In This Issue: Carbon Footprint Analysis: The 2030 Challenge Improving Data Center Reliability through Commissioning and Energy Efficient Design Glumac Pioneers Collaborative Revit® Learning Process New Glumac Office Locations: Los Angeles Office and Silicon Valley Countdown to Greenbuild 2007 Career Opportunities Contact Us     Jack Sargent Editor-in-Chief Diana Volovelskay Editor       Carbon Footprint Analysis: The 2030 Challenge Mitchell Dec, Energy Analyst, Glumac Energy Services Recently there has been a great deal of buzz in the building industry about carbon footprints: What does it mean, how is it measured, and how do we reduce our own carbon footprint? In response to the discussions, Architecture 2030, a group started by Edward Mazria in 2002, has crafted the 2010 Imperative and 2030 Challenge. Together, these two initiatives have created a benchmarking system for the architectural and engineering community to compare each building's design against the carbon footprint of similar buildings. A difficult task for a project is to determine the status of a design relative to the benchmark, and then to be certain that the building will perform as anticipated. This goal has added a new dimension to the opportunity of using energy analysis as a tool to predicting a building's carbon footprint. The carbon footprint analysis will also likely encourage a great deal of measurement and verification in order to determine the status of each building after construction. When a building is not performing, energy modeling and commissioning groups can work together to diagnose operation issues and to fix operational problems. This process will allow for the design team to validate that their practices are meeting the intent of their client's goals.     Improving Data Center Reliability through Commissioning and Energy Efficient Design Paul Tiña, LEED®AP, San Francisco Associate Principal Commissioning data centers constantly challenges Commissioning Agents due to the varying complexities of the critical support systems. However, regardless of the complexities, commissioning ensures that these systems are reliable and perform individually and interactively in accordance with the Basis of Design, Specifications, and the Owner's operational needs. In addition to commissioning, incorporating energy efficient designs can also improve the reliability of the critical support systems. Reliability and Tier Classifications To better understand reliability and data center design, it helps to recap on some industry standards. The Uptime Institute®, a consulting group that studies reliability of different data centers, has developed the following tier classification system for use in rating the reliability and availability of mission critical data center facilities:   Glumac Pioneers Collaborative Revit® Learning Process Rem Wilson, LEED®AP, Portland Associate Principal In our February issue, we discussed our training sessions on the 3D Building Information Modeling (BIM) software, Revit®, by AutoDesk. Since then, Glumac has been adopting Revit® in all of our offices. Our Portland office has been spearheading collaborative learning efforts to improve the software's utilization within the company, as well as with clients and partnering firms. Glumac actively sponsors in-house forums to discuss Revit®, inviting firms of multiple disciplines, such as architectural and structural, to share their input and experiences. Harley Cowan of YGH Architecture expresses the benefit of such collaboration, commenting, "Building Information Modeling is as profound and challenging a change to the building industry as the switch from hand-drafting to CAD. Portland is unusual in that even competing firms band together to solve problems that affect our industry as a whole. Glumac is leading the effort to bring architects and engineers together, and I appreciate being a part of the dialog."   New Glumac Office Locations: Los Angeles and Silicon Valley  Edwin Lee, P.E., LEED®AP, Los Angeles Managing Principal With one box of Code Books and an optimistic outlook, Edwin Lee opened the sixth Glumac office at Los Angeles on July 1st of 2005. His vision: not only to provide excellent mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering, commissioning and LEED® services to clients, but to also focus on Glumac's goal of providing innovative sustainable design that preserves architectural integrity. David Summers joined the office a few months later as Associate Principal, and enhanced the mechanical engineering design capabilities of the office. Lloyd Mariner, P.E., Silicon Valley Managing Director Glumac is pleased to have opened our new Glumac Silicon Valley (GSV) office in Sunnyvale, California. The office is staffed with senior mechanical, electrical and plumbing LEED® accredited design professionals, and is focused on serving clients based in the Silicon Valley who have facilities worldwide. GSV will concentrate on projects that have sophisticated engineering and design needs, and ideally require some level of sustainable design that achieves, or is complimentary to, the ideals of the LEED® Green Building certification movement. Countdown to Greenbuild 2007 Greenbuild, the worlds largest conference dedicated to green building will be in Chicago this year, November 7th through the 9th. Come visit Glumac at booth number 270. We are pleased to participate in this event that will be attended by approximately 18,000 design professionals, and feature speakers and events for everyone to learn more about sustainable design. There will be some information about the advanced energy credits that may be implemented to promote further energy savings for LEED rated projects. For further information visit the Greenbuild website http://www.greenbuildexpo.org/   Career Opportunities Glumac is looking for talented, creative, energetic professionals to participate in our continued success. If you are interested in sustainability and working with other talented people, we want to talk to you. We offer outstanding compensation and benefits. Send your resume to careers@glumac.com today! Contact Us! Contact us at the numbers below or via email at: info@glumac.com Seattle - 206.262.1010 1325 4th Avenue, #1515 Seattle, WA 98101 Portland - 503.227.5280 320 SW Washington Street, #200 Portland, OR 97204 Sacramento - 916.934.5103 910 Glenn Drive Folsom, CA 95630 Las Vegas - 702.990.3686 3960 Howard Hughes Parkway, #500 Las Vegas, NV 89169 San Francisco - 415.398.7667 150 California Street, 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA 94111 Irvine - 949.833.8190 16735 Von Karman Avenue, #250 Irvine, CA 92606 Los Angeles - 213.239.8866 617 West 7th Street, #500 Los Angeles, CA 90017 Silicon Valley - 408.720.8904 525 Del Rey Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94085 We want to keep you up to date on relevant engineering news that may affect the way you design, build and maintain your buildings. We value your privacy. If you choose not to receive future newsletters from us, simply click here to unsubscribe and type "unsubscribe" in the subject line. 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