Sustainability Matters - Blog

Concepts

Design Challenge: Focus on Future Occupants

Over the next several weeks, we will be publishing a series on Sustainable Building Design Challenges and how our Sustainability Consulting Team responds to them. We asked the group a series of questions related to building design. This is the first entry in that series. How do we make sure today’s big picture thinking results […]

Concepts

Bipolar Ionization & COVID-19: Our Experts Weigh In

Bipolar Ionization has been claimed to potentially mitigate, or reduce, the spread of bacteria and viruses throughout a space. Bipolar Ionization works by introducing positive and negative ions into the air. The ionization causes production of clusters of hydroxyl (OH) radicals, which are formed on the surface of microbes, removing hydrogen from the microbes’ cell […]

Concepts

Expert Interview: The Role MEP Design Plays in Designing Equitable Spaces

We spoke to Mechanical Engineer Staci Atwater on how MEP engineers and architects can work together to create more equitable spaces for occupants. Staci is certified as a WELL Accredited Professional and Living Future Ambassador. She specializes in sustainable projects, such as net zero energy (NZE) buildings and projects pursuing LEED, WELL, or Living Building […]

Concepts

Fresh Air & Daylight: The Importance of Healthy Buildings in a Pandemic

Wellness may finally be having its day as a critical function of building design. Over the last decade, architects and engineers have been working to educate owners and developers on the wellness impacts of sustainable building design approaches in creating healthier and more productive lives for their occupants. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that […]

Concepts

What Can We Learn from Going Back to Work in Glumac Shanghai Office?

Along with much of China, our Shanghai team has already begun returning to its office. It’s a high-performance space with some of the best air quality in the country. But during a pandemic, adjustments need to be made to maintain the health and safety of our staff. Life is different. The basic ways we navigate […]

Expertise

Collaborating from Home: The New Normal of Remote Work for the A/E/C Industry

The recent pandemic caused many businesses to scramble to find ways to maintain productivity as stay-at-home orders from local and state governments all but cut-off traditional office spaces. At Glumac, we were fortunate to have practices and tools already in place that have enabled us to work without the need for developing new or untested […]

Expertise

Glumac Design Trends Update: Strategies to Deliver a Low Carbon Future

 “Real change occurs from the bottom up; it occurs person to person, and almost always occurs in small groups and locales, then bubbles up to larger vectors of change.” – Paul Hawken The dynamics of the built environment are in constant flux – subject to the whims of emerging technologies, public health crises, and climate […]

Expertise

Great Projects

Trim Tab Magazine: How Net Zero Energy Electrified Learning at Creekside Community High School

The site of Creekside Community High School is less than a half-mile away from the Tigard High School in Tigard, Oregon. But the two facilities couldn’t be further apart. Creekside–the Tigard-Tualatin School District’s center for students requiring a non-traditional path toward completing their education–has long resided in an aging schoolhouse wedged just off the driveway […]

Expertise

4 Signs Your Building Commissioning Expert Will Get You the Most ‘Bang for Your Buck’

In the young history of building commissioning, we’ve already witnessed a surge of under-qualified firms that suffer from what I like to call the “I can figure that out” fallacy.   Yet, building commissioning is more than filling out and submitting paperwork to meet code requirements. It is a detailed process of analyzing complex building systems, ensuring they were installed correctly and […]

Expertise

How Ongoing Building Commissioning Could Benefit Your Manufacturing Operation

You may have had your building and manufacturing process undergo a thorough commissioning process when you designed and constructed your building. Good job!  You are certainly enjoying all the benefits of building commissioning year after year after year — or are you?  When you buy a new car and the service light comes on, you wouldn’t dare not bring the car […]

Expertise

Great Projects

Commissioning a Mega-Project: Seattle’s SR-99 Tunnel Replacement

Fire suppression system? Check Lane control signage? Check. Traffic detection? Check. From a deluge system capable of pouring as much as 17 inches of water per square foot, to the 300 cameras monitoring traffic, Seattle’s SR 99 tunnel might be one of the safest, most well-monitored spaces in the city. Traffic now passing below downtown […]

Expertise

Air-Flow Management MEP Engineering Strategies for Data Centers

Imagine a computer room or data center that was built before or shortly after the turn of the century, conceptualized without containment, and designed to a long-since abandoned practice of maintaining “meat-locker” conditions — a data center that never broke the barrier of 500 kW of IT load. Most facility managers, if they’ve been involved […]

Expertise

Using Autodesk’s BIM360 Cloud Platform to Improve Sustainable Building Design

Glumac, partnering with Turner Construction, signed on to provide MEP engineering services on the fast-track, net-zero P Street design-build project in Sacramento, CA. Tapped to also bring its sustainability-focused know-how to the team, Glumac compressed the time-intensive workflows that are typically required to support projects with such audacious energy use goals. They did this by formulating a workflow […]

Expertise

Expert Interview: Brian Stern, Energy Analyst, LEED AP BD+C

  Brian Stern is an energy analyst with Glumac, A Tetra Tech Company, who supports firm-wide sustainable and high-performance MEP Engineering and building design. His work improves building performance from initial concept all the way through operation. Using energy modeling software, he develops holistic building energy efficiency strategies appropriate to local environmental conditions. Brian’s focus […]

Concepts

Trim Tab Magazine: Rethinking High Performance Buildings

When the sustainable building design community discusses resilient buildings, the dialogue is often couched in phrases like “onsite energy independence,” “future-proofing,” and “community readiness.” Yet, as we’ve learned from the increasing incidence of traumatic climate-related events, resiliency goes beyond keeping buildings upright and lights on. We have seen (and some of us may have unfortunately […]

Expertise

Leveraging Energy Modeling to Improve Conceptual Level Decision Making

-Originally published in the 2018 Facade Tectonics 2018 Annual Conference & World Congress Conference proceedings, Vol I. INTRODUCTION Green building design is continuously evolving to require a more holistic approach, especially with ever escalating concerns about climate change, rising CO2 levels, and progressive energy code cycles. California’s Title 24 Energy Code is moving towards net-zero energy […]

Concepts

The Case for Timber Structures in Sustainable Building Design

The timber trend is beginning to gain traction as a potential change agent in sustainable building design  – particularly in forest-heavy areas of the country like the Pacific Northwest. And it’s due in large part to the increasing availability of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). CLT is a prefabricated material consisting of sustainably-sourced lumber layered in […]

Expertise

Building Commissioning: Moving from Required to Desired

Building commissioning has taken root. In the last decade, implementation of the building commissioning process has expanded greatly throughout the commercial market. This is due in no small part to the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory’s landmark 2009 study “Building Commissioning: A Golden Opportunity for Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions.” However, the majority of building […]

Expertise

Radiant Technology: MEP Engineering That’s Artfully Designed and Inspired by Nature 

In part one of this article, we discussed the financial benefits of using radiant systems, namely the cost reduction benefits while helping spaces achieve optimal occupant comfort levels. Now, we want to further examine the technology by examining its ability to maintain the integrity of architectural designs and improving occupant wellness and productivity. Integrating Sustainable […]