A conversation between two Seattle women sparked action that is now changing the lives of hundreds of young women, as well as a country. Suzanne McGill and Shal Foster founded the Rwanda Girls Inititative and, in partnership with MulvannyG2 Architecture, built a school that is now in its second year of operation and is providing a replicable model for future educational development.

During a marathon training run in 2008, two longtime friends and moms from Seattle began talking about the high-quality educational opportunities available to their children simply because they were born in the United States. The conversation eventually led to a discussion about Africa, a continent where only 13% of young women achieve secondary education due to poverty, lack of opportunity, and obstacles such as household chores and safety concerns. Suzanne McGill and Shal Foster began to wonder: What can we do to make a difference and help to provide educational opportunities for these young African women?

In 2007, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. acquired Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Within months, the announcement was made that the Wall Street Journal offices would be moving from their long-time home in the financial district to a building in midtown Manhattan, where News Corp. was based. The firm STUDIOS Architecture was hired to design the new space, which occupied 240,000 sq. ft. (22,297 m2) across five floors of a building located on the Avenue of the Americas.

LED lighting is an energy- and cost-efficient option that allows for more creative applications than traditional lighting.

As our global urban population continues to swell, the growth of community gardens, urban agriculture, farming co-ops, and land trusts is rising as well. How will urban planners accommodate these needs and govern their operation?

Currently, the worldwide percentage of people living in urban areas exceeds 50%; in the United States, that number swells to more than 80%. City planners face increased demand from urban populations for places to collectively garden and farm. 

Throughout the last 10 years LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) has developed into an efficient and effective solution for building owners to reduce expenses and limit the environmental impact of their buildings. Although many LEED projects take the form of typical commercial, institutional, government, and healthcare facilities, LEED provides many other sectors the ability to differentiate and produce a truly rare project, none more so than the Twin Oaks Landfill in Grimes County, Texas, which achieved LEED Silver certification.

As the holiday season approaches, Rachael, the host of {Re}habitat, has been focusing on eco-friendly alternatives for some of the traditional elements of Christmas.

Living in a small, busy, crazy, constantly evolving, pet-filled apartment has kept me from having the 12’ Douglas Fir of my dreams twinkling in the window. I fear the mess, the drying tree lying out on the curb… and, perhaps most of all, our cats taking it all down in one loud SMASH! In hindsight I feel like I’ve cheated myself out of the full holiday experience by not having a proper Christmas tree.

Michael Hughes is Chief of the Construction Department for the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) in Cleveland, Ohio. He’s also one of the people most familiar with CMHA’s Building Automation System (BAS). In this lead article initiating a case study with CMHA, we’ll provide a summary overview of their BAS, which was installed by Siemens Building Technologies. In future articles, we’ll take some more in-depth journeys with Mr. Hughes into the BAS, including the daily use of the system. Throughout this series, we’ll cover some detailed time and cost-savings scenarios that BASs offer to building owners.

In Hong Kong, the limited availability of land has led BREADstudio to design a floating columbarium off the coast.

Lean Construction, intended to maximize value and minimize waste, is not simply an add-on to business-as-usual, but a paradigm-shifting concept.

Although the term "Lean Construction" is often bandied about by those who want to discuss its merits in detail or by those who wish to dismiss it quickly as irrelevant, in truth very few construction professionals understand its potential and power. This latest in a series of articles (following Productivity and Cost Control) will define and dissect Lean Construction and its impact on a jobsite.