When construction is complete in 2015, the Gensler-designed "Tower at PNC Plaza" in Pittsburgh, PA will meet 80 percent of its daily water demand with a blackw...
“Think about a LinkedIn or Shutterstock employee,” says Thomas Durels, executive vice president, chief of property operations and leasing for Empire State Realt...
A building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) system integrates photovoltaic modules into the building envelope itself: typically in the roof or façade (or both). ...
On December 2, the city of Detroit experienced a widespread shutdown of its electric power due to failure of grids. This power failure “forced evacuations, trap...
Imagine for a moment that you’re trying to have a one-on-one conversation in a large, empty room. At first you’re able to speak at a comfortable level and hear ...
Even though the focus of most restroom projects is water conservation, that doesn’t mean energy-management improvements aren’t also possible. Because restrooms ...
The majority of high-rise buildings being built throughout the world today have been designed either entirely for residential or a combination of residential and commercial occupancies. This is due to the high demand for additional living space in most major cities caused by a number of factors. These include a significant move of the current generation of business professionals into city centers as well as the aging senior citizen population that appears to want to [...]
The complexities of re-roofing a high-rise facility are numerous. It’s not the actual roofing trade work that’s challenging – it’s project coordination.
The ...
Elevator handling capacity is defined as the amount of passengers that can be adequately served by an elevator system in five minutes. Sometimes quoted as a per...
High-rise facilities managers and owners are always looking for innovative ways to save money and help the environment. An often overlooked option is trash comp...
As water conservation efforts across the United States continue to increase, building owners are no longer just looking for ways to reduce usage – they’re also ...
For me elevators and escalators are (as the song playing in the background as I am writing this column says) “A Few of My Favorite Things!” As many of you may k...
The latest edition of the A17.1/CSA B44 Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators includes specific requirements to ensure that elevators and escalators are prop...
Between 5,000 and 6,200 out of 8,760 hours in a year, buildings are unoccupied. Do you know how your building systems function during this time?
“Night walks...
Commercial real estate companies have a long history of utilizing security systems and services to protect their buildings.
But for security programs to be a...
Because lighting accounts for approximately 39 percent of the average commercial office building’s total electricity use, effectively managing lighting use gives high-rise building owners and facility managers the power to save more electricity than they can with any other control technology at their disposal – without sacrificing employee comfort or satisfaction.
Simple elevator upgrades, like LED lighting with automatic shut-off, will help a building’s energy consumption to decrease. Easily retrofitted, LED elevator lam...
We’ve all seen them hanging from the side of a building and thought to ourselves, “Man, I would never do that. Those guys must be crazy.”
Well, to be honest,...
Today, nearly every new high-rise building includes multiple sustainability features and owners of older buildings are increasingly implemeting green retrofits ...
After 160 years, is the era of the rope-dependent elevator now over? ThyssenKrupp is working on placing linear motors in elevator cabins, transforming conventio...
