Contract furnishings provider, Hightower received multiple awards at NeoCon 2021, including IIDA's 'Best Small Showroom' (under 4,000 sf) and 'Best of Competition' for its newly designed Chicago showroom.
Humanscale welcomes Elizabeth Margles to its Marketing Division in the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Margles comes to Humanscale with twenty years of experience in design, fashion and retail and a background in public relations and advertising.
The exclusive relationship with Kontrol's BioCloud® Technology will provide real-time detection of airborne pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 to help make workplaces safer as organizations return to the office.
In a decade of working in sustainability, I’ve found that I usually face an uphill battle keeping the sustainable and energy-efficient features in building designs. Unless energy efficiency targets are mandated by law, the argument for sustainable features often comes down to doing the right thing for the planet and achieving a marketing advantage—both of which may be harder to justify for a commercial enterprise.
The building sector, which is responsible for global emissions roughly equivalent to those of the whole of China, must operate at “net zero carbon” by 2050 if global warming is to remain under two degrees Celsius, the limit enshrined in the Paris Agreement. According to a new report from the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), there are currently 500 net zero commercial buildings and 2,000 net zero homes around the globe (well under 1 per cent of all buildings worldwide), requiring a monumental and coordinated effort by businesses, governments and nongovernmental organizations to bring the building sector within striking distance of Paris Agreement targets.
Never before have people’s expectations of interior spaces been more complex. Nor, has there ever been a greater responsibility on owners, architects and designers to meet these needs. Now, +Positive spaces™ pave the way to better design.
+Positive spaces are environments that create an impact as a result of the attributes of the space and the people who use it. Whether that environment is a small reading nook or a sweeping botanical garden, these spaces give people permission to work as they see fit. And in doing so, people reach their potential, cascading greater good to others and our planet. That’s a lot to be positive about.
Improving air quality and reducing stress are two things that more businesses and homeowners want from their working and living environments. Plant walls can answer both of those calls, and are becoming more common in the built environment
The benefits of plant walls are numerous: they provide cooling through a combination of shading, evapotranspiration (the water in a plant’s roots that evaporates through its leaves), and surface reflectivity. They bring nature into environmentally hostile urban areas, and serve as interior air filtration systems. They absorb sound. And the presence of plant walls has been shown to enhance worker productivity.
Creating a more sustainable office doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are five simple steps to get started:
As it does every year before Earth Day, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) released their list of the year’s top green projects. This year, educational centers made it big, alongside civic infrastructure, and others.
Ahead of Earth Day this Saturday, FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics have released new data on the environmental impact of the existing flexible workforce of ‘telecommuters’ in the US. Assuming they work from home around half of the time (2.5 days out of a 5 day working week), these flexible workers cut the distance travelled in cars by around 7.8 billion miles a year and the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by 3.6 million tons per year, according to the report. The study claims that the environmental impact of telecommuting is seen in a number of ways because commuting contributes greatly to driving, the second largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions, while company offices are a part of the third largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the US.
Many people think of Steelcase as a furniture company, but really, we are in the people business. Inclusion isn't just about what we believe—it's what we do every day to act on those beliefs. Inclusiveness, authenticity, and transparency benefit us all.
What really improves employee performance? Better accessibility and technology? Streamlined communication? Great company perks? While those things certainly don’t hurt, environmental features, like lighting and air quality, may play a bigger role than you ever imagined. A number of recent studies confirm that conventional office design could be slowly crushing employee productivity from within—and that “greening” spaces with selective materials and health-conscious decor could be the key to eliminating production lag.
Humanscale is announcing several new sustainable initiatives that aid in its mission to create a net positive impact on the earth. As the first company to achieve full Living Product Challenge certification with not one, but two products, Humanscale takes sustainability seriously. Never complacent, Humanscale is taking on the Net Positive Project. It also aims to be the first manufacturer in the industry to have Health Product Declarations for all products. Humanscale is also announcing a partnership with WeSpire to provide each employee with content and inspiration to take action and impact social and environmental outcomes beyond the workplace. Humanscale is hosting an Earth Day event in their New Jersey manufacturing facility to demonstrate its commitment to sustainable design and manufacturing and to educate the local community. From its production facilities to its products to its people, Humanscale is engaging all aspects of the company to ensure it meets its goal.
The company just scored a Petal certification from the Living Building Challenge. Next on the agenda: achieving zero waste by 2020—and maybe convincing other tech companies to follow its lead.
What is a healthy workplace, exactly? The answer should be clear by now. Piles of research have dug into this topic, and then news outlets cover the latest discovery ad infinitum.
The problem is, research is rather dense, while the news isn’t comprehensive. Office managers trying to improve workplace wellness want neither a 55-page report nor a half dozen articles to convince their landlord that their space can do better.
Last month, President Trump’s nomination of R. Alexander Acosta to be secretary of labor was approved by a Senate committee, even though the nominee’s testimony had left unclear whether he would be more interested in protecting employers’ prerogatives than in guarding workers’ interests.
We may soon find out, and here’s one test — an issue of worker health that President Barack Obama’s Labor Department tried to resolve, without much success: Why does the department’s Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration allow workers to be exposed to dangerous chemicals at limits far higher than those set for everyone by the Environmental Protection Agency?
Jane Abernathy is dedicated to developing the strategic vision for sustainability at Humanscale. Recently elected to the HPD Collaborative’s 2017 Board of Directors, Jane has become a strong advocate for sustainable practices in the manufacturing industry. We recently spoke to Jane about her background and Humanscale’s commitment to making a net positive impact on the earth.
The green building movement—which has been growing over the past few decades—has gradually expanded from a focus on reducing water and energy usage to a holistic approach that incorporates how buildings affect the people in them.
Green building continues to play a growing role in the construction industry, with building industry professionals forecasting that more than 60 percent of their projects will be “green” by 2018.
Why build green? The survey found that green buildings offer significant operational cost savings compared with traditional buildings. Respondents — these include more than 1,000 survey participants from 69 countries — said they expect a 14 percent savings in operational costs over five-year savings for new green buildings and 13 percent savings in operational costs over five years for green retrofits and renovations.
Tokyo-based YKK Fudosan Co, Ltd, part of YKK Group’s global network, has obtained LEED-BD+C (Core and Shell) Platinum certification for its YKK80 Building. It was the first such certification for a new office building in Japan. The goal of the project team was to reduce energy consumption by 60% when compared to typical office buildings. To achieve this, the design prioritized water and energy efficiency along with a healthy indoor environment. Open space within the seismically isolated structure was utilized as a heat sink for the geothermal heating system of the building. Other features include sensors for day-lighting and motion-activated operability, outdoor air cooling and mist facilities for the exterior shaft, radiant panels, desiccant air cooling, and high-performance electrical outlets.
All is well at Structure Tone’s new Manhattan headquarters at 330 W. 34th St. The construction services provider’s 82,000-square-foot home base recently obtained a WELL Certified Silver rating from the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI). The headquarters’ new designation makes it the inaugural project in New York to secure WELL certification under the WELL Building Standard, the first performance-based system for the measuring and accreditation of the built environment’s impact on human health.
Furniture waste (f-waste), an estimated 8.5 million ton annual trash problem, is becoming the new e-waste, according to experts. And in an effort to combat this growing waste problem, companies across the globe are developing innovative programs and initiatives for diverting f-waste from landfill.
Antimicrobial building products marketed as “healthy” or beneficial to human health contain ingredients that may have adverse environmental or human health impacts, and alternative products should be considered whenever possible, according to a new white paper by global architecture and design firm Perkins+Will and the Healthy Building Network (HBN).
Healthy Environments: Understanding Antimicrobial Ingredients in Building Materials exposes the lack of scientific evidence supporting claims that so-called antimicrobial products like paints, kitchen countertops, door handles, flooring, and other interior finishes help ward off communicable diseases. In fact, the report highlights a growing body of research suggesting potential negative impacts of antimicrobials on both the body and the environment. Potential impacts include the possible proliferation of “super bugs” caused by microbial resistance, contamination of aquatic ecosystems, and potential exposure to known or suspected carcinogens like formaldehyde.
