WFCR focus on biomass features Dave Damery

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
As featured on WFCR: AMHERST, MA (wfcr) - Who isn't in search of clean, cheap energy? Policy makers, residents and investors around the region are, and they are taking a close look at biomass energy, that is, burning low-grade wood or other plant materials for high-tech electricity generation. There are three large-scale biomass plants proposed for western Massachusetts, in Springfield, Greenfield, and Russell. Together they could provide electricity for as many as 135,000 homes, help the state meet goals for renewable energy, and create jobs. But they could also change the character of the region's woodlands, send numerous trucks through residential neighborhoods and emit toxins into the air. And there is little consensus on just how "renewable" the resource is. These are some of the questions about biomass we'll explore in this half hour of Focus Western New England. Follow this link to listen to the entire recording....
Read More

UMass in 3D on YouTube

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
Google just published a video on the topic "Why do people model for Google Earth?". UMass and Amherst are featured prominently in it. All of the three-dimensional models of the UMass campus buildings were made by students from BMATWT/BCT in NRC, LARP and Architecture at UMass. The models were created as part of Alexander Schreyer's course BMATWT 420 "Advanced topics in CAD". You can watch the video below:...
Read More

UMass Conference Proceedings on Prefabricated Architecture Available

by Peggi Clouston Comment Closed
The proceedings for the 2008 Wood Structures Symposium and Northeast ACSA Conference "Without a Hitch: New Directions in Prefabricated Architecture" are available on the web. You can access and download individual papers on the UMass ScholarWorks site: Scholarworks - 2008 Wood Structures Symposium Or, if you would like to download or print the entire book, you may do so through the Lulu publishing website: Lulu - Without a Hitch Procedings...
Read More

Simi Hoque and YouthBuild Holyoke are in the news

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
One of our faculty members, Simi Hoque, is on the news with her project with YouthBuild in Holyoke. This project provides green jobs training to low-income youth in energy efficiency, auditing and weatherization. AMHERST, Mass. A dozen young people now working toward their general educational development (GED) certificates in Holyoke are also gaining significant job skills for the green, energy-efficiency economy, thanks to community outreach efforts of the green building program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in collaboration with nonprofits YouthBuild-Holyoke and the Center for Ecological Technology (CET), Northampton. For the full press release, follow this link: http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/newsreleases/articles/87963.php...
Read More

BCT Students Model UMass for Google Earth

by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed
Students: Various from BMATWT 497C plus students from Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning (LARP) as well as Architecture+Design (A+D) Faculty Sponsor: Alexander Schreyer Project Type: Class & extracurricular Year: 2007-2010 A group of students from the UMass programs of Building Materials and Wood Technology (BMATWT), Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning (LARP) as well as Architecture+Design (A+D) under the supervision of Alexander Schreyer, Faculty member in Building Materials and Wood Technology and Architecture+Design, have created a 3-dimensional model of almost all buildings on the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts. In total, approximately 100 buildings were modeled in Google SketchUp, a freely available 3-dimensional CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software and then exported to Google Earth, a free GIS-based (Geographic Information System) terrain-viewer. The campus buildings will be available in Google Earth through the “3D Buildings” layer later this summer. This 3D-model can be used for visualization of new campus planning, visitor orientation, “dorm previews” for incoming students and much more.The process of creating the digital models involved first the drawing of...
Read More