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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Winners Announced!


The jury deliberation was truly an exciting day for the entire BrickStainable team. We met at the National Building Museum in the Pension Commissioner’s Suite to review entries in the Integrated Building Design and Technical Design categories.

The 2nd Annual BrickStainable Design Competition captured the attention of a total of 356 registrants! That number represented 62 different countries. When registration closed in December of 2010, we had 60 submissions from 21 countries.

Vivian Loftness, Bill Browning, Anna Dyson and Martin Vachon decided on seven winners this year. We will honor all of our winners at the Awards Ceremony on March 31, 2011.

We welcome all followers of the competition to preview the winning entries on our website.

We also invite you to join us for the grand evening at the National Building Museum on March 31st where you will have the opportunity to meet and celebrate with our winners!

CONGRATULATIONS WINNERS!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Students Can Find Sustainability in Materials Science


Juror, Vivian Loftness’s work at Carnegie Mellon University, prepares the next generation of architects. Today’s architecture students are learning to think about design, function and building performance differently than past students. Vivian pointed out that people don’t jump right to materials science when thinking about sustainability, but there are many environmental benefits of brick.

There’s an attitude in society that light construction (using glass or other lightweight materials) is more sustainable than heavy construction (using concrete or brick). She notes that architecture students should consider heavy construction when deciding how to mitigate high temperatures or day-to-night temperature swings.

Vivian believes that architecture schools need to illustrate the value of brick in a carbon-neutral society and provide opportunities on a consistent basis for students to design with masonry. Time will tell if architecture students pick up on that concept and create beautiful, long lasting brick structures. “Brick is expressive. It is a product that is not only exciting because of the aesthetic and amazing detail opportunities, but also because of how this material can perform,” said Loftness.

Photo: The structural spiral brick staircase at the top of Baker Hall at Carnegie Mellon.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

USGBC-MD Leadership in Green Building Award Won by BrickStainable!




Our team was ecstatic when we heard BrickStainable was the recipient of a leadership award given by the USGBC-MD Chapter.

Potomac Valley Brick (PVB) was truly honored to accept this Market Transformation Leadership Award at the 6th Annual Wintergreen Awards Celebration for Excellence in Green Building. Many of the members of the Competition design team were present to accept the award, including PVB’s president, Alan Richardson, competition consultant, Peter Doo, AIA, LEED AP, and PVB’s very own Green Team.

Everyone celebrated the evening at Baltimore’s Thames Street Wharf (not too far from the BrickStainable project site). Nearly 500 people from the architecture, engineering and construction industries attended the Awards Celebration, which was headlined by keynote speaker, Scott Plank, Executive Vice President of Under Armour. (See Scott in this posts photo, third from the left!)

PVB’s president was quoted saying, “It’s an honor to be recognized alongside so many of our peers in this industry. We hope BrickStainable continues to spark innovative solutions for sustainable design in both in the U.S. and international architecture communities.”

Monday, February 7, 2011

Connection with the Natural World


Bill Browning, Founder of Terrapin Bright Green, was the keynote speaker at the 1st Annual BrickStainable Design Competition, and is a juror for the 2nd Competition.

Bill is one of the green building and real estate industry’s foremost thinkers and strategists. His areas of research and expertise include: biophilic design, the physiological and psychological benefits of building with nature and living systems; biomimicry, how nature evokes these benefits and inspires design; and, deep ecological history and metrics of various locations.

Browning’s most recent interest includes the Mannahatta project. This study focuses on the reconstruction and remapping of how Manhattan looked in 1609. Bill is interested in the carbon balance, original topography, and natural ecosystems prior to development.

It is truly fascinating to check out Manhattan on Google Earth and use the historical time tool to see the development of this New York City borough over just the past few decades.

- To see it for yourself, visit http://welikia.org/explore/mannahatta-map/