Category Archives: Behavioral Change

Saving Energy in the Winter

The behavior of residents and building management has a big impact on energy costs. How does your building encourage energy saving behavior? A recent article in the cooperator shares some tips on how to encourage occupants to be more energy efficient. Click here to read the article. Share your tips below.

Tools For Your Super That Could Save You Money

The April edition of The Cooperator listed some tips on common tools and fixes your building staff should be aware of. These tools and tips could save you from unnecessary expenses. How many of these does your building super do/have?

  • Use a moisture reader (to detect leaks before opening a wall)
  • Portable floodlights with chains (illuminate exterior work areas such as new concrete to prevent vandalism)
  • Wire mesh that can be cut to size for drain covers in parking areas (clean weekly to prevent buildup)
  • Sandbags for low-lying areas that are prone to flooding (put them out before a big rainfall)

The entire article with some additional tips can be found here.

Up in (no) Smoke?

Public Housing Agencies were presented with a proposal in November to end smoking in public housing facilities. Currently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is reviewing comments and requests for additional resources and time to enforce the proposed ban before finalizing the law.

Will this be a trend? Do you want your building to go smoke free? A recent article in the cooperator examines the topic in depth. What do you think?

Click here to read the article in The Cooperator.

Taking Down the trash!

flickr|David Woo

flickr|David Woo

No one will argue, NYC contributes a large amount of garbage to our landfills.

But things are changing.

A recent article in The Cooperator outlines what some building owners and residents are doing to reduce the amount of trash from their buildings. And it works! However, from composting to recycling, these programs rely on building owners and managers to provide residents with the necessary access and tools to be effective.

How much trash does your building generate? Do you think any of these programs would work in your building?

For more ideas, read the full article at the Cooperator.

Architects Challenged to Look at the Bigger Picture

The annual conference of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) was held this year in Chicago June 26‒28.  Shaunacy Ferro, writer for fastcodesign.com, wrote an article about what was discussed on the second day of the conference during a panel discussion moderated by KCRW producer Frances Anderton. Panelists included Majora Carter, an urban revitalization strategist; Ellen Dunham-Jones, chair of the Congress for New Urbanism; Robin Guenther, principal at Perkins+Will; and Rachel Minnery, a disaster resiliency activist.  Frances Anderton initiated the panel discussion asking: “What do we mean by resilience, and how do we actually explain this notion to the public?”

Shaunacy highlighted in her article what the panelists thought were some of the greatest challenges facing today’s cities and suburbs:

Majora Carter, who founded an organization called Sustainable South Bronx in 2001, had an important message for architects: “It’s not just about the building. It is about the context that building is in… How is this going to fit in the larger picture of how a city lives and breathes and loves and works? Those are the things we need you to be saying.”  

Rachel Minnery’s words were directed to our society and necessary cultural and behavioral shift, “Inherently in the U.S., we have our boxes–We have our property lines, we’re individual property owners. We need to shift that from a culture of ‘I’ to a culture of ‘we.'”

Read More.