High-Performance Cleaning Solution

Four products from CCW Concentrates have earned the Green Seal certification for their standards in performance, health and sustainability. The products are part of CCW’s High Performance Health Cleaning program and include the company’s glass cleaner, bowl cleaner, neutral floor cleaner and auto scrub neutral floor cleaner. The products are highly concentrated in order to reduce storage space and environmental footprint and should be mixed with water at time of application.

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Heat Pump

Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls added a new rooftop heat pump to its Champion brand. The direct replacement design matches other manufactures’ footprints for reduced installation time and cost. Available in 3-ton and 8-ton options, the heat pump has smart controls in order to optimize system setup and monitoring. These smart controls can link to the Mobile Access Portal to be viewed on smartphones, tablets or remote PCs. An optional fault detection program is available to provide users with detailed alerts if problems occur.

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MacDonald Commons Earns Bucknell University its First LEED Gold Building

LEWISBURG, Pa. — As schools and universities are realizing the benefits of “green” building on campus, the first LEED Gold building on Bucknell University made its debut last year. Although the building opened in time for the fall 2015 semester, it just recently received formal LEED Gold recognition this year. The 14,100-square-foot MacDonald Commons Building was completed by Northumberland, Pa.-based general contractor Zartman Construction and the Boston office of EYP Architecture/Engineering PC as well as Mid-Penn Engineering Corporation, based in Lewisburg.

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High-Output, Low-Efficacy Flood LED

The OSQ Series by Cree Inc. has increased the efficiency performance of its latest area and flood LED luminaires by 58 percent from the previous generation. Housed in cast aluminum with a weather-tight LED driver, the luminaires have a 100,000-hour lifetime. In order to meet the demand for cleaner and more efficient energy resources, Cree has added a 28L outdoor area and flood light to its OSQ Series. The 28L delivers up to 28,285 lumens, offering better light and increased energy savings. Energy usage can further be reduced by 80 percent when updating the outdated HID fixtures up to 1000W.

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Transforming Sustainability Through Open Data in Design

Last year, we launched Quartz Project, a collaborative open-data initiative to provide access to the information that we need to build sustainable, healthy buildings. In academia, open-data initiatives have encouraged sharing of clinical research to build on previous findings or conduct the same research across broader patient groups.

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Santa Monica Makes Rooftop Solar Panels Mandatory

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — In April, Santa Monica City Council passed the ordinance mandating rooftop solar systems be built on all new buildings, residential and commercial, in the city. Santa Monica is the fifth municipality in California to make solar installations mandatory, following on the heels of San Francisco. Other cities that made the change include Lancaster, Sebastopol in 2013 and Culver City in 2008.

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Low-emissivity Colored Glass

Pittsburgh-based company PPG has come out with three new colors for their insulating glass units (IGUs), Ultra-Clear, Optiblue and Optigray. Two of the IGUs are Solarban 90 low-emissivity glass and they blocks heat gain 15 percent more effectively than the Solarban 70XL. PPG designed this glass to give architects more options when balancing performance and aesthetics for projects. In a standard 1-inch IGU, the Solarban 90 Optigray comes in a warm gray appearance with a high visible light transmittance (VLT) of 36 percent and a solar-heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of 0.20.

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Tropical Construction Goes Green in Singapore

SINGAPORE — In downtown Singapore, a newly completed skyscraper is growing green. Oaisa Downtown, a 27-story hotel with a plant-covered exoskeleton, is unlike any other experimental green high-rise. WOHA, the Singapore-based designer, created the sustainable building as an alternate to the Western glass-and-steel structures, which tend to attract and trap heat in the tropics.

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