Building Innovation 2016: New Location Announced
Easier Access to Airport a Major Benefit of Change in Venue
An unexpected change in location for the upcoming Building Innovation 2016: The National Institute of Building Sciences Fourth Annual Conference & Expo, to be held January 11-15, 2016, may be a plus for Conference attendees, especially those coming from out of town.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Institute has relocated the venue of the event from the Marriott Washington Wardman Park in Washington, D.C., to the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Crystal City, located in Arlington, Virginia, directly across the river from downtown Washington, D.C. A major benefit of the new hotel is its location: less than a mile away from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Not only does the new location provide easy access to out-of-town travelers, it allows the Institute to maintain the same dates of the event and the already scheduled format, thereby ensuring that speakers and registered attendees will still be able to participate. The newly selected LEED® Gold-certified venue also addresses a number of concerns that participants raised about the previous venue. The new location has ample daylighting and all of the meetings and events for the Conference will be conveniently located on one floor. Other than the change in venue, the Building Innovation 2016 format will remain the same. Read the full release.
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Still Time to Get Published in the Journal
Submit an Abstract for the June 2016 JNIBS (and Beyond)
The editors of the Journal of the National Institute of Building Sciences (JNIBS) are beginning the process of compiling articles for the June 2016 edition. The June issue will offer a special focus on building information modeling (BIM). Additional feature stories will spotlight acoustics for schools; codes and standards; facility maintenance and operations; and more. Abstracts are due December 15, 2015. Topics scheduled for later 2016 issues are also outlined. Submit an abstract for the issue. Interested in advertising? View the 2016 JNIBS Media Kit.
Historic D.C. High School Now Award-Winning Resilient Campus
Conference Plenary Symposium to Reveal Lessons Learned
Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. Photo by Joseph Romeo.
The Plenary Symposium: Achieving a Resilient Future, to be held Friday, January 15, 2016, 8:30 am – 11:00 am, during Building Innovation 2016, will cover two of the key outcomes expected from the Conference agenda—an examination of what it takes to achieve a resilient future and a vision on how all the information presented throughout the week comes together to achieve high-performance buildings and communities.
Gain valuable insights into what works for achieving resilience during a session on High Performance from Design to Operations: A Discussion with the Dunbar High School Project Team. Founded in 1870 as the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, Dunbar High School, located in Washington, D.C., was the country’s first public high school for African Americans. A new award-winning campus opened in 2013 to replace a 1970’s building that didn’t meet the prestige of its influential alumni. Representatives from numerous disciplines on the project will present lessons learned during the design, construction and operations of this LEED Platinum project.
During the second session of the Plenary Symposium, the Institute’s President Henry L. Green will present Achieving a Resilient Future: A Report from the Cutting Edge to give attendees a recap of the week’s program and present the Institute’s vision on how an industry-wide collaboration can work to successfully achieve high-performance buildings and communities. After a week of exciting presentations and discussions on how the industry is progressing towards a resilient future, President Green will present a vision for achieving high-performance buildings and communities. Through work both inside and outside of the Institute, the industry is making great strides. See how the pieces come together in this exciting close to Building Innovation 2016. Register now.
BSSC Members Tapped to Teach 2015 NEHRP Updates
at National Seismic Conference
Four veteran members of the 2015 Provisions Update Committee (PUC) of the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Building Seismic Safety Council will join forces to explain the significant developments to the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program’s (NEHRP’s) recently completed 2015 NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions for New Buildings and Other Structures as part of the Geotechnical and Structural Engineering Congress 2016, to be held February 14-17, 2016, in Phoenix. Gearing their four-hour short course to practicing structural and geotechnical engineers, the PUC team, consisting of Nicolas Luco, PhD; Charles A. Kircher, PhD, PE, MASCE; Robert E. Bachman, SE; and Robert G. Pekelnicky, SE, will highlight major changes and rationale for: revisions to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ground motions, site-specific seismic design requirements and parameters, design requirements for foundations on liquefiable sites and soil-structure interaction procedures. For more information or to register for the conference, which is a first-time joint venture for the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Geo-Institute (G-I) and its Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), visit the conference website.
NIST Issues Resilience Planning Guide for Communities
To help U.S. communities better withstand and rebound from the shocks of severe weather, earthquakes and other hazards, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently issued the Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems.
The new guide is aimed at community leaders in the public and private sectors. It lays out a practical six-step process that communities can follow to develop resilience plans to help them prepare for hazards, adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from disruptions. Tailored to the particular goals, hazards, needs and resources of individual communities, these plans will help governments, utility service providers and other organizations to set priorities and allocate resources for mitigating risks, maintaining vital services and, if a hazard does strike, building back better. Download the guide.
Sign up Now for December Cybersecurity Workshops
Learn the Techniques to Better Protect Building Control Systems
The National Institute of Building Sciences is sponsoring introductory and advanced Cybersecurity Workshops Wednesday, December 16, and Thursday, December 17, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Institute's headquarters in Washington, D.C. The workshops are designed to help facility professionals learn how to make their buildings more secure and reduce the risks. The Introduction to Cybersecuring Building Control Systems Workshop and the Advanced Cybersecuring Building Control Systems Workshop, both taught by Michael Chipley of The PMC Group LLC, are geared to help architects, engineers, contractors, owners, facility managers, maintenance engineers, physical security specialists, information assurance professionals—essentially anyone involved with implementing cybersecurity in the facility life cycle—to learn the best practice techniques to better protect their facilities. Learn more.
COBie Oversight Moves from FMOC Topical Committee to Alliance Task Group
The Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie) Task Group (TG) or “COBie Task Group” (CTG), formally known as the Computerized Maintenance Management Systems/Computer Aided Facilities Management (CMMS/CAFM) Topical Committee and formally operating as a subcommittee of the Institute’s Facility Maintenance and Operations Committee (FMOC), met November 17 to approve new Operating Guidelines and elect new officers to lead this newly reorganized and expanded task group within the Institute’s buildingSMART alliance®. The impetus for the new reorganization and realignment within the two Institute program areas is to broaden the scope and membership of the CTG to include a diverse group of industry stakeholders with an interest in COBie.
The CTG will function as a task group of the Information Standards Subcommittee of the buildingSMART alliance. Since the Alliance is the steward of the National BIM Standard-United States®, and the ultimate goal of the CTG is the development and incorporation of successive versions of COBie into NBIMS-US™, the Alliance became a more appropriate home for the CTG. CTG activities will include Technical Development – consideration, discussion and debates of revisions to COBie; Outreach and Education – educational presentations to increase awareness and knowledge of COBie; Conformance – development of processes and procedures for verifying conformance to COBie; and Collaboration – recommending alternate United States uses and formats for COBie. Organizations/vendors interested in joining the CTG are encouraged to contact the Chair, Michael Tardif or Institute Program Director Dominique Fernandez.
buildingSMART alliance® to Convene January 12 for Annual Meeting
The buildingSMART alliance has a host of topics to cover in its upcoming Annual Meeting, to be held 1:30 pm – 6:00 pm, Tuesday, January 12, 2016, during Building Innovation 2016: The National Institute of Building Sciences Annual Conference & Expo. The meeting will begin with a discussion of the state of the Alliance, an overview of the recently updated Strategic Plan and a kickoff of 2016 activities. The Alliance Subcommittees, including the Thought Leadership, Information Standards, Proven Practices, Communications, Membership, Industry Liaison and Education Subcommittees, will meet to discuss their annual work plans and longer-term goals for each group, and then update the full membership report during the wrap-up session.
In addition, the leadership will provide a brief summary of the Alliance’s computer-aided design (CAD) and building information modeling (BIM) standards, providing an overview of the recently released National BIM Standard-United States® (NBIMS-US™) Version 3 and United States National CAD Standard® (NCS) Version 6 content, and identifying opportunities for future development initiatives. The BIM Leaders Panel will host a panel discussion of critical industry challenges where the Alliance can contribute solutions. A session on the National BIM Guideline for Owners will summarize the efforts to develop a national guideline to help building owners and their design teams utilize BIM during the building design, construction and operations process and to better support owners’ performance requirements. The meeting will close with a wrap-up, including brief reports from the subcommittees’ planning sessions. View the buildingSMART alliance Annual Meeting agenda. |