CBE successful with three major grants to support future research

CBE is proud to announce that we have recently been awarded three grants to support our research on radiant systems, personal comfort, and monitoring/controls of commercial buildings. There are a number of firms that contributed to the success of our grants, and we look forward to expanding our research portfolio with this new funding. The work will begin this summer. Read more in the announcement linked below, and be on the lookout for future updates on these new projects.

Read more >>

Meet our new partner: Ingersoll Rand

Global industrial leader Ingersoll Rand is the newest company to join the CBE consortium. They work to enhance the quality and comfort of air in homes and buildings; transport and protect food and perishables; and increase industrial productivity and efficiency. With a history dating back to 1871, Ingersoll Rand and its family of brands (including Trane, Club Car, and Thermo King) represents a proven history in residential, industrial and commercial markets.

Ingersoll Rand aims to inspire progress through unleashing the potential in people and technologies to advance the quality of life. By making environments comfortable, sustainable and efficient, they enable their customers to achieve real progress and create a positive impact in their world.

We look forward to collaborating with their staff as we investigate innovative approaches to a sustainable built environment!

New edition of Centerline available

Don’t miss the Winter edition of Centerline, available online now! In this issue, we feature pro bono work, news on recently awarded grants, introduce you to the newest CBE partners, and more.

Read Centerline >>

Livable Buildings 2014 Winners Announced

CBE is proud to announce the winners of the 7th annual Livable Buildings Award!

In August of 2014, a jury of CBE Industry Partners selected the David & Lucile Packard Foundation Headquarters in Los Altos, California, as the winner of the 2014 Livable Buildings Award. The DPR Southwest Headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, was recognized with an honorable mention. These projects meet the highest standards for providing healthy and productive indoor environments, and represent best practices for sustainability and overall design.

These winning projects, along with the other award finalists, ranked among the top scorers in CBE's Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality Survey. The survey, used to study occupant satisfaction with the quality of the indoor environment, has been implemented in over 650 buildings around the globe.

Read more about the award here >>

Viega is newest CBE member

Founded in 1899, The Viega Group manufactures and distributes plumbing, heating, and pipe-joining systems, and offers more than 3,000 products in North America. Viega is best known for innovative press technology systems for industrial, commercial, and residential projects, including everything that is needed for a complete radiant heating or cooling installation. They provide the tools, training, and technical support needed for a radiant project, and their products  can be easily integrated into building designs for overall energy efficiencies. Viega's extensive product offerings provide system designers with many options and choices, and include tubing, fittings, manifolds, controls, mixing stations, sensors, mats, panels, tracks, and plates.

The Davis Building at the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio,
installed a Viega radiant mat system and won first place in the
2014 ASHRAE Technology Awards. Image: Viega.

“We are honored to be associated with CBE,” said Mark Parent, Director of Product Management. “There is a lack of industry knowledge when it comes to radiant heating and cooling. Our hope is to help educate the industry on newer and more efficient technologies when designing commercial integrated hydronics systems.”

CBE’s recently received grant will be funding work related to radiant slab cooling, researching how to optimize radiant systems for maximum energy efficiency and comfort. This research will provide performance data to develop design and control guidelines. Viega and CBE are also collaborating to provide training sessions to leverage these research results to create innovative product advancements and design guidelines. Sessions are planned for May and November on both coasts, be on the lookout for further information soon.

New member welcome: Delos Living

CBRE's Los Angeles headquarters was the first WELL Certified
office in the world. Image: Delos.

The primary objective of Delos Living is to provide healthier places for people by positioning health
and wellness as a critical element of business planning, building design, and programming decisions. Knowing that people spend well over 90 percent of their time in buildings, Delos believes that commercial real estate has a unique opportunity to support health and wellness, including preventative health. They developed the WELL Building Standard, an evidence-based performance standard for measuring, certifying, and monitoring the performance of building features that impact occupant health and wellness (air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind).

The company is comprised of four core areas: (1) Delos Labs: The central research hub. They collaborate with scientific, medical, and design/research groups to review, assemble, publish, and evaluate the technical and performance data of the WELL Building Standard; (2) Delos Project Delivery and Project Management: Provides advisory support to industry (owners, developers, architects, engineers, contractors, and manufacturers) for the WELL Building Standard; (3) Delos Ventures: Identifies and brings innovative wellness real-estate products and technologies to market; and (4) STAYWELL and WELL SIGNATURE: Provides health and wellness lifestyle amenities, products and programs designed to enhance and improve the hospitality and multi-family living experience. CBE is currently working with Delos to develop a survey tool to be used for the WELL Standard, to measure worker health, productivity, and satisfaction with their environment.

CBE welcomes Stantec to consortium

With over 15,000 employees in more than 250 offices around the world, Stantec offers professional consulting with a wide variety of expertise — including engineering, planning, architecture, interior design, environmental sciences, and more. They collaborate across disciplines and industries to bring buildings, energy and resource, and infrastructure projects to life. They currently have 649 LEED accredited professionals and 293 LEED certified projects.

They have been involved in many high-profile projects, including: Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s (SMUD) East Campus Operations Center, one of the nation’s largest projects to target zero net energy (and a field study location for CBE’s research on radiant systems); a full-scale renovation of the EGWW Federal Building in Portland, Oregon, which received the 2014 Best Tall Building Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; NREL’s LEED Platinum, ZNE Research Support Facility in Golden, Colorado; LA’s first ZNE visitor center for the Department of Recreation & Parks, the Audubon Visitor’s Center at Debs Park and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s FLEXLAB test bed facility.

Stantec was part of the design team for the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Image: Courtesy NREL.

Motivated by research, Stantec’s R&D Fund Program has awarded $4.8 million through 170 research grants to their team members. Through this research, they are finding creative ways to explore problems faced by their peers and clients. Stantec was inspired to join CBE because of their shared passion to be a diverse think tank, where sustainability and resilient design are embraced but they are driven by the process that takes them to that place. “We look forward to the thought provoking and inspiring discussion with the members of the Center for the Built Environment community,” notes Porus Antia, Associate and Manager at Stantec.