Clips: Engaging Students to Design their Sustainable Future

pic: Pink Sherbet Photography

This week I spoke with Neenan Architect David Kurtz about Engaging Students to Design their Sustainable Future. At the Alamosa Schools in Colorado, uncertainty about who to hire for a playground consultant turned into a design-research project for students. Their presentations to playground bidders resulted in an active design for all grade levels. We also spoke about putting students on the new school construction board in Monte Vista, CO, and how architects can be involved in creating sustainable curricula through building and site design.

Clips: Rural Healthcare Issues

A series of posts I've written for Neenan blog recently have dealt with financing issues for rural healthcare, regarding both facilities and technology. The design-build firm is active in this sector and has completed more than 2,000,000 square feet of healthcare environments over the past 20 years.

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Rural Critical Access Hospital Financing Tips
I spoke with rural healthcare financing expert Andleeb Dawood, Vice President of Dougherty Mortgage, about different funding avenues for critical access hospitals.

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Funding Community
Health Centers
Laurie Casias, Chief Development Officer of CommuniCare Health Centers in Texas, explains how stimulus funds, strong leadership, and a committed staff are serving the working poor. 

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Closing the Digital Divide for Rural Healthcare
Health and Human Services and the Federal Communications Commission are offering multi-pronged support for rural communities to get up to technological speed.

Clips: Climate Wisdom

pic: chez_sugi

Fort Collins, CO has an interesting program called Climate Wise for inspiring and aiding businesses to do their part in reaching the city's atmospheric and environmental goals. The Neenan Company, who I've been blogging for regularly on sustainability issues, is an active participant.

I spoke with Climate Wise's Business Outreach Specialist, Wendy Serour, and Neenan's Sustainability Coordinator  John Drigot, about how their partnership in my latest post, Climate Wisdom: Brining Business and Government Together to Achieve Environmental Goals.

Functional Ambiance: Designing for Clean Air

For more than you ever wanted to know about indoor air quality (IAQ) please check out my article Functional Ambiance: Designing for Clean Air on Metropolis magazine's continuing-education site, sponsored by Humanscale.  

A few highlights...
[Download the PDF]

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that air in homes is often five times more polluted than outdoors, and considering that most people today spend upwards of 80 percent of their days and nights inside, the interior atmosphere is a critical design criteria for functional environments.
• The average adult breathes in around eight germs per minute, for a total of 10,000 per day.
• The American Lung Association reports that 23 million Americans have asthma. This includes seven million children.
• Indoor air quality is the human factor that gets lost in design. Since air is invisible, it’s easy not to notice. Companies are aware of employee efficiency so they invest in ergonomic furniture and lighting, but IAQ gets forgotten by clients and designers alike. This is a mistake considering the relationship between air quality and health.
• Preventing and solving air quality problems are integrated issues that should include the participation of everyone along the design, construction, and occupancy process. In the first place, architectural choices set up initial air quality conditions that all other factors tie into. These need to be coordinated with the building’s mechanical engineers. Even the order of a building’s construction process can impact air quality if there are reactions between materials at different stages. And then interior design choices constitute a whole new layer of chemical interactions, followed by all the things building occupants bring in.

This course is registered for 1 Learning Unit through the American Institute of Architects Continuing Education System.