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Sustainable cities & communities

Mexico City – Palacio Nacional. Mural by Diego Rivera showing the life in Aztec times, i.e., the city of Tenochtitlan

The United States Technical Advisory Group (US-TAG), with oversight by the American National Standards Institute and project administration by NFPA International, is participating in the development of an International Organization for Standardization consensus document that will shape policy development for smart cities (sustainable cities and communities).   The ISO Global Secretariat is ANSI’s French counterpart Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR) as shown in the map below.

As cities-within-cities, major international research universities are stakeholders in these discussions because of the town-gown infrastructure interface in the emergent #SmartCampus.  We have been participants in this project since 2014:

Click here for the Business Plan.

Consensus documents emerging from ISO/TC 268 tend to be large, fast-moving and highly interdependent.  Drafts for US stakeholder comment and balloting arrive frequently as new workgroups are spawned from the core ISO TC/268 committees.

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE INFORMATION

Access to “commentable” draft documents is limited to US TAG members however ANSI has arranged for restrictions to be lifted for circulation among US stakeholders.  Those who would like to participate should communicate directly with Robert Solomon (rsolomon@nfpa.org) and/or Linda MacKay (lmackay@nfpa.org) at NFPA International, the US TAG Administrator for this project.

We are happy to review these documents any day at 11 AM Eastern time.  Alternatively, you may click into our next International Standards teleconference; the next shown on our CALENDAR.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

3 February 2020:

ISO/FDIS 37160 Smart Community Infrastructure – Electric Power Infrastructure – Measurement Methods for the Quality of Thermal Power Infrastructure and Requirements for Plant Operations and Management.   Comments due by February 17th

13 January 2020 Update:

No exposure drafts open for comment at this time.

26 December 2019 Update:

ISO/FDIS 37162 Smart Community Infrastructures – Smart Transportation for Newly Developing Areas.  Comments due 9 January 2020

4 December 2019 Update:

ISO/DIS 37165 Smart Community Infrastructures – Guidance on Smart Transportation by Non-cash Payment for Fare/Fees in Transportation and its Related or Additional Services.  Comments due 18 December 2019

WG4 TR— Data exchange and sharing for community infrastructure based on Geoinformation.  Comments due 18 December 2019

WG4 TR Smart Community Infrastructures Report of Pilot Project on the Application of SC1 Deliverables.  Comments due 18 December 2019

4 November 2019 Update:

ISO/NP 37169 Smart Community Infrastructures –Smart Transportation by Run-Through Train/Bus Operation in/between Cities.  Comments due November 20th

ISO/NP 37168 Smart Community Infrastructures – Guidance on Smart Transportation for Autonomous Shuttle Services Using Connected Autonomous Electric Vehicles (eCAVs).  Comments due November 20th

ISO/FDIS 37155 Framework for Integration and Operation of Smart Community Infrastructures – Recommendations for Considering Opportunities and Challenges from Interactions in Smart Community Infrastructures from Relevant Aspects through the Life Cycle.  Comments due November 20th

7 October 2019 Update:

ISO/FDIS 37123 Sustainable Cities and Communities – Indicators for Resilient Cities.  Comments due October 29th

25 September 2019 Update:

ISO/NP 24609 Smart Community Infrastructures – Data and Framework of Digital Technology Apply in Smart City Infrastructure Governance.  Comments due October 3rd

10 September 2019 Update:

ISO/FDIS 37105 Sustainable Cities and Communities – Descriptive Framework for Cities and Communities.  Comments due September 19th

2 August 2019 Update:

ISO/CD 37164 Smart community infrastructures — Smart transportation using fuel cell light rail transportation.  Comments due August 16th

ISO/DIS 37163 Smart Community Infrastructures – Guidance on Smart Transportation for Parking Lot Allocation in Cities.  Comments due August 19th

1 August 2019 Update:

ISO/NP 37167 Smart Community Infrastructures — Smart Transportation for Energy Saving by Intentionally Slowly Driving.  Comments due August 12th

July 28, 2019 Update:

ISO/CD 37155-2 Framework for Integration and Operation of Smart Community Infrastructures- Part 2: Holistic Approach and the Strategy for Development, Operation and Maintenance of Smart Community Infrastructures.  Comments due August 1st.

June 25, 2019 Update:

 ISO / DIS 37160 Smart Community Infrastructure – Measurement Methods for Quality of Thermal Power Station Infrastructure and Requirements for Plant Operations and Management.   Comments due July 12th

June 5, 2019 Update:

No commentable documents at this time.

May 22, 2019 Update:

ISO/DIS 37161 Smart Community Infrastructures – Guidance on Smart Transportation for Energy Saving in Transportation Services in Cities.  Comments due June 5th

May 16, 2019 Update:

No commentable documents at this time.   We walk through all transportation-related standards action on May 16th.

April 29, 2019 Update:

ISO NP 37166 New Work Item Proposed:  Smart Community Infrastructures.  Specification of Multi-Source Urban Data Integration for Smart City Planning.  Comments due May 14th

March 14, 2019 Update:

ISO/FDIS 37122 Sustainable Cities and Communities – Indicators for Smart Cities | Comments due April 2nd.

February 19, 2019 Update:

ISO/FDIS 37104 Sustainable Cities and Communities – Transforming Our Cities – Guidance for Practical Local Implementation of ISO 37101 | Comments due February 15th

ISO NP 23944 (N330) New Work Item Proposed:  Smart Community Infrastructures – Guidance on smart Transportation by Non-Cash payment for Fare/Fees in Transportation and its Related or Additional Services | Comments due February 15th

Ballot for ISO NP 23943 (N328) New Work Item Proposed:  Smart Community Infrastructures – Smart Transportation using Fuel Cell LRT | Comments due February 15th

January 24, 2019 Update:

ISO/DIS 37123 Sustainable cities and communities — Indicators for resilient cities.  Ballots due February 8th

Some amount of the commentable material cannot be distributed and must be viewed online (a chronic problem).  Click in to any of our daily 11 AM EST teleconferences if you would like to read and mark up with comments.

December 18, 2018 Update:

No commentable documents at this time

November 1, 2018 Update:

ISO / DIS 37155 Framework for Integration and Operation of Smart Community Infrastructures – Part 1: Opportunities and Challenges from Interactions in Smart Community Infrastructures from all Aspects through the Life Cycle.

* Owing to copyright restrictions you must send an email to bella@standardsmichigan.com to access to the documents

https://standardsmichigan.com/iso-267-access-to-documents-open-to-public-review/

  Comments are due November 19th

October 1, 2018 Update:

Comments due October 5th:

14-101 ISO 268 Item ISO IEC 17021 Public Review Draft

September 18, 2018 Update:

Comments are due September 24th on the documents linked below:

14-101 ISO WD TS 37107 SEPT 2018 Sustainable Cities

14-101 ISO CD 37160 SEPT 2018 Sustainable Cities

September 16, 2018 Update:

The US TAG convened at NFPA Headquarters last this week.   Since some of the material is copyright protected, we welcome education facility professionals to click in any day at 11 AM to review the commenting opportunities open to US stakeholders generally, and education industry professionals specifically.

Draft document now open for public review: Smart community infrastructures — Guidance on smart transportation for allocation of parking lots in cities. (ISO Stage 20.20) Comments are due at NFPA on September 13th

US TAG meets at NFPA Headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts September 12 and 13.   Mike Anthony will be in attendance.

August 2018 Update:

Draft document now open for public review: Sustainable development in communities — Indicators for Smart Cities.  Comments are due at NFPA on August 27th.

Draft document now open for public review: Guidelines on Data Exchange and Sharing for Smart Community Infrastructures.  Comments are due at NFPA on August 24th 

One draft document is now open for public review:   Smart community infrastructures — Smart transportation for rapid transit in/between large city zones and the surrounding areas (ISO/DIS 37159).   Comments are due at NFPA on August 7th. 

July 2018 Update:

No new business items received from ISO Genève.  US TAG will meet in at NFPA headquarters, September 12-13, 2018

June 2018 Update:

No new business items received from ISO Genève.  The US TAG is planning a September on-site meeting at NFPA Headquarters in Boston.

May 2018 Update:

Balloting was completed by the US TAG on proposed ISO/FDIS 37120 Sustainable Development in Communities – Indicators for City Services and Quality of Life

April 2018 Update:

At the 2017 Paris meeting of TC/268, the UK suggested that it would be helpful to develop an overall maturity model for cities, drawing on the framework set out by SC1 in ISO/DIS 37153. The TC agreed, and WG4 was asked to work up proposals.

At its Berlin meeting in May, WG4 made good progress and recommended a way forward. But in plenary discussion with other working groups, there was concern that WG4 was moving too quickly and on too narrowly‐focused a basis

The purpose of a recent release by ISO TC/268 — an outline of city “maturity models” — is to respond to those concerns, proposing a broader framework for future work in this area across TC/268

ISO TC 268 City Maturity Model Presentation

An explanation of the broad contours of parent standard — with the Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR Group) as the Secretariat — is described in the videoclip below:

Issue: [14-101] and [18-5]

Category: #SmartCampus, Informatics, Administration & Management

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Jack Janveja, John Kaczor, Richard Robben

LEARN MORE:

NIST: Developing a consensus Framework for Smart City Architectures

ANSI Coverage of European Standards Action

*  Permission is granted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to electronically reproduce this draft International Standard for purpose of review and comment related to the preparation of the U.S. position, provided this notice is included.  All other rights are reserved.

College & University Libraries

Artist Unknown / Image Source: Bilkent Üniversitesi Türkiye

 

 

“A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.”

— Shelby Foote

 

The founding of many educational institutions throughout the world was marked with the building of a place of worship (LEARN MORE: See College & University Chapels).   After the church the library was the second building.  It seems likely that after the library the “Media Center” will emerge as the replacement facility category (occupancy classification) in building codes and standards.   It will be difficult letting go of the memories and the ambiance of these places and spaces.  Who does not have a favorite place in a favorite library?

The original University of Michigan advocacy enterprise presented structural engineering technical committees of the American Society of Civil Engineers with proposals to roll back the live loading criteria for “occupancies formerly known as libraries” — because stacks of books and paper filing cabinets were being replaced with laptop computers.  Not only that, stacks of actual physical books in legacy libraries were being relocated off-site to slab-on-grade book warehouses leaving the space to be renovated as study areas or administrative offices.

Those proposals for Table 1607 of the International Building were rejected for lack of technical substantiation.  Fair enough.  Structural engineering is a fearsome art and you do not want to push too hard on the instincts of structural design professionals even though their risk-aversion instinct is raising cost for new media centers that are mis-characterized as “libraries”.  Most standards developing committees are permitted to set their own criteria for technical substantiation.  After the desire and obligation to design for public safety it is naive to discount their concern for the cost of professional liability insurance, however.  There are times when you are willing to pay for another power of ten safety factor.

The International Building Code Code is deep into its 2021 revision and it appears that some correlation action with ASCE structural engineering codes might have occurred.  Rather than risk inaccuracy, we will archive the technical details to the post linked at the bottom of this page.  It is often necessary to do this when codes and standards relevant to a given education facility develop out of step with one another.

We will continue following other library-related concepts are listed (very) briefly below:

  • Book shelf depth specifications
  • Lighting power densities, more occupancy sensors and daylight responsive controls
  • Inclusion of libraries in the conditions under which education facilities are used as community storm shelters.
  • Metadata (CLICK HERE)

Operating experience, use pattern anecdotes, war stories and such are always gratefully received any day during our daily open-door teleconferences 11 AM Eastern time; however direct participation in the ICC Code Development Process should always be a first choice.  CLICK HERE to get started.

The image criteria of our WordPress theme does not permit many images of college and university libraries to be shown fully dimensioned on sliders or widget galleries.  We reproduce a few of the outsized images here and leave the complexities of financing, designing, building and maintaining of them in a safe and sustainable manner for another day.   If you need specific information please refer to the links at the bottom on this, very long, page.

 Click on any image for image credit and other information

“Bibliotheque_Sainte-Genevieve” | University of Paris, et al

Johns Hopkins University

Library at Thorildsplans Gymnasium (Thorildsplan upper secondary school) | Stockholm, Sweden

Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem

George H.W. Bush Library | Texas A&M University

Bilkent Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi / Türkiye

St. John’s College | University of Cambridge

Tama Art University Library | 多摩美術大学

University of San Diego

Delft University of Technology Library

University of Notre Dame

University of Utrecht

University of Ottawa

University of Derby

Akita International University | Nakajima Library

Dominican University

Erasmus University

The Masters University

The Ohio State University

University of Washington

Vilnius University Library

Biblioteca Centrală a Universității Politehnica Timișoara | Romania

University of Southern California

Københavns Universitet

Roskilde Universitet

Bowling Green State University

Universität Wien

新加坡管理大学 | Singapore Management University

上海大学 | Shanghai University Library

Universidade de Coimbra

University of Michigan Law School

More coming.

Archive / Library Structural Engineering

Codes, Standards, Guidelines, Recommended Practice and Standards of Care for Libraries & Media Centers

Libraries / §303 Assembly Group

Library of Alexandria

The International Building Code (IBC) defines Assembly Group A as an occupancy that includes, among others, the use of a building or structure, or a portion thereof, for the gathering of persons for purposes such as civic, social or religious functions; recreation, food or drink consumption or awaiting transportation.  Today we are interested in standards action, if any, in libraries (or spaces formerly known as “libraries”) that are the beating heart of any educational enterprise.  When they are used as community storm shelters, things become a little more complicated.

You may access the free, public-use version of the current 2018 IBC at the link below:

Section 303 Assembly Group A

In the transcript of technical committee action in the ICC Group B tranche of consensus products we find noteworthy prospective changes the IBC that apply to libraries.   Search on the term “library” or “libraries” in the link below:

2019 GROUP B PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE I-CODES ALBUQUERQUE COMMITTEE ACTION HEARINGS

2019 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ACTION HEARINGS ON THE 2018 EDITIONS OF THE GROUP B INTERNATIONAL CODES

The original University of Michigan advocacy enterprise began raising questions — and writing proposals — regarding the structural live load requirements for libraries in previous revision cycles of both the ICC and ASCE SEI suite because use and terminology and occupancy classification for libraries —  morphing into more lightly loaded “media centers” — were ambiguous, possibly leading to over-design.

Technical committees, with experts in both the ICC and ASCE SEI suite, seems to have cleared up the ambiguities.  Additionally, more specifics about the use of libraries as storm shelters and downward adjustment in lighting load were installed.

This is exactly why consensus product developers need to have the freedom, and economic incentive, to continue revising their codes and standards.   The ICC, ASCE-SEI and ASHRAE consensus products are each developed at different intervals and 3 to 5 year cycles; owing much to the challenges presented by building technologies themselves, as well as the challenge of organizing informed technical experts.

The Group B developmental cycle ended with the December 6th closing of its Online Government Consensus Vote.   Ahead of the formal, market release of the Group B products the links provided to the 2018 IBC remain the law of the land at the moment; contingent on any state exceptions.

We do a status check on the I-Codes every month and drill into specifics relevant to the education facility industry.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

 

 

Cultural Resource Properties

 

 

Books cannot be killed by fire.  People die, but books never die

No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever

— Franklin Roosevelt

 

A significant part of the education industry builds and maintains cultural resource properties whose safety and sustainability objectives are informed by local adaptations of consensus products developed by the International Code Council (ICC) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).   We need to understand the ICC and NFPA product suites as a pair.   For most real assets in the education industry  they move “roughly” in tandem even though they are produced by different organizations for a different set of customers.  Sometimes the out-of-step condition between NFPA and ICC permits subject matter experts on technical committees to make the best possible decisions regarding the safety and sustainability agenda of the interest group they represent; but not always.

Occupancy classification is always a first consideration and both the NFPA and the ICC have a claim to some part of this occupancy concept*.   In the ICC suite we find code requirements for many “cultural places of worship” tracking in the following sections of the International Building Code (IBC):

Section 303 Assembly Group A-3 / Section 305 Educational Group E / Section 308 Institutional Group I

Note that Sections 305 and 308 recognize the accessory and multi-functional nature of occupancy types in the education industry – i.e child care and adult care function can marge and be an accessory to a place of worship.  The general rule in the IBC is that accessory religious educational rooms and religious auditoriums with occupant loads of less than 100 per room or space are not considered separate occupancies.    Other standards developers are guided by this rule.

We have an opportunity to revisit safety and sustainability concepts in the next revision of NFPA 909 Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties – Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship.  From the document prospectus:

• This code describes principles and practices of protection for cultural resource properties (including, but not limited to, museums, libraries, and places of worship), their contents, and collections, against conditions or physical situations with the potential to cause damage or loss.

• This code covers ongoing operations and rehabilitation and acknowledges the need to preserve culturally significant and character-defining building features and sensitive, often irreplaceable, collections and to provide continuity of operations.

• Principles and practices for life safety in cultural resource properties are outside the scope of this code. Where this code includes provisions for maintaining means of egress and controlling occupant load, it is to facilitate the evacuation of items of cultural significance, allow access for damage limitation teams in an emergency, and prevent damage to collections through overcrowding or as an unintended consequence of an emergency evacuation.

• Library and museum collections that are privately owned and not open to the public shall not be required to meet the requirements of this code.

Since we are hard upon a public participation deadline for an NFPA product let us have a look at the current (2017) version of NFPA 909 Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties – Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship.  Chapter 14 covers “Museums, Libraries and their Collections”.   Chapter 15 covers “Places of Worship”

Free Access Edition NFPA 909

Also, let us also pick through proposals for the 2021 Edition with the technical committee transcripts linked below:

Public Input Report

We find committee response (accepted in principle) to Standards Michigan proposal to articulate conditions in which places of worship and libraries are used as community disaster relief support facilities.  Circling back to the ICC suite we find elevated interest in hardening community owned facilities to tornadoes, hurricane and floods and other storm related risk in the structural engineering chapters of the International Building Code.

The Second Draft Report will be posted on or before July 30th.  Comments (NITMAM) are due August 27th.

Leadership and facility managers for enterprises of this type are encouraged to contribute obtain their own (free) NFPA public participation account in order to directly participate in the 2021 revision of NFPA 909 by logging in here: https://www.nfpa.org/login.   This document is also a standing item on our monthly Fire Protection & Security teleconference.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue: [15-258]

Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier

*See NFPA 101 Life Safety Code

 

LEARN MORE:

Guidelines for the Security of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Other Special Collections, Association of College & Research Libraries, American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2795.

“A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections,” Malaro, Marie, second edition 1998

“Risk and Insurance Management Manual for Libraries,” Mary Breighner and William Payton, edited by Jeanne Drewes, ALA 2005 ISBN 0-8389-8325-1.

Wisconsin Historic Building Code, Madison, WI:Wisconsin Administrative Code.

Open for Comment

The bookwheel was an early attempt to solve the problem of managing increasingly numerous printed works, which were typically large and heavy. It has been called one of the earliest “information retrieval” devices. CLICK ON IMAGE

Our algorithm slices horizontally through the “silos” of the better part of one thousand consensus products developed by accredited and open source standards developers every day.  About $300 billion US education facility industry spend is in play.

We understand that by doing so we risk “stepping on the toes” of several hundred organizations that have been running the silos for decades.   It is not our intent to disrupt their business model; but to fill a canyon-like gap in the global standards system by offering curated content to the user-interest (typically the source of incumbent stakeholder revenue stream) in a manner that enlightens a path toward increased safety and reduced cost.   One of the reasons we host daily “open door” teleconferences is that much of the content we curate is politically, economically and time sensitive.   Much of the content we curate moves so fast there is scant time to nail it in place in a document or blog post.

Links to proposed changes to them with deadlines that can practically be met within the next 90 days are grouped according to topics on the agenda of our daily teleconferences.  See our CALENDAR

Keep in mind that even though a commenting opportunity deadline has past, every ANSI-accredited standards developer welcomes public input from any interest category at any time.   Two good things can happen:

a) The member of the committee, sometimes even the leader of the committee, can place the late public comment on the forthcoming committee meeting agenda as a late item worthy of discussion and use.

b) The late public comment is automatically entered as new public input at the front end of the following revision cycle.  That could be 3 years or 5 years but the idea itself is generally not lost.

For this reason, based upon our 20+ year experience with most accredited standards developers; we will maintain an item on this scan a few days beyond the deadline.  Note that in the links below; some consensus products fall into more than one category.

 

COMMENTING OPPORTUNITIES TEND TO BE LIGHT

DURING JANUARY/FEBRUARY OF  EVERY YEAR 

 

Security

Standard for the Installation, Maintenance, and Use of Emergency Services Communications Systems

Active Shooter & Hostile Event Response Program

Planning & Architectural

Sustainable cities & communities

Life Safety for Dormitories, Classrooms & Assembly

Information & Communications Technology

 

Interconnection of information technology equipment

Effective IoT Communication to Protect 3GPP Networks

Automated infrastructure management systems

 

Electrical Power & Telecommunications

Electrical Safety in the Workplace

Automated infrastructure management systems

National Electrical Safety Code

Marina & Boatyard Electrical Safety

 

Mechanical & Plumbing

High-Performance Green Buildings

Energy Standard for Buildings

Steam Traps

Rules for Construction of Pressure Vessels

Energy

Energy Efficiency Improvements

 

Occupational Safety & Security/Laboratory Safety & Sustainability/Risk Management

Emergency Shower & Eyewash Testing

(Lockout/Tagout) for Construction and Demolition Operations

Active Shooter & Hostile Event Response Program

Drone Safety

Sports & Recreation

No draft standards with comment deadlines within the next 90 days have been found by our algorithm at this time.  To hold position we post a link to the ASTM F08 committee which, like other ASTM committees, depends heavily on face-to-face meetings.

Sports Equipment, Playing Surfaces & Facilities

 

Fire Safety

Life Safety for Dormitories, Classrooms & Assembly

Fire Code

 

Transportation & Parking

Emerging Transportation Technology

Personal e-Transporters

Arts & Entertainment

Audio Standards

Healthcare

Medical Practice Electrical equipment

Healthcare Facilities Code

 

Food

Federal Food Code

3-A Sanitary

ASABE

IAPMO

ISO

NSF International

 

 

Standards Florida

“Red Shirt, Homosassa Florida” (1904) / Winslow Homer

As we explain in our ABOUT, we are continuing the development of the cadre of “code writers and vote-getters” begun at the University of Michigan in 1993.  We are now drilling down into state and local adaptations of nationally developed codes and standards that are incorporated by reference into public safety and sustainability legislation.

This post is a “test pancake” for generating discussion, and for developing a way forward for crafting state exceptions to nationally developed codes and standards.  Every state will have to be managed according to its history, culture, governance regime, asset-base and network of expertise.

Standards Michigan will remain the “free” home site but state-specific sites such as Standards Florida will be accessible to user-interest code-writers and vote-getters.   Please send bella@standardsmichigan.com a request to join one of our mailing lists appropriate to your interest for #SmartCampus standards action in the State of Florida.

LEARN MORE:

Standards Florida Workspace

Electronic Municipal Market Access / Florida

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $35,000,000

THE UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, INC. ATHLETIC PROGRAM REVENUE BONDS | $10,000,000

FLORIDA KEYS COLLEGE CAMPUS FOUNDATION | $8,305,000

 

High-Performance Green Buildings

“Hudson River Waterfront” | Colin Campbell Cooper (1913)

With about one hundred technical committees administered by accredited standards developers globally, the stream of standards action in the building energy conservation space is one of the fastest-moving; and a space that demonstrates remarkable adaption.  As the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States the education facility industry is on the receiving end of prescriptive and performance requirements produced by these technical committees that are enforced by state agencies and/or sustainability consortia.  It is also the least involved in advancing its own safety and sustainability agenda as a user-interest; thus the raison d’être of Standards Michigan (See ABOUT).

There is a lot of market-making by incumbent interests with a footprint in the US education industry’s green agenda.  We do our best to keep pace.

We find another batch of  redlines for  ASHRAE/ICC/USGBC/IES Standard 189.1 Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings now open for public review at the link below:

Public Review Draft Standards / Online Comment Database

 

Comments deadlines run from March 15 through March 30th.  

We are happy to discuss responses to the proposed changes in any standards suite any day at 11 AM Eastern time.  We also sweep through the rapidly expanding constellation of consensus products applicable to the energy space at least twice per month during our Mechanical Engineering and Energy breakout teleconferences.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meetings; open to everyone.

 

Issue: [13-162, et. al]

Category: Mechanical, Electrical, Energy

Colleagues:  Mike Anthony, Richard Robben, Larry Spielvogel

ARCHIVE / ASHRAE 189.1

 

National Electrical Safety Code

“Malakoff” | Henri Rousseau (1898)

We collaborate closely with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee (IEEE E&H) to negotiate the standard of care for power security on the emergent #SmartCampus since many campus power systems are larger than publicly regulated utilities.  Even when they are smaller, the guidance in building the premise wiring system — whether the premise is within a building, outside the building (in which the entire geography of the campus footprint is the premise), is inspired by IEEE Standards Association administrated technical committees.

Northeast Community College | Norfolk, Nebraska

Several proposals recommending improvements to the 2017 National Electrical Safety Code (NESC) were submitted to the IEEE subcommittees drafting the 2022 revision of the NESC.   They are fairly technical and subtle in their implications for the advancement of safety and sustainability in campus power distribution systems.   Some of the proposals deal with coordination with the National Electrical Code — which is now deep in its 2020 revision cycle.

Keep in mind that that NESC is revised every 5 years at the moment.  The next steps in the 2022 NESC development will span across most of the next 18 months as the various subcommittees meet to prepare written responses to public input.  A preprint of those proposals will be posted no later than July 1, 2019.  This opens the comment period, by interested parties, on the submitted change proposals and the subcommittee recommendations.   Our provisional workspace is linked below:

IEEE 2022 NESC Workspace

Comments are due March 1, 2020. 

The subcommittee that coordinates standards action between the IEEE and NFPA suite of technical standards — IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 18 — will also be hosting worksessions in the coming months.   While those work sessions are generally closed to the public, some of the concepts will be open for discussion during any of the IEEE E&H online committee meetings which meets 4 times monthly in Europe and the Americas.  The next online meeting is shown on the top menu of the IEEE E&H website:

IEEE E&H Committee

Business unit leaders, facility managers and electrical engineers working in the education facilities industry may be interested in the campus power system reliability database.   Forced outages in on large research campuses, for example, can have enterprise interruption cost of $100,000 to $1,000,000 per minute.    The database discriminates between forced outages attributed to public utility interruptions and forced outages attributed to the university-owned power system.   The E&H committee will convey some of the discipline applied by the IEEE 1366 technical committee into its study of campus power systems; many of which are larger than publicly owned or cooperative utilities.

 

Issue: [16-67]

Contact: Mike Anthony, Robert G. Arno, Lorne Clark, Nehad El-Sharif, Jim Harvey, Kane Howard, Joe Weber, Guiseppe Parise, Jim Murphy

Category: Electrical, Energy Conservation & Management, Occupational Safety

ARCHIVE: University of Michigan Advocacy in the NESC 2007 – 2017

LEARN MORE:

P1366 – Guide for Electric Power Distribution Reliability Indices 

University Design Guidelines that reference the National Electrical Safety Code

Ethereum ERC-20

Much of the safety and sustainability “culture” in the education facility industry continues to be informed by fire safety and energy professionals who are funded by proven budgets.   However, as the Internet of Things transformation continues the build out of synaptic connections in every dimension of the #SmartCampus we find growing interest in distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The claim is that DLT is the Next Big Thing for the Internet.

As if our work in the physical spaces within and between buildings did not require enough time and resources, real asset managers now have to be mindful of DLT will roll out on #SmartCampus.  The rollout takes us beyond the legacy notion of artificial intelligence, beyond the cultural zietgeist of bitoin and onto the other standardization systems where Ethereum — an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform – – is evolving more or less continuously.

One of Ethereum’s most significant tokens — ERC-20 — has emerged as the technical standard used for all smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain for token implementation.  The landing page for ERC-20 standardization activity is linked below:

As we have explained elsewhere on this site* open source standardization does not happen according to due processes accredited by ANSI and other national standardization bodies administered by the Geneva-based sister organizations ISO, IEC and ITU.

You may submit a proposal for improvement or comment upon the suggestions made by others at any time.  That is how open-source consortia standards work.

We refer blockchain applications to the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which has strong ties to the IEEE Blockchain Initiative.  The internet is, after all, an electrotechnology.  We also host one Blockchain teleconference per month.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting, open to everyone.

Issue: [Various]

Category: Blockchain, Information and Communication Technology, Finance, Management

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer

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Readings / What Do University Endowment Managers Worry About?

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What Do University Endowment Managers Worry About?
An Analysis of Alternative Asset Investments and Background Income

Harvey S. Rosen, Princeton University
Alexander J.W. Sappington, Sappington & Associates
Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies
Working Paper No. 244, June 2015

Abstract. This paper examines whether university endowment managers think only in terms of the assets they manage, or also take into account background income, the other flows of income to the university. Specifically, we test whether the level and variability of a university’s background income (e.g., from tuition and government grants) affect its endowment’s allocations to so-called alternative assets such as hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital. We find that both the probability of investing in alternative assets and the proportion of the portfolio invested in such assets increase with expected background income and decrease with its variability

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