Blogs

As new development real estate space becomes more and more difficult to find, an option owners and facility executives might want to explore is redeveloping brownfields. Brownfields certainly won’t be at the top of most development site lists. The...

Want to get an idea of building technologies to start considering for projects in the years ahead? Take a look at the public review draft of a proposed standard for green buildings being developed by a trio of powerhouses: ASHRAE , IESNA and the U.S....

It's the kind of story that sounds more like fiction than fact: For eight months, an 18-year-old student slept, took classes and ate among some 17,000 students for nearly eight months. Only she wasn't a student. And yet that's exactly what...

Crises and breakdowns come and go in facilities, but energy use remains a constantly high priority. It’s nearly impossible to have a conversation with a manager these days that doesn’t touch on using and saving energy. In light of that, it’s...

Last week, the Illinois state Senate voted 52-5 to mandate green cleaning in the state’s schools. While seemingly innocuous on its own, this law is emblematic of a much more widespread trend: State and city governments forcing publicly funded, and...

Earlier this week, mayors and governors of cities from around the world convened in New York for the second C40 Climate Summit . The event was started in 2005 in London with the goal to create long term international collaborations among large cities...

You can't pick up a trade magazine these days without reading about the problem of information overload — while at the same time being offered even more information on addressing the issue. Every profession has its unique challenges when it...

CoreNet has a long history of identifying and analyzing trends as they are beginning to unfold. To take one example: Back in the early ‘90s, the International Development Research Council (one of the predecessors to CoreNet) heralded the development...

Today I learned of a new children’s hospital being constructed in Pittsburgh. According to the facility’s Web site, the hospital is being designed as a sustainable campus, with two of the buildings aiming for LEED Certification. Sustainable...

I recently returned from the American Institute of Architects National Convention and Expo in San Antonio. After spending a couple days at the show, one thing seems clear — building information modeling is coming. And soon. Of course the idea has...

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...

Most facility executives would probably agree: preventing the kind of tragic shooting that occurred last month on the Virginia Tech campus when student Seung-*** Cho killed 32 members of the community is a very difficult task. While difficult, that doesn't...

Is the glass half full or half empty when 61 percent – or should I say only 61 percent? – of facility professionals say that commissioning is not a priority in their organizations? In the latest FacilitiesNet survey , commissioning is very...

Last week was a pretty phenomenal week for the city of Chicago. For one, the U.S. Olympic Committee chose Chicago as the U.S.’s candidate to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. And then, the Chicago Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval...

No one can deny that emissions from automobiles are bad for the environment. The surge in the hybrid passenger vehicle market — both by manufacturers and consumers — can attest to the concern over relying on fossil fuels and the damage they...

Next time you’re wondering if it’s worth trying to justify more energy-efficient equipment, you might check out a Web site that has nothing to do with either facilities or energy. It’s the online home of the Nathan Cummings Foundation...

It's easy to jump to conclusions after a tragedy like the shooting that occurred at Virginia Tech this week. According to a timeline on the college's Web site, an email was sent notifying students at 9:26 a.m., roughly two hours after police were...

Fallout continues in the wake of articles in The Washington Post in February on the deplorable conditions in some buildings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Patients and their families still must deal with poorly maintained facilities, though repairs...

Employee productivity is a big — and hotly contested — issue. We’ve covered it more than a few times in Building Operating Management and in a blog . The general consensus is that creating a comfortable workspace for employees will usually...

They say there’s a fine line between genius and insanity. And when desperate times require desperate measures, that line can become much blurrier. Thankfully, in the case of climate change, we still have a few more practical alternatives –...

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...

Multitenant office buildings have historically been laggards in green design and construction. The last year or so has seen signs of a shift in direction, especially with regard to energy efficiency. And now there is evidence of a new awareness of green...

An environmental think tank says that businesses ought to pay attention to climate change. What’s the big deal about that? Two things. One is the arguments they marshal to support their thesis. The other is that the Harvard Business Review agreed...

The recent International Roofing Expo in Las Vegas didn’t provide much in the way of new technology or brand new products – of course, that show rarely does; the roofing industry isn’t exactly on the same technology schedule as, say...

Yesterday, I came across a site called the Open Architecture Network . The premise of the site is relatively simple: provide a networking forum for humanitarian building projects. Now, humanitarian efforts might not always have a lot of things in common...