2023 is off to an exciting start.
ASHRAE
In February, Carrie Brown attended the ASHRAE Winter Conference in Atlanta and enjoyed catching up with her various Technical Committees in person again. Resource Refocus also sponsored ten students to attend IBPSA-USA’s member reception during the conference.
As the chair of ASHRAE’s Task Force for Building Decarbonization Knowledge Hub and Website working group, Carrie led the team that launched the new TFBD website last month: https://ashrae.org/decarb.
Build Up Buffalo 2023
Nate Heckman was featured as a plenary speaker at Build Up Buffalo 2023, an annual symposium for the AEC and development community in Western New York. This year the event focused on building resilience in the region. Nate presented a summary of the trends analysis work that we are conducting on behalf of NYSERDA to analyze the awardees of the Buildings of Excellence Program.
Architecture at Zero
The Architecture at Zero (AAZ) competition is underway. Students and professionals are invited to design an agriculture center, connecting the history of California’s first Black town of Allensworth, to its present aspiration to become a destination for sustainable agriculture and Black history.
Allensworth was featured in a LA Times article in February: Allensworth, a onetime Black utopia, could rise again from the Central Valley dust.
Nate was interviewed by Margie O'Driscoll about our role in the competition and the resources on the competition website that are available to students. Nate also shared advice on how student teams may start to approach the competition. The interview can be found on the Talks page of the AAZ website.
The deadline to submit a proposal for this year’s AAZ competition is June 15, 2023 at 6:00pm. More information can be found at https://www.architectureatzero.com.
University Connections
Rhys Davis recently gave a guest lecture at UC Davis on energy equity, highlighting electrification of multifamily buildings and how building codes and standards can create a framework for equity in residential buildings.
Nate was a guest critic at the University at Buffalo junior architecture studio integration review to advise students on their work as they integrate various architectural systems into their overall design in preparation for their final review.