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When you're working with an architect on a new construction project, what is the relationship like? Is it collaborative? Do you meet regularly to exchange information and allow the architects to ask questions? Or is it one meeting and then you let them do their thing? If you ask architects what their...

If your boss said the words “ Six Sigma ” in the course of a conversation, would you run screaming in the other direction? Does Six Sigma conjure up images from the movie “Office Space” complete with business buzzwords like “process improvement” and “outside...

If you’re a stats/metrics/numbers person, and you haven’t yet found your way to the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) Web site, created by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), here’s a warning: Clear your afternoon. The massive site contains dozens of spreadsheets...

We’re under construction – literally! Part of our headquarters building here at Trade Press Publishing is finally getting a bit of a makeover. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we have at least six weeks of pounding nails, sawing saws and contractors’ “gentle banter”...

A few weeks ago, New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a lengthy, and rather convincing piece , about why America needs to go green. His central argument is quite simple, really: Going green is the only way to discontinue our relationship with oil-rich foreign enemies that may...

A few interesting notes about this week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Mass. vs. EPA case : It is another strong indicator of how politicized the debate over global warming in general and greenhouse gas reduction specifically has become. The ruling was 5-4, and two of the four dissenters are...

A veritable smorgasbord of gadgety gadgets, Time Magazine's 2006 list of Best Inventions even includes a few items that may pique the interest of the technology-tuned facility executives. For example, this copper indium selenide (CIS) ultra-slim solar panel is printed right onto glass, steel or polymers...

There are few single-building construction projects that tip the scales at more than a billion dollars. A few examples include ultramodern skyscrapers, like The Freedom Tower ($2 billion), power plants, factories, and lately, NFL stadiums. Amazingly, there are two billion-dollar stadiums on the drawing...

One side paints gloomy portraits such as frequent Katrina-like hurricanes, a thousand-fold increase in incidence of malaria, and extinction of hundreds of species of animals (including our own, potentially). The other side uses warmer and friendlier brush strokes: More temperate, pleasant weather in...

The cover story for the December issue of Building Operating Management is an article about how corporate culture influences facility interior design and vice versa, and how both may influence productivity. The article, written by Pamela Light, an interior designer with HOK in Los Angeles, posits the...

With news that “the Governator” Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law California’s AB 32 — the California Global Warming Solutions Act — the first piece of U.S. legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it’s becoming increasingly clear that global warming...