Great Lakes Building ReUse

BMRA Annual Conference

Rebekah Williams — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:55:26 +0000

DECON ‘09 It’s Time !

The Building Materials Reuse Association’s 2009 International Conference on Deconstruction, Building Materials Reuse, and Construction and Demolition Materials Recycling

April 28th–April 30th, 2009

The University of Illinois, Chicago Campus

It’s Time!

·TO LEARN about building deconstruction, materials reuse, and recycling

·TO TEACH others what you’ve learned about building deconstruction, materials reuse, recycling, and responsible use of resources

·TO INTEGRATE building deconstruction, materials reuse, and recycling into mainstream planning, design, construction, and facility management practices

Conference Highlights Include:

·Integrating building materials salvage, reuse, & recycling within the broader Sustainability & Green Building fields

·Engaging design, construction, & demolition professionals in deconstruction, reuse & recycling activities

·Marketing, practice, supply, & demand in urban environments

·Urban policies; obstacles & opportunities for material reuse & recycling

·Life Cycle analyses, embodied energy, and impacts on decision making

·Design opportunities; use of salvaged & recycled materials

·Design for Deconstruction & the Life Cycle Building Challenge

·Disaster debris management

·Salvage, reuse, & recycling in urban redevelopment

·Job creation and training opportunities

·Deconstruction, salvage, & recycling technologies

·Chicago’s successful green programs

Additional activities include:

·Tour of Chicago area Green Building and materials reuse and recycling sites

·BMRA Accredited Deconstruction Training

·WasteCapWisconsin C&D Waste Management Training and Accreditation

CHICAGO: The City of Broad Shoulders. The City that Works

From City Hall’s green roof to sustainable urbanism of parks. From the Center for Green Technology to the Green Homes Program. From public policy to private development. Chicago is rapidly becoming the nation’s “most environmentally friendly city.” What better place to showcase the state of knowledge in building deconstruction, materials reuse, & recycling. And it’s a wonderful place to visit!

For More Information: Robert Falk, President, 608/231-9255, rfalk {at} wisc(.)edu; Tom Napier, Conference Chair, 217/373-3497, thomas.r.napier {at} usace.army(.)mil. BMRA website: www.bmra.org.

We hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

The Building Material Reuse Assocation and The Delta Institute

LEED Workshop - Buffalo, NY

Rebekah Williams — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:45:58 +0000

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction.

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The New York Upstate USGBC Chapter is pleased to announce that the following LEED workshop is coming to Buffalo:

Green Building Operations & Maintenance: The LEED Implementation Process

Date: Monday, March 30th, 2009
Time: 8:30 am to 5:00 pm
Location: Center for Tomorrow, SUNY Buffalo - North Campus

This workshop is intended for building owners, facilities managers, building operators and maintenance professionals involved in implementing LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (LEED EB-OM). This is a Level 300 course, and required some prior knowledge of green buildings and the LEED Rating System.

Please visit http://www.greenbuild365.org/coursedetail.aspx?ID=90000263 for registration specifics and CEU credit information. Registration includes online access to the LEED EB-OM Reference Guide, and a discounted price on the printed edition when ordered at registration. Continental breakfast, lunch and refreshment breaks will also be provided.

Seating is limited - register early!

Registration is now open on the Greenbuild 365 website: http://www.greenbuild365.org/coursedetail.aspx?ID=90000263

For all workshop inquiries, email workshop {at} usgbc(.)org or call 800-795-1747.

Remember: USGBC National Members save on workshop registration fees.
Not a member yet? Visit www.usgbc.org/membership for more information.

Designing policy for “Homes that last”

Rebekah Williams — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:04:37 +0000

The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, published a blog entitled “Designing policy for ‘Homes that last’“:

The Winter 2009 issue of the community development journal Shelterforce examines at length a wide range of issues facing housing and community development practitioners in the current economic crisis.

Among the topics covered: a critique of foundations’ response to the crisis by Rick Cohen, a call by Pablo Eisenberg to raise the foundation payout requirement from five to six percent, a policy proposal regarding the foreclosure crisis by Jim Carr of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a vision of a social housing policy by Peter Marcuse, and an analysis of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program by Peter Werwath.

All of these articles are well worth reading, but the focus here is on John Emmeus Davis’ article, which examines community land trusts and related forms of “shared equity” housing from the theoretical perspective of how society can create “homes that last.”
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To read the entire article click here.

Conference attendees decon an abandoned home

David Bennink — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:31:23 +0000

Two of the attendees from GLR 2008 got together and took down a 2300 sq ft abandoned home using hybrid deconstruction in Cleveland, OH. RE-USE Consulting and Urban Lumberjacks of Cleveland (ULOC) used an average of seven workers for 4.5 days (8 hrs per day max.) in the darkest time of the year to deconstruct this 2.5 story building. They used another day and a half to finish cleaning up the site and denailing over 6500 board feet of flooring, framing and misc. 1x material.

This was only ULOC’s second home so congrats to them for a job well done. Thanks to Buffalo Reuse and the BMRA for putting on the conference.

Denailing at 19 deg. F

Welcome to our new blog!

Rebekah Williams — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:16:08 +0000

Thanks to Kevin Hayes, manager of the ReSource (Buffalo ReUse’s warehouse and storefront), we now have an up and running blog on this site.

We will have several people with experience in deconstruction, architecture, policy implementation and community projects, writing on the blog. We hope you will subscribe, read and keep the conversation going.

“Deconstruction” or “Dismantling”

Rebekah Williams — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:15:12 +0000

I was watching the video footage on Mayor Jay Williams’ keynote address and he referred to a businessman in Youngstown who offers people in decrepit neighborhoods cash incentives to move out of their homes and move into fuller neighborhoods. Mayor Williams said this guy has a business that takes apart steel mills (??deconstructs??).

After a little digging, I found these two links online:

Article in “Construction & Demolition Recycling”

Website for Allied Erecting & Dismantling

Are there other deconstruction companies that do big industrial jobs like steel mills? I wonder if those guys are members of the BMRA. They said in an interview, that they prefer the term “dismantling” to “demolition”. Maybe they could be sold on the term “deconstruction”…

Blogging as an effective means of communication

Rebekah Williams — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:14:55 +0000

We have developed an interactive wiki site, we have retrieved feedback with survey monkey, we even have the discuss {at} greatlakesreuse(.)org listserv to keep things going. With the holidays, and the excitement of the world’s changes, we have not seen much action in regards to planning a future conference.

I hope that with a blog we will truly get multi-directional communication going between conference organizers, conference participants, and other folks who are interested in getting another conference going this year.

We, at Buffalo ReUse, love to see change happen. We are pumped by movers and shakers, we are enthused by active artists and creative types, we are ecstatic about urban change makers!

We hope to see another Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference to keep bringing these people together to educate each other, share ideas, and provide the ground to keep cultivating amazing work!

Join the conversation. Where do you think the next conference should take place? Are you or someone you know a good conference organizer - prepared to raise the funds, dream-up interesting and engaging coursetracks and presenters, hatch out marketing materials? We are ready to help by sharing our experience organizing the Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference 2008. Tell us your ideas, ask us advice, use us as a sounding board!

Let’s get the discussion going. Hope to hear from you soon.

Let’s Get Acquainted

Admin — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:38:16 +0000

We’d like to get to know you! Comment on this post and tell us about yourself - who you are, where you’re from, why you’re interested in building reuse, what projects you’re planning or working on.