ASHRAE's High Performance Building Week —May 14-19, 2012 — gives special recognition to the health, safety and welfare impacts of buildings, along with the opportunities to design, construct and operate high performance buildings that reflect concern for these impacts.
HPB Week will highlight the importance of high performance buildings to federal, state and local policymakers and the general public. The week’s events are overseen by the High-Performance Building Congressional Caucus Coalition (HPBCCC), a 150-plus-organization consortium established by ASHRAE in 2008.
Activities slated for the week include two Congressional briefings providing basic information on high performing buildings as well as telecommunications in buildings; and a dialogue among built environment community members on the breadth of building design, labeling and metrics held at ASHRAE’s D.C. office on May 16.
In addition, the High Performance Building Awards will be presented during the opening reception on Capitol Hill on May 15. Award recipients are Dennis Stanke, Fellow ASHRAE, application engineer at Trane, a brand of Ingersoll Rand, and Ravi Shah, Director of Urban Development for the city of Carrollton, TX.
Stanke chairs the committee overseeing ANSI/ASHRAE/USGBC/IES Standard 189.1, Standard for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, while Ravi chairs the International Code Council’s (ICC) Sustainable Building Technology Committee and is a member of the ICC Board of Directors. Stanke oversaw publication of the 2011 version of Standard 189.1, which not only provides a green building foundation for those who strive to design, build and operate high performance buildings but also provides a mandatory language standard for easy adoption into green building codes.
“Standard 189.1 is the most diverse standard in ASHRAE’s history, covering site sustainability, water-use efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality and the building’s impact on the atmosphere, materials and resources,” ASHRAE President Ron Jarnagin said. “As chair, Dennis ensured the standard was as strong as could be in all of these areas, working to coordinate input received from a wide range of built environment community members. His work in guiding the 189.1 committee is to be commended, and we congratulate him on this recognition.”
Shah chaired the Sustainability Building Technology Committee of 29 experts in the green and sustainability arena drafting the first International Green Construction Code (IgCC). He also helped chair the IgCC Public Comment Hearings in 2010. His efforts were instrumental in the completion of the first model building code that includes sustainability measures for the entire construction project and its site — from design through construction, certificate of occupancy and beyond. The IgCC will make buildings more efficient, reduce waste and have a positive impact on health, safety and community welfare, according to ICC.
“Ravi Shah's leadership was critical to the successful development of the new International Green Construction Code,” ICC Board President Bill Dupler said. “As Ravi has said, this new code is adoptable, adaptable and enforceable. We owe a debt of gratitude to him and to all ICC members and supporters who made the development and publication of the IgCC in March possible.”