NYC architects meet their match: gingerbread 

Anyone who’s spent the holidays on the losing end of a gingerbread Jenga game knows turning cookies into houses is no easy feat. But architects, it seems, are gluttons for punishment.  “They do like to be challenged,” Melissa Woolford, founder of London’s Museum of Architecture and the brains behind its annual Gingerbread City event said. […]

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Builders, developers among those challenging state’s gas stove ban

Builders and developers are coming out of the woodwork to challenge New York State’s ban on gas stoves and furnaces in new residential buildings. A consortium of businesses, trade associations and unions filed a federal lawsuit this week, seeking to overturn the ban, the Times Union reported. The New York Department of State is a […]

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JOCO’s fireproof cabinets offer solution for e-bike battery fires 

Deadly fires caused by e-bikes’ lithium ion batteries have set off attempts to regulate the vehicles by multifamily buildings and politicians. In New York, where delivery workers and other residents have embraced e-bike use since their legalization in 2020, fires have caused 74 injuries and 13 deaths as of July 3, TechCrunch reported, citing statistics […]

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Carrots and sticks: How mounting financial pressures are greening real estate

Despite no national policy push to cut down on real estate’s climate impact, the industry is being prodded toward progress. A combination of local and state policies, as well as the mounting cost of insurance, is forcing all sectors of real estate to develop more sustainable, efficient buildings, the New York Times reported. Buildings are […]

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Skanska kicks off construction of Cincinnati’s first CLT building

The Swedish construction giant Skanska broke ground on Cincinnati’s first cross laminated timber project.  The planned 35,000-square-foot building will become the home of Cincinnati Public Radio when it is completed, Construction Dive reported. The $32 million project will be the first two-story mass timber in the entire Midwest, and the first of its kind in […]

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California cracks down on embodied carbon

California became the first state in the nation to codify limits on embodied carbon in buildings, a move experts say is crucial for mitigating climate change. Earlier this month, the California Building Standards Commission unanimously approved amendments to the green building code approved last year, Dezeen reported. The changes go into effect July 1 next […]

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Negative electric bills and shorts in the winter: Life inside Boston’s first passive houses

Shorts in the winter, and a negative electricity bill  ––  it sounds like the land of milk and honey. In reality, it’s Boston. That’s at least for the owners of the city’s first certified passive houses.  Since spec developer Dmitry Baskin completed the three spec homes, the buyers say they’ve hardly touched the thermostat, and […]

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LCOR to heat Coney Island apartment development with geothermal

LCOR is bringing geothermal to a Coney Island apartment project, the first multifamily building in New York City to do so. The 463-unit rental project at 1515 Surf Avenue will produce 60 percent fewer emissions as a result, Crain’s reported. The geothermal system will heat and cool the building, and power its hot water systems. […]

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Cleantech startup Brimstone’s carbon negative cement lands first industry certification

Some positive news for negative carbon.  Cody Finke and Hugo Leandri’s Brimstone landed an industry certification for its carbon-negative cement, with significant implications for real estate’s climate goals. Brimstone’s green Portland cement received third-party certification that it meets the ASTM C150 standard, one of the most commonly used materials standards in construction, the Washington Post […]

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