Report Analyzes the U.S. Building Rating and Certification System
 The National Institute of Building Sciences Task Group on Building Rating and Certification has released its report following a year-long effort. The
Report on Building Rating and Certification in the U.S. Building Community contains the Task Group's recommendations to address the ongoing development, implementation and evaluation of building rating systems.
In 2008, the Institute's Board of Directors appointed the Task Group to review the current systems in use across the United States that rate and certify building performance and accredit individual expertise. The Task Group sought input from a broad range of participants in the building sector. This report is the result.
View the report.
Institute Board of Directors Votes on 2010 Members
The National Institute of Building Sciences Board of Directors convened for its September meeting last week. The Board renewed several members for additional terms, elected a new member to the Board and voted in new executive officers.
The Nominating Committee proposed candidates to fill four positions expiring in 2009.
The Board reelected members Jim. W. Sealy, FAIA; Emory R. Rodgers; John F. Bender, PE, FSFPE; and Dwight “Sonny” M. Richardson, Jr.; and
elected new member Steven R. Winkel, FAIA, PE, for three-year terms.
The newly elected 2010 Board Officers include Jim. W. Sealy, FAIA, as Chairman; R.K. Stewart, FAIA, Hon. FRAIC, as Vice Chair; James “Tim” Ryan, CBO, as Secretary; and Mortimer M. Marshall, Jr., FAIA, FCSI, as Treasurer.
Learn about the Institute’s Board.
Meet the Board
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The “Meet the Board” section provides readers with
the opportunity to get to know more about the 21 individuals who make up
the 2009 National Institute of Building Sciences Board of Directors. In this issue, we focus on William Coad and Emory Rodgers. Coad is a professional engineer. Rodgers is a state agency official. Both were elected to serve in the public interest category. Read more about
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Institute Welcomes New Team Players
The Institute welcomes two new members to the team, Stephanie Stubbs, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, and Richard Paradis, PE, BSCP. Stubbs joins the staff as a Project Manager. She will manage the activities of the Building Enclosure Technology and Environment Council (BETEC) and the High Performance Building Council. Paradis comes on board as a Program Director. He will lead the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advanced Materials Program.
Find out more.
Piled-High Proposals
 The 30-member Code Resource Support Committee (CRSC) meets in Washington, D.C., to prepare comments on proposed code changes to the
International Building, Residential, and Existing Building Codes. The CRSC convened to review proposed changes related to earthquake resistance for new residential and commercial construction, and seismic retrofitting of existing buildings. Representatives of the CRSC will testify on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Institute’s Building Seismic Safety Council at the International Code Council Code Development Hearings in Baltimore later this autumn.
Investment in Hazard Mitigation Means Future
Savings
An article in the current issue of the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management could help planners and other community decision-makers show how an investment in natural hazards mitigation now can reap substantial benefits in the future.
Authored by David R. Godschalk, Adam Rose, Elliott Mittler, Keith Porter, and Carol Taylor West, the article, “Estimating the Value of Foresight: Aggregate Analysis of Natural Hazard Mitigation Benefits and Costs,” relates to the Institute’s Multihazard Mitigation Council (MMC) 2005 study of future savings from mitigation activities. Godschalk is an MMC Board member and member of the study’s Project Management Committee (PMC); West is also a member of the study PMC; and the other authors are members of the project research team.
Read the article.
HAZUS-MH MR4 Now Available
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has made available HAZUS®-MH MR4, the PC- and GIS-based natural hazards assessment tool that simulates potential earthquakes, floods and hurricanes and their physical, economic and social consequences.
MR4 features updated school data from the U.S. Department of Education and updated transportation data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, and Research and Innovative Technology Administration. The Flood Model provides a new dam/levee analysis capability and fixes 63 bugs. The Earthquake Model updates the probabilistic maps with the latest version from
the U.S. Geological Survey. The Hurricane Model permits the creation of a study region using a hurricane track. MR4 operates on ArcGIS 9.3 SP1 and ArcGIS 9.3.1.
State and local governments employ HAZUS to design programs for pre-disaster mitigation, conduct flood risk assessment studies, produce earthquake studies, and support decision-making in response operations, mitigation planning and post-disaster analysis of recovery options and strategies.
Order HAZUS-MH MR4.
Transforming VA Healthcare Facilities in the
New Millennium
 A new U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) report,
Report of the Task Group for Innovative 21st Century Building Environments for VA Healthcare Delivery, prepared by the National Institute of Building Sciences could help the federal agency move its healthcare facilities into the 21st century.
In 2008, VA asked the Institute to coordinate its exploration for a new paradigm to provide a new generation of high-performance, sustainable healthcare environments for the changing population of veterans. The Institute convened a multi-disciplinary task group to investigate and document state-of-the-art practices for high-performance, sustainable and flexible environments for healing.
Read their recommendations.
HPBCCC Lunch Briefing on BIM Draws Record Crowd
Institute President Henry Green introduces one of the speakers during the High Performance Buildings Congressional Caucus Coalition.
The coalition held a luncheon briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this month to address “Building Information Modeling (BIM) and High Performance Buildings.” More than one hundred people, a record attendance, participated.
Patrick MacLeamy, FAIA, Chief Executive Officer of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc. (HOK) and Chairman of buildingSMART International; Commander Jack Dempsey of the United States Coast Guard; and Dana “Deke” K. Smith, FAIA, Executive Director of the Institute’s buildingSMART alliance, gave presentations.
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View the presentations.
Save the Date: April 12-14, 2010
is the BEST2 Conference
 Mark your calendar now to join the National Institute of Building Sciences and the Building Enclosure Council-Portland for the Building Enclosure Science and Technology (BEST2) Conference in Portland, Ore.,
April 12-14, 2010.
This three-day event will hone in on specific performance aspects of building systems designed for high energy efficiency, good indoor climate, and long-term performance. The conference will bring together academic research with “real world” applications and case studies from the United States, Canada and Europe. The program, presented in three tracks (Energy Efficiency, Fenestration and Whole Building), will address both new and existing buildings. It offers panel discussions, workshops and plenary speeches aimed at architects, engineers, consultants, educators and design professionals, as well as contractors, owners, and developers who recognize the need to develop a new design paradigm to meet the built environment’s energy challenges.
Program sponsors include the Institute and Building Enclosure Council National, the American Institute of Architects, U.S. Department of Energy, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Online registration opens soon.
Get program details and conference updates.
2009 SmartMarket Report Shows Increased Usage of BIM
The 2009 SmartMarket Report demonstrates a dramatic increase in the number of people using building information modeling (BIM) and the benefits they receive from it. The McGraw-Hill Construction released the report, which was sponsored in part by the buildingSMART alliance, during its
Business of BIM seminar in San Francisco last week. This year’s report entitled, “The Business Value of BIM,” is the most extensive one to date.
The report was based on more than 2,200 responses to a survey conducted this summer. The survey focused on the actual penetration of BIM into the industry, how much it is being used, who is using it and for what. The results indicated that, though there is a long way to go, people who are using BIM are beginning to see significant business advantages. The report also clearly demonstrates that the more involved or experienced BIM users are, the more significantly they benefit.
The Business of BIM seminar, where the report was presented, included panels of business leaders with firsthand experience using BIM, who discussed how BIM is helping them to improve their bottom line.
Read the SmartMarket Report.
NCEF Joins Coalition for Green Schools Executive Committee
The Institute’s National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF) has joined a new strategic alliance of the nation’s leading educational and environmental organizations to work together to promote the design, construction, and operation of green educational facilities. The newly formed Coalition for Green Schools invited NCEF to be a member of its Executive Committee. Earlier this month, NCEF representatives attended the Committee’s inaugural meeting where Martha Kanter, Under Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, spoke to the group about the multiple, but critically important, pathways for greening America’s schools.
Learn more about the Coalition.
Get Involved in a buildingSMART alliance Interest Group
The goal of building information modeling (BIM) is collaboration between all stakeholders in the facilities industry yet, up until now, there have been few venues for that collaboration to occur. True, there were groups related to single interest efforts for architects, engineers, contractors and others to communicate with their peers, but none where a designer could talk to a facility manager. Because there was no environment where different stakeholders could go to discuss issues and network, buildingSMART alliance formed buildingSMART alliance Interest Groups.
buildingSMART alliance Interest Groups are a low-key opportunity to bring together various groups to network about BIM on a regular basis and to gain information of interest to a broad spectrum of stakeholders in the facilities industry. It is the grassroots foundation of the Alliance and for getting involved with the
National BIM Standard.
Find the local Interest Group.
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