ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials) is a globally recognized organization that develops and publishes technical standards for a wide range of products, systems, and services. These standards are used by manufacturers, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders to ensure that products and services are safe, reliable, and of high quality.
In the field of measurement science, ASTM plays an important role in developing standards and guidelines for measurement techniques and practices. These standards cover a wide range of topics related to measurement science, including the calibration of instruments, the characterization of measurement systems, and the validation of measurement results. They are used by researchers, engineers, and other professionals in academia, industry, and government to ensure that measurements are accurate, precise, and reliable.
ASTM standards for measurement science are developed through a process that involves input from experts in the field, including researchers, industry professionals, and regulatory bodies. These standards are updated regularly to reflect advances in measurement science and technology, as well as changes in industry and regulatory requirements. This is a far better way to discover and promulgate leading practice. In fact, there are regulations intended to restrain the outsized influence of vertical incumbents in legislative precincts where market-making happens.
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At the moment all titles in this catalog seem to be stabilized although a great deal of economic activity in the commercial real estate market involves adjustment to the circumstances of the pandemic. Largely because a sizeable portion of square footage in every school district, college, university and university-affiliated healthcare research and clinical delivery system derives at least part of its funding from governments at all levels there are workgroups devoted to measuring square footage and documenting its use. For example:
Getting square-footage right is essential for securing an organization’s sustainability and “green” claims for example. The links in previous posts provide for information about future public consultations.
We maintain the BOMA catalog on the agenda of our Space Planning, Hammurabi and Architectural colloquia, hosted 6 to 8 times annually. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting, open to everyone.
We drill into the specifics commonly found in education communities: sub-lease of space to private industry in publicly-owned facilities. The Building Owners and Managers Association International is an ANSI-accredited consensus standard developer and revised its standard — BOMA Z65.5 Retail Properties: Standard Method of Measurement. Measuring the area of a retail building can quickly become complex when variables must be considered such as ancillary space, mezzanines and storefront lease lines. Many large research universities have long since leased space within many of their building envelopes for private industry to service their communities — student unions, hospitals, dormitories and athletic venues, for example. From the project prospectus:
Z65.5 is intended exclusively for retail properties and their associated structures and may be applied to single-tenant, multi-tenant or multi-building configurations. It features a single method of measurement, with two levels of measurement data, known as Partial Measurement and Overall Measurement for retail properties. It does not measure sidewalks, surface parking, drainage structures, or other ancillary site improvements. This standard is chiefly designed to generate Gross Leasable Area figures, a key metric in retail leasing; however, it also produces area figures which may be of interest to those examining space utilization, valuation, benchmarking, and the allocation of building expenses to various cost centers. The scope of this standard is not intended to be submitted for consideration as an ISO, IEC, or ISO/IEC JTC-1 standard.
Public consultation is open until February 8th.
You may obtain an electronic copy from: floorstandards@boma.org. Send comments (with optional copy to psa@ansi.org) to: floorstandards@boma.org. We encourage user-interest subject matter experts in education facility management to participate directly in the BOMA standards development process by communicating directly with Tanner Johnson at BOMA (tjohnston@boma.org) or 202-326-6357 for more information.
We keep the BOMA catalog on the standing agenda of our colloquia devoted to building construction best practice. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
– To promote an unambiguous framework for determining the areas of Industrial Buildings with a strong focus on Rentable Area calculations;
– To facilitate transparency and clear communication of building measurement concepts among all participants in the commercial real estate
industry;
– To allow a comparison of values on the basis of a clearly understood and generally agreed upon method of measurement; and
– To align concepts and measurement methodologies with the International Property Measurement Standards: Industrial Buildings (January 2018)
document.
Send comments (with optional copy to psa@ansi.org) to: tjohnston@boma.org
Standards Michigan follows, but d0es not advocate in most of the BOMA standards suite for the following reasons:
Educational facility occupancies are fairly well accounted for in existing federal and state regulations
Advocacy in energy-related best practice titles are a better use of resources at the moment.
We encourage user-interest subject matter experts in education facility management to participate directly in the BOMA standards development process by communicating directly with Tanner Johnson at BOMA (tjohnston@boma.org) or 202-326-6357 for more information.
We maintain the entire BOMA suite on our periodic Model Building Code colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [15-200]
Category: Architectural, Space Plaaning, Facility Asset Management
“Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable; they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.”
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send mike@standardsmichigan.com a request for subscription details.
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send mike@standardsmichigan.com a request for subscription details.
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send mike@standardsmichigan.com a request for subscription details.
Electrical Building | World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1892
How much of a legacy electrical system should be replaced and/or modified when the building (or groups of buildings) that it supplies is renovated architecturally or mechanically? What should be the criteria to establish the boundaries of the power chain to be modified and who should have authority to make this decision?
A proposal to enlighten the debate on this question was presented to National Electrical Code Code-Making Panel 1 with the following substantiation:
“The education facilities industry is the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States; building and renovating campus square footage at a clip of about $80 billion per year. Construction activity at the University of Michigan alone (with 36 million square feet under management and the largest campus in the US in terms of building square-footage) runs at an annual rate of $600 million to $ 1.2 billion annually so the evolution of electrical systems is in plain sight on a daily basis.
This proposal is intended to generate discussion about the degree to which the scope of electrical renovation/rehabilitation shall be permitted to be scaled according the site specific conditions that govern safety and economy. For example, many building codes may require that a 50% change in the square footage affected by a rehabilitation/renovation project may require a corresponding change in the electrical system. That change may or may not be justified on the basis of safety considerations alone. Conversely, the 50% criterion may not be a sufficient threshold to guarantee safety. While this model language for electrical administration may always be subordinate to the building codes, some model language that has been vetted through ANSI processes; that makes scalability a possibility would be welcomed from the standpoint of both both safety and economy.”
The transcript of the proposal — and the committee response — is linked below.
Note that the committee in the 2020 revision cycle appears to be of “mixed mind” with the use of the term – “shall be permitted” — a term that challenges many technical committees — and regulatory document administration professionals — operating under ANSI-accredited standards developers. Some consensus documents avoid the term “shall be permitted” altogether. Nevertheless, NEC Article 80 — an optional legislative article developed for use by state and local governments — is the only “sample legislation” document that receives periodic review by an accessible, balanced and transparent set of stakeholders administered by the National Fire Protection Association.
A modification of this concept was submitted to Code Making Panel 1 writing the 2023 NEC. A transcript of the Proposal are linked below:
We maintain model building code issues on the standing agenda of our twice-monthly Power teleconferences and collaborate closely with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee on the same day. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jack Janveja, Jim Harvey, Kane Howard, Richard Robben
*The original University of Michigan standards advocacy enterprise was involved in reviewing the original Article 80 when it was first released as an Annex in 2002.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
