Junto Consulting Group

For anyone confused with "green building" labels, here's an article that breaks it down coherently: http://inhabitat.com/green-building-labels-101-an-inhabita/

Four out of nearly 120 designers that submitted ideas to the "For a Resilient Rockaway" (FAR ROC) design competition have been selected to further develop their proposals. The challenge called for a sustainable, mixed-use, mixed-income community slated for an 80+ acre site in Queens called Arverne East. Ennead Architects, Lateral Office, Seeding Office and White Arkitekter took the top spots and will continue to refine their proposals using lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy to envision a new waterfront development that can withstand future storms. Each of the four finalists will receive $30,000 to take their initial design briefs to the next level. Read more: http://inhabitat.com//four-finalists-selected-in-far-roc-/

World's first passive house office tower certified. In a world first, the RHW.2 office tower in Vienna has achieved the passive house standard. The certificate was presented by Susanne Theumer of the Passive House Institute on the 20th floor of the building with a prime view of the old city. Perched on the bank of the Donaukanal - or Danube canal - the glazed facade of RHW.2 rises almost 80 metres high. The building - which boasts superior indoor air quality and minimal ener...gy consumption - is home to 900 employees of the Austrian Raiffeisen-Holding Group. The building’s energy concept is compelling: energy is provided by a photovoltaic system as well as a combined heat, cooling and power plant. Even the waste heat from the data centre is re-used, with cooling partly coming from the Donaukanal. The decisive factor in achieving the passive house Standard was the radically increased efficiency of the facade, the building component connections, the mechanical systems and even the coffee machine. In combination with optimised shading equipment, the heating and cooling demand was reduced by 80% compared to conventional high-rise buildings. Read more: http://passivehouseplus.ie//world-s-first-passive-house-of

New York City is home to the Roosevelt Island project the first commercially licensed tidal energy resource in the US and the only project in the world where tidal energy turbines have successfully been deployed and operated. This project was recently expanded with a new partnership between Verdant Power and Cornell University, who are building a new applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, to conduct additional research into marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies. For more: http://goo.gl/vIcTL. Pictured is the original East River turbine installation in 2006 funded by the Energy Department to improve the blade design so more energy could be captured from faster currents at a lower cost.

National Wind Technology Center. Marshall, Colorado.

Star Trek anyone? The Muon g-2 (pronounced gee minus two) will use Fermilab's powerful accelerators to explore the interactions of short-lived particles known as muons with a strong magnetic field in "empty" space. Scientists know that even in a vacuum, space is never empty. Instead, it is filled with an invisible sea of virtual particles thatin accordance with the laws of quantum physicspop in and out of existence for incredibly short moments of time. Scientists can test ...the presence and nature of these virtual particles with particle beams traveling in a magnetic field. In this photo, the massive electromagnet is beginning its 3,200-mile journey from the woods of Long Island to the plains near Chicago, where scientists at Fermilab will refill its storage ring with muons created at Fermilab’s Antiproton Source. The 50-foot-diameter ring is made of steel, aluminum and superconducting wire. It will travel down the East Coast, around the tip of Florida, and up the Mississippi River to Fermilab in Illinois. Transporting the 600-ton magnet requires meticulous precision -- just a tilt or a twist of a few degrees could leave the internal wiring irreparably damaged. Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory. http://go.usa.gov/jYXG