This category contains relevant information in regards to the environment, sustainability practices, and green efforts.
Many of us in the commercial building and green building materials industry are hearing the cries from the front lines of the green building certification wars. Numerous articles of late proclaim one green building certification over another. From net-zero energy to green building materials, sustainable design has become ann oxymoron in some circles. It’s…
In the last few years, increased lighting in office design has been a goal for many architectural designers and is rewarded in the form of LEED points for daylighting. Energy savings is a driving force for natural lighting in new office designs but the perks don’t end there. Studies have shown additional benefits of daylighting…
Free standing offices are ticking off all the boxes for new office construction and build outs of office spaces. Today’s corporations want a balance of collaboration and focused workspaces. Free standing offices keep the desired loft like feel of these collaborative workspaces while providing that much coveted private work area. Glass paneled free standing offices…
The resilient nation of hard working, innovative entrepreneurs is rebounding. Six years post the great recession, failed cities are rising from the rubble. There is a resurgence of city dwellers along with corporate investment and infrastructure improvements. U.S. highways are humming with trucks and commuters, restaurant and club patrons are on the rise, steel is…
The new sustainability motto for commercial construction should be reduce, reuse, recycle, retrofit. Building green doesn’t always mean starting from scratch with the latest and greatest green products. Retrofitting buildings offer many opportunities, especially with office spaces, where companies can save money, energy and natural resources. Retrofitting buildings can prove to be a higher environmental…
Recent evidence has revealed new and renovated commercial properties that have achieved green certifications such as Energy Star, LEED and Green-Star ratings typically command higher rent premiums. Statistics are showing the higher the green certification the higher the rent for commercial properties.1 With the plethora of green building benefits why aren’t all new commercial…
This month brings us to the MIAPPA 2014 conference. NxtWall has decided to attend this year because it is being held at Mackinac Island. This motor-free historical setting will give us the opportunity to see how easily our eco-friendly school building products and displays for demountable walls can be transported by bicycle. It’s all part…
So you love the idea of a floor to ceiling glass wall office with an unobstructed view of the river outside your corporate headquarters? Well, you may until the blaring sun comes around to your side of the building late in the afternoon and you can no longer read your computer screen. The transparency,…
Walking into any school I always feel a reference for the space. In the primary schools, the innocence of fresh minds to mold, emotions that will flow unabashedly between BFF’s, favored teachers, and scary principals. Middle school classrooms filled with students caught between childhood learning and high school dreams. High schools spilling over with…
Do you agree the term green building has been thoroughly degraded over the last decade? It seems most evident in the construction industry where sustainability is the new black – or builder beige as it were. Each claim of being the greenest option, the most sustainable resource, seems driven more by profit than true environmental…
