Bruce Coldham, AIA and Thomas RC Hartman, AIA host workshops on conference's opening day.

$#@! Happens:

A Diagnostic Case Study

of a Good Building- With a Problem

On Tuesday, March 13th, the opening day of Building Energy 2007 , Bruce Coldham, AIA, and Thomas RC Hartman, AIA, of Coldham & Hartman Architects, will host a morning workshop with Terry Brennan of Camroden Associates. The workshop, “$#@! Happens”, will focus on a good building gone bad—and the solution to its problem.

“An 8500 S.F. retail store for the Hawthorne Valley Farm was designed as a high-performance building and pleasing work environment, but a year after moving in occupants began reporting severe headaches and nausea. This case study describes the seemingly inconsequential irritations that had profoundly damaging implications for a productive workspace, and the diagnostic methodologies and remedial actions brought to bear.”

That afternoon, Coldham will chair a session called “The ‘One Planet Living’ Challenge: Using Ecological Footprinting to Measure Our Impact and Assess Our (Fair) Share.”

From the conference description: “The ecological footprint of the average US resident approaches 24 acres, whereas global availability amounts to 4.4 acres per capita. The global challenge is to create live-work settings that bridge this gap. This session will present a general understanding and appreciation of the process/methodology of ‘ecological footprinting’ as developed by William Reese and Mathis Wackernagel and of the work of the Global Footprint Network (www.footprintnetwork.org). This tool appears to be the most appropriate metric for evaluating our overall impact on life support systems. This session will explain this methodology, and why it is emerging as a ‘base metric.’”

Also that morning, Coldham & Hartman Architects friend and collaborator Marc Rosenbaum (Energysmiths) will host a full-day session, “Toward Zero Energy Homes”, a workshop on renewable energy and residential uses.

This year’s conference, sponsored by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), has as its theme “The Practice of Sustainability: Building for a Changing Climate”, and has already attracted a record number of pre-registrations. Organizers expect the conference to draw wide attention.