Design Around People. A Good Building Follows.

Blog

Read more about a range of building science, engineering, and architecture topics on our company blog.

Posts by Positive Energy
Construction Site Health Precautions

Despite surging cases in the US, construction has not stopped in most states. As we know, houses and buildings can't be built over a Zoom call. We all need to do all we can to end this period of uncontrolled community spread, particularly on construction jobsites since construction workers have been so hard hit by infections. Like any construction project, there are both quantitative and qualitative requirements of a team to bring a building to life. With these facts in mind, we offer the following list of ways to support the health of your construction team on the jobsite.

Read More
Positive Energy
Heath Effects From Gas Stove Pollution

We just finished reading a recently released by the Rocky Mountain Institute in partnership with Mothers Out Front, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and The Sierra Club about the health and air quality impacts of gas ranges in homes. The results are sadly unsurprising (at least not surprising if you’ve spent any time at all reading about the indoor air quality crisis). Over 40 years of evidence indicates that gas stoves, common in kitchens across the United States, can lead to unhealthy levels of indoor air pollution.

Read More
Positive Energy
Come Back Stronger

Before us is a once in a generation opportunity to rebuild the world. Now is the time for clarity and confident action. Post-COVID, we can choose to build a world that brings public health, both mental and physical, to the forefront of the built environment.  A world where the invisible aspects of architecture that impact our lives move to the front and center of the design process. A world where we recognize the power of collective individual action and we question the true reasons behind our old paradigms.  

Read More
Positive Energy
Mind the Gap

All around the globe, the pandemic has created something of a "gap" between what came before and what will come after. Let's use this gap as an opportunity to change paradigms while traditional practices are somewhat less solid. Paying attention to paradigms is what matters most during this time between the old normal and the new normal.

Read More
Positive Energy
Designing Public Buildings For Adaptive Use

Ours is the indoor generation. We spent the vast majority of our lives in indoor environments of our own making. What if these environments were viewed as highly functional systems to provide for human health, comfort and well-being? This was where the societal conversation existed when it ran into a head-on collision with the Novel Coronavirus pandemic. At this point, we find ourselves at a profound inflection point, ruminating on what will change in our society as we move forward.

Read More
Positive Energy
Resources For COVID-19

A compilation of resources for management of the indoor environment during the COVID-19 epidemic from the state of Maine’s Indoor Air Quality Council. We thought these would be useful to our readers. Let us know if you find any additional resources that would be good additions.

Read More
Positive Energy
Regarding Positive Energy's Operations

We’re writing you today to express our sentiment of solidarity in these strange and uncertain times. Now is the time to stay informed and also to stay calm. We are confident that working together, as people who care deeply about the world, we’ll make it through this.

Read More
Positive Energy
Viruses & Designing For Health Outcomes In Buildings

Now, more than ever, there is a tremendous amount of attention on how interconnected we are to our immediate environmental conditions (and to each other) as the spread of the Novel Coronavirus has reached a pandemic level. We were inspired by the recent NYT Opinion piece, titled “Your Building Can Make You Sick Or Keep You Well” by Dr. Joseph G. Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and wanted to take a few moments to clue you into the way Positive Energy thinks about buildings, their mechanical designs, and the impacts of our design/engineering decisions on indoor air quality.

Read More
Positive Energy
Make This The Last Year That AIA Awards Don't Require Sustainability

The AIA should absolutely follow the example that our UK counterparts have laid out and move our own awards programs toward one that measures multiple dimensions of quality and beauty. After all, if we’re not designing projects focused on sustainable outcomes, we’re not upholding our ethical duties as the design professionals who are responsible for managing many resources and their associated carbon profiles.

Read More
Positive Energy
Demystifying Heat Pumps

Heat pumps are so common in our lives that we ordinarily fail to notice them. That said, if you live indoors chances are that you interact with a heat pump every day. This is because that refrigerator in your kitchen is a heat pump. Do you trust it to do its job reliably? Generally speaking, refrigerators are not all that exciting. They just do their jobs day after day. Like all machines, they can and do fail over time but overall your refrigerator is solid. In my own home I’ve replaced the dishwasher twice but still have the same fridge keeping my food fresh and ice frozen after 20 years. This reliability is due to the fact that at the core of your refrigerator are simple, reliable, inexorable laws of physics.

Read More
Positive Energy