Outreach / Service Archives | Page 4 of 14 | Building and Construction Technology

Spring 2018 BCT Lecture Series

January 30, 2018March 12, 2018 by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed

For spring 2018 we have lined up another semester of interesting, publicly available, free lectures on Building and Construction Technology topics in the John W. Olver Design Building. See below for details. Also note that the lectures are AIA CES approved (1 HSW, see <TBD soon> for details). You can view these events and import them to your calendar at the link below as well as on our Facebook page. https://www.umass.edu/bct/about-us/calendar/...

UMGBC’s Report from 2018 Greenbuild

January 26, 2018 by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed

Students from UMass' USGBC Student Chapter attended Greenbuild last November. Below is their report from this amazing event: NOV. 8-10 — Twenty-four fortunate students of University of Massachusetts, Amherst were given the opportunity to attend the International Greenbuild conference through our UMass Green Building Council (UMGBC) student chapter. The conference took place in Boston, MA at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, and students volunteered for two shifts over the span of the 3-day conference - earning a free 3-day conference pass. Our roles as volunteers was cooperating with attendees to reach our waste diversion goal of 91% in hopes of surpassing the Greenbuild LA’s waste diversion rate. The USGBC Boston chapter coordinated our efforts, and their larger goal for the conference was to implement waste diversion practices that would allow future conferences to achieve high waste diversion rates as well. “The USGBC coordinators were clearly passionate about their roles in waste diversion, and you couldn’t help but feel that the 91% goal...

Fall 2017 BCT Lecture Series

September 15, 2017March 12, 2018 by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed

This fall, we have lined up another semester of interesting, publicly available, free lectures. See below for details. Also note that the lectures are AIA CES approved (1 HSW, see here for details). You can find these events and import them to your calendar here: https://www.umass.edu/bct/about-us/calendar/action~month/request_format~html/tag_ids~52/...

Can College Kids Help Mass. Towns Go Green?

February 17, 2017March 25, 2017 by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed

BCT's extension faculty member Ben Weil and his "Clean Energy Corps" students (from the BCT 597R course) were recently in the news with their efforts to make buildings more sustainable for Massachusetts' municipalities: Let Us Introduce the UMass Clean Energy Corps Ask town officials what they think in Ware. Ask them in Natick, and in Greenfield. Palmer too. These are some of the towns where the new UMass Clean Energy Corps has touched down in the few months since its founding. The Corps is a student-centered initiative focused on helping communities across the Commonwealth develop and meet their clean energy goals. It was created by UMass Clean Energy Extension, a research and outreach program that in its first two years of life has been helping transform communities and businesses into cleaner, more efficient places to live, work, and grow into the future. UMass Clean Energy Extension is a program of UMass Extension (or as it was once known, Cooperative Extension), which, for over a hundred...

UMass Amherst Students Build Timber Grid Shell as Pop-up Exhibition on Fine Arts Center Plaza

May 5, 2016March 12, 2018 by Alexander Schreyer Comment Closed

After a lot of work, the timber gridshell on the Fine Arts Center plaza is now finally up and open to the public. This multidisciplinary design-build project, led by BCT faculty Peggi Clouston and supported by BCT adjunct faculty John Fabel (and many others), involved many students from across UMass. You can find more information in the official press release (below) and on the accompanying website: AMHERST, Mass. – A massive and intricate wooden dome temporarily adorning the plaza of the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was engineered and constructed by UMass students over two semesters as part of a wood design studio class. Known in technical circles as a timber grid shell, the structure is the end product of a course taught by Peggi Clouston, associate professor in the building and construction technology program at the university. Thirty feet in diameter, the 3,500-pound shell rises to 11 feet at the center. The 52 longest laths in the...