This year’s technical program at the ASHRAE Annual Meeting in beautiful St. Louis consists of sessions designed to inform industry professionals of advances in technology and practices. Mitch Swann, of MDC Systems, is involved in several of these enriching sessions. How to Predict the Long-Term Success of Your Green Design: The Five Characteristics that Determine
Green Buildings
Swann, ASHRAE DL, Presents Design Build for Green Buildings, Jan. 2016
Design Build for Green Buildings – Integrated Delivery of an Integrated Idea Green design and construction is leading the charge of new design approaches in almost every section of the building industry. The successful execution of a green building project, or more specifically a LEED certified project, entails a more integrated approach throughout both the
Convergence of Design & Construction: Old Wine in New Bottles
There are (at least) two patterns or trends rippling through the design and construction industry and they will leave indelible footprints or a busy superhighway to the place that projects will want to be. One of these trends involves the ‘product’ – the ‘what’ that we build. The other involves the ‘process’ – the ‘how’
Green Buildings: Measure and Verify Performance
One of the big outgrowths of the green building movement is a new focus on actual building performance. This isn’t just the individualized performance of a singular system at a point in time (“the lights come on when you flip the switch – check”), but the overall performance of the whole building over some extended period of time (annual energy consumption per square foot of building). Green buildings have touted their superior energy or resource efficiency and while there have been some success, there have also been some less than tremendous performances by allegedly high performance buildings. As a result – and in this engineer’s opinion, a logical outcome – there has been a movement towards adding a “measurement and verification” (M&V) requirement to the ratings systems. Taking the two ‘’biggest dogs in the park,” the USGBC’s LEED system and the EPA’s Energy Star program, there are two slightly differing frameworks.
Philadelphia’s Green Economy Task Force Features MDC’s Mitch Swann
Mitchell Swann, PE, a principal at MDC Systems®, was featured in Philadelphia’s Green Economy Task Force newsletter, Green Economy Leaders, which is excerpted below.
“I like Philadelphia—good points—bad points. Family is here.” In his clipped way of speaking and without any fanfare, Mitch Swann (pictured here on the left), who grew up in Germantown, lets you know he’s proud to be a Philadelphia native and plans to stick around the ‘hood giving back whenever he can.
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Mitch, who is a Partner with MDC Systems in Paoli—a firm that provides clients with comprehensive assistance in effectively navigating complex engineering and construction projects—traveled to South Philadelphia to share his time and expertise with students who are training for jobs in green construction, energy efficiency and solar installation. “We discussed the LEED program and what that means, why the marketplace is concerned about [sustainable buildings], trends, expectations for the future, ways people can get involved, an overview of green economy types of issues.”
MDC Systems® Engineer Wins Presidential Grant for Best Green Business Idea, Washington, DC
Washington — To Amal Kabalan and her fellow entrepreneurs, the plight of schoolchildren in Guinea presents a fairly basic need that inspired a simple but creative business response. Guineans don’t have much access to energy for light. Kids wear backpacks. Why not attach a solar-powered device to the backpacks, collect energy on the walk to school, and then use the stored energy to power lamps so the children could study at night?
The idea earned the 27-year-old Lebanon native $3,000 in seed money to start the venture with her new business partners — people she had met just days before and who had been selected by Athgo International, a nonprofit organization that sponsored the competition in partnership with the World Bank Speakers Bureau.
