A Hypothesis for the Future of Healthcare Design Training

 
What will training facilities for emergency staffers look like in the future? That’s the question the Herman Miller is seeking to discover via a collaborative design experiment with Yuri Millo, M.D., at the Washington Hospital Center MedSTAR's (Medical Shock Trauma Acute Resuscitation) new Simulation in Training Environment Lab (SiTEL) Clinical Simulation Center in Washington, D.C.

The Sitel facility (soft opening June 2011) was converted from a former bank space in the span of only four months, with the help of locally-based Burt Hill Architects. While the 6,500-square-foot space is minimalist in design and aesthetic style at best (we’re talking the barest of bones here—the concrete floor is exposed and all “room” dividers and furnishings are either on wheels or transitory in nature), its success in function and educational forethought pushes the innovation beyond what any flashy visuals might do.

Herman Miller worked with Doctor Millo to rethink how ER training and simulation spaces could be improved to enhance learning and better prepare professionals for the high-paced, oftentimes chaotic atmosphere associated with working in the ambulatory department. Traditionally, this training is held at the parent hospital in small-sized, individual classrooms. While this allows staff to easily take training onsite, it greatly limits their on-hands knowledge and practical application of the course materials, as well as poses noise issues. According to the doctor, this sort of training doesn’t need to be onsite as a sterilized environment is not required for simulations. “It’s about learning,” he says.

As such, the flexible learning space features a layout that can be reconfigured at a moment’s notice to align with the variety of daily simulation training courses being offered, and reflection areas for additional instruction and break time. The interiors are rearranged about every four hours (one per each daily course), which can be accomplished by just two employees.

The open floor plan view is only broken by four, floor-to-ceiling glass-walled classrooms positioned in a circle at the facility’s core. The glass is slightly etched and shaded at eye-level to maintain transparency but provide the necessary privacy for learning focus, as well as provide an intrinsic divider between the six simulation zones (shown below)—three partiion-separated sections on each side are equipped with functioning hospital equipment and high-tech simulation dummies—that line the left and right walls.

 
Here, trainees can practice real-life roleplaying that mimics care in an ER, with multiple beds, treatment areas, and “patients.” Observation stations on each side are equipped with LCD screens to monitor and record the sessions and 360-degree cameras in the ceiling spaces capture every moment. Once simulations are complete, students can reflect in the “learning lounges,” (shown below) a cluster of Herman Miller-customized workstations that offer privacy and technology for simulation games on computers.

 
“It’s a living lab experiment, and a testament to the functionality of design. It’s a really smart space in that we don’t restrict ourselves to one set-up—like in a theater where you have one stage that can house different scenes and plays,” says Doctor Millo.

With initial success, the team is expanding the concept in the coming months—a twin facility will open in October in Baltimore, and another is expected this winter in Boca Raton, Florida, while plans to create a model in a Canadian medical educational facility is also on the books.

“This is the hospital of the future,” Doctor Millo adds. “Students today don’t want to accept the old tradition of learning through reading a book—they want to be hands-on. This facility offers that and has already be shown to increase attendance among younger generations.”

 --Stacy Straczynski

 

 

Illuminating Questions for Specifying LED Lighting

 
By Ann Schiffers

LEDs (light-emitting diodes) have flipped the switch on a new approach to lighting design for the A&D community. The growth in the technology’s popularity is not surprising, particularly given the immense energy and cost savings this groundbreaking technology provides. However, the unlimited number of options available today makes it difficult for designers not yet well-versed in this illumination source to make educated decisions about who to work with and what to specify. 

To identify the right LED partner, particularly when utilizing recessed LED lighting, it is imperative to ask the right questions.

Why LEDs are lighting the way

LEDs are increasingly becoming the lighting solution of choice for numerous reasons, most notably the comparable lower wattage and subsequent cost savings that the technology offers over incandescent and fluorescent options. It’s important to remember, however, there are also other cost-saving lighting options available including low halogen and ceramic metal halide fixtures that can provide similar sustainable solutions and may work better with your space.  It is essential to ensure that the options specified are based on the greatest anticipated return on cost and energy savings.

To ease the specification process, make sure to ask:
• What’s the budget allocated for lighting?
• What tasks will be performed within this space? What are the required illumination levels?
• Is there energy driven state legislation to adhere to?
• Will there be a need to integrate with other light sources?

Shining the spotlight on manufacturers
 
The same preparation needed to map out a project’s lighting needs is also necessary to locate the right manufacturer. To guarantee the lights don’t go out on a project, it is critical that extensive research is completed and the right questions are asked, specifically in the following areas when considering various LED lighting vendors.

• Product offerings--
    • Is a full family of products available?
    • Do you have adjustable optics?
    • Are your products appropriate for wet and dry locations?
    • Is a dimming option available?

• Photometrics--
    • Are photometrics available for review?
    • What are the delivered lumens?
    • What is the spacing criteria?

• Lighting facts--
    • What is the product’s output, wattage, and lumens per watt?
    • What is the product’s color accuracy?
    • What is the Lighting Facts registration number?

• Light engine--
    • Who is the manufacturer?
    • What is the delivered lumens?
    • What is the color temperature?
    • Is it field replaceable?

• Warranty 
    • How many years does it cover?
    • Can it be provided in writing?

• Driver
    • Is it field replaceable?
    • What is the voltage?

Additionally, manufacturers should be certified by a third-party organization to verify their environmental and performance claims. Also closely review the products’ lumen packages or total lumen outputs, as some manufacturers may report the products’ raw lumen instead of delivered lumen output.

A final lesson on LEDs

An ever-advancing technology, new LED discoveries continue each day. Several lighting experts predict LEDs will be the preferred choice within a few years, making it crucial to establish best practices and arm those in the field with the education necessary to make smart and informed illumination choices. Learning the background information early on is beneficial to the project and will save extra legwork in the end.

Ann Schiffers is vice president of specification sales for USAI Lighting. Schiffers focuses on expanding market opportunities for the company and serves as a resource for customers throughout the specification process. With a more than 20-year career in the lighting industry, Schiffers has worked with many of the top lighting design and architectural firms in the country including Fisher Marantz Stone Partnership, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design, and Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design, and has served as principal of her own design firm, Ann Schiffers Lighting Design, LLC, for eight years prior to joining USAI.

Rethinking Details: How to Stretch Your Hospital Design Budget

 
By Doug Bazuin, senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare

When we design hospital patient rooms, we know that fast-paced medical advances and unpredictable shifts in government policy mean the facilities we design today must survive many changes.  But we need to keep smaller changes in mind too. Over time, these small details can add up to either big savings or big costs for the facility, depending upon the level of consideration we give them in the design process. 

Discussions with more than 550 healthcare professionals reveal that a positive patient experience and good infection prevention are two of the most important patient room design goals and the areas where details most matter. 

Preparing for changes

In designing a comforting patient room, a detail often overlooked is soiled linen. Oftentimes, a beautiful patient room design must utilize a less-than-attractive solution for dirty laundry disposal. One option for such situations is to hide the receptacle behind a door in a cabinet, but this requires extra steps for the caregiver.

The same can happen with exposed gloves and sharps receptacles. For gloves, organizing them by size and or type can help and concealing them in a cabinet also can be a good option. A solution for the institutional sharps container may be to mount it to a tool rail so its location can be changed with minimal disruption to the room.

Hand sanitizer brands and vendors can change frequently, which means new dispensers also tend to be frequently replaced. The cost of repairing the drywall and touching up the paint every time a dispenser is changed typically is not considered in the initial purchasing decision. Similarly, research uncovers that many automatic/touchless paper towel dispensers in patient rooms needed to be removed, due to the surplus noise they generated. Any initial cost savings were eliminated by the cost of needing to change dispensers. 

Asking these questions early on can solve some of these problems before they occur:
• What is the preferred process for handling soiled linen?
• Who empties the hamper and how often?
• Are there any good options for disguising the hamper?
• Can paper towel dispensers be hidden?
• How frequently will towel and soap dispensers be changed?
• How often do the locations or sizes of glove boxes and sharps receptacles have to be changed?
• Would the initial cost of a tool rail mounted on the wall to make changes nondestructive be less than ongoing wall repairs?

Small solutions for greater infection prevention

Despite the uncertainty and frustration associated with infection prevention issues, hospitals demand infection control measures. How a hospital applies infection prevention measures to its patient rooms can have a big impact on design choices.

In our research on hand washing, we focused on the sink and faucet design of the caregiver hand-washing station.

If the primary purpose of the hand-washing station is just that, then temperature control might not be required.  A touchless faucet that automatically mixes hot and cold water to achieve a selected temperature may be a good choice. But surprisingly, concerns about overly sensitive sensors have trumped the infection control advantages of not having dirty hands touch the handle. New technologies to improve sensor performance continue to deliver better results.

If the care process requires hot water drawn from this faucet for giving bed baths rather than the bathroom sink, the water temperature needs to be controlled with foot pedals or wrist blade handles. Foot pedals allow for independent operation of hot and cold water and are touchless, but they can be difficult to clean.

Here are some infection control questions to be asked when designing a patient room:
• Have you sufficiently engaged your infection prevention professional in the design of details?
• Does your infection prevention professional require the soiled linen hamper to have a lid?
• Which works best for how you need the faucet to operate—wrist blade handles, foot pedals, or sensors?
• Will the automatic sensing faucet operate on batteries, power, or emergency power? And if you choose a battery-operated faucet, has a preventive maintenance plan been put in place?
• Do the size, shape, location, and operation of the sink and faucet help prevent the spread of infection?

In the end, it always pays to sweat the small stuff. What other small details in healthcare design do you feel can help hospitals and other medical facilities keep up with changes?

Doug Bazuin is a senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare. He possesses 10 years of new product development experience and has been involved with several new product launches.

Plug and Play: The New Scalable Strategy that Rocks Retail

By MulvannyG2 Architecture

During the month of April, design firm MulvannyG2 hosted a museum-quality exhibit on a 1960s Japanese urban planning movement called “Metabolism.” The idea behind Metabolism—that development should grow in an organic way that expands and contracts according to changing demand—made us revisit an idea of our own: How can we take the mobile nature of one highly successful retail approach, Portland’s downtown food cart scene, and apply it to other fixed retail typologies that aren’t on wheels, such as big boxes or retail centers? How can we make architecture “move,” and what are the benefits to that?

 
Let’s Rethink Architecture
Portland, Ore., has a food cart scene unlike any in the country. It’s huge, organized, and each ‘pod’—as opposed to "taco truck"—resides in a specific site within this unique community. Eating there made us not only think about mobility but about the relationship between mobile elements and fixed elements in retail architecture. It occurred to us that today’s retail building programs stress building permanence when retail brands actually should shine as the established presence, with architecture working—and changing as needed—to support that.

But to create a building program that more flexibly communicates both retail brands and trends, we need a radical shift: Instead of permanence, what if adaptability were the driving force behind the design and construction of stores or points of purchase? A means to that end: Introduce prefabricated components to large format—and other—retail typologies.

How could this actually work? One example: Let's use prefab’s flexibility to significantly improve efficiency and brand messaging opportunities while reducing the costs of store remodels. Why? Today, designers help retailers manage a five-to-10-year building remodel cycle, and each remodel’s bill includes not only the cost of construction, but the loss of revenues when all or some of the store is shuttered during construction.

How could prefab reduce those costs? Separate the individual functions of the big box—pharmacy, grocery, fashion, deli—and design prefabricated, branded components for each that could then be plugged into the box as the remodel progresses or while a brand new store is being built. While this prefab method certainly would speed up construction, we also realized that it opens up other new and exciting possibilities, with more benefits that actually turn the large format experience into a scalable one. Here, we’ll explain more:

A. More than a sum of parts. Aside from this strategy to reduce remodeling costs and keep stores operational, what if each component could exist on its own—located on a corner or as a mobile cart—and then migrate to join other components to collectively repopulate the “parent” big box store as needed? Each component would be a branded structure and designed to correspond to, elevate, and spread
the retailer’s brand.

B. Portable events. What if we considered each component as not just discrete departments within the store but as opportunities for events, based on location or season? Example: How about a Thanksgiving component that pops up in November at farmers’ markets, in neighborhoods, selling turkeys, serving items or decor? Or think of a dorm room decorating component, located on college campuses in late August as students move in, stocked with goods or taking orders for delivery from the parent store’s distribution center.

C. Components secede! As another alternative, what if a component did not plug back into a mother ship or a big box store but existed simply as a specialty store extension of a big box brand?

D. Test market opportunity. What if these components were considered as a means to introduce a brand new market, to test the water? It offers a lower threshold of risk: Instead of creating an 180,000-sq.-ft. store and experimenting with that, first establish a component in a new market and tweak from there.

E. Extending the points of purchase (POP). What if we took this even further and branded elements of the retail distribution channel that are, at this point in time, not branded? Example: Trucks deliver retail goods to stores across the country, loaded into the store on pallets. What if the truck were branded? What if the trailer lowered to ground level and unfolded into a branded experience? What if the truck stopped en route to the store, had an “event,” and sold a certain amount of goods from the truck as a discounted rate? This would require the truck to be designed as a branded point of purchase. What new relationships between retailers and channel partners would this create? What new branding opportunities?

 
These ideas present opportunities to extend the retail relationship with the consumer and to market in new, advantageous ways. New points of purchase along the distribution channel offer a glimpse at the means of production, which is exciting to Gen X and GenY consumers, like us. Pop-up events leverage sales opportunities and bring the brand and its products to consumers in a redefinition of convenience, something attractive to all markets. And, as we originally conceived of this idea, it’s a way for stores to implement prefabrication to make both remodels and ground-ups less expensive, faster, and more conducive to retail experimentation.

 --Courtesy of MulvannyG2 Architecture

Re-Thinking the Center Store Design

Grocery retailers unite! Store perimeters have gotten, well, just pretty dang awesome in recent years. I'm all for the expanded bakery sections (with my bonafide sweet tooth) and adding banks and health services to the store perimeter (Eyeglass fittings at Walmart? Check.), but I'm still looking to our design brethren to make the center store a bit more, well, less monotonous.

While perimeter sales are booming, center-store sales actually have declined on a same-store basis. And I'm not entirely surprised. Let's face it. Center store is kinda boring. How are canned veggies supposed to compete with beautifully illuminated, artfully displayed heads of broccoli and craftily merchandised bunches of carrots? Today's fickle shoppers "get in, get out, and get on" with their lives (thank you Chili's for the appropriate tagline) and the poor center store simply is not growing at the rate of the ever-exciting perimeter. Whatever are grocery retailers to do?

HELPFUL TIP ALERT!! Nielsen (our parent company....Thanks, Dad!) has just unveiled a Webinar that shares strategies and views on how best to leverage in-store innovation to generate more desirable shopper behavior, such as more frequent store visits, larger basket rings, or greater customer loyalty. It's turnign design into dollars, which to me equals "pretty cool" on my rank-o-meter. Take a listen and let us know what you think. What's in store for your clients' center store?

--DDI, sister publication to Contract

(Photo: ©iStockphoto.com/Suprijono Suharjoto)

Reign in Spain: Let Your Designs Breathe

By Lira Luis, AIA, RIBA, LEED AP, principal architect, Atelier Lira Luis, LLC

 
Just as our skin helps protect our bodies and regulate our internal temperature levels, so too does a building’s envelope (commonly known as cladding or siding) protect the outside of a structure. But unlike our skin, which is predetermined for us by nature, it is an architectural team doing commercial or institutional building projects that is responsible for making sure the appropriate cladding decisions are made for new construction, as guided by CSI’s MasterFormat.

The current MasterFormat now includes 49 divisions, a whole lot more decision-making areas for the architecture team than the Pre-2004 MasterFormat and its 16 divisions. Take tile, for example, which falls under Division 9 Finishes. Under this division, there are subgroups that allow an even more expansive selection of building materials for architects or designers to make decisions on in any given project.
 
During the 2011 Cevisama, the International Ceramic Tile and Bath Furnishings Show in Valencia, Spain, I was enlightened to a breadth of options that tile products now provide to our industry. One of the products that caught my architectural eye is a ventilated facade system that utilizes ceramic and porcelain tile for cladding. It brought back memories of driving in Arizona and seeing this product used at the Wilkinson Floor Covering Corporate Office & Warehouse in Tempe, designed by Michael P. Johnson.

“I was introduced to the ventilated wall system at the trade fair in Bologna, Italy in 2001. In 2003, Wilkinson Floor Covering Company commissioned me to design a face lift for their bland tilt-up concrete office/warehouse building. I felt that because the lion's share of their work was tile flooring that it would be a good fit and it proved to be a great choice because visually it enhanced the building ten-fold,” says Michael, principal of Michael P. Johnson Design Studios. He already was using this product at a time when U.S. architects had not fully embraced ventilated walls or the idea of them.

Today, porcelain tile seems to have become the product of choice among architects and designers for a variety or applications—I see the expansive selection of manufacturers who now carry these ventilated facade systems at Cevisama and I even have started investigating the technicalities of using this product in my projects.

 
After studying all the details and absorbing the information shared by manufacturers at Cevisama, the ventilated facade system can be described similar to a wall where two facades are separated by a gap or breathing space through which air is allowed to flow. In my mind, it is a mash-up between a rainscreen (an exterior cladding that stands off from the surface of the structural backup wall) and a trombe wall (a wall separated from the outdoors by glazing and an air space, which absorbs solar energy and releases it to the interior).

At the expo, Miguel Ángel Bengochea and Javier Plasencia Abasolo of Keraben Grupo, S.A. shared some comparisons of covering materials that would prove helpful for architects when deciding on which material to use, while Santiago Manent of Porcelanosa USA showed me the various mounting options available that would complement and not compete with an architect’s design intent for a project. 
 
 
There also are ways to innovate further with ventilated facade systems, as demonstrated by Ceracasa Ceramica through its Bionictile and Lifewall (Read more about Lifewall at ContractDesign.com)Unfortunately, Lifewall is not ready for market (about six months out); however this definitely is one product to keep an eye on!

 

Lira Luis, AIA, RIBA, LEED AP is a principal architect at Atelier Lira Luis, LLC in Chicago, Ill.. She was named the AIA ATHENA Young Professional Awardee by the American Institute of Architects and was selected by Tile of Spain in December 2010 as a Reign in Spain finalist. From Feb. 4-12, 2011, she joined a group of journalists and other members of the A&D community in a junket that traveled to the cities of Zaragoza, Teruel, and Valencia, taking in Spanish architecture, culture, culinary temptations, and Cevisama, the International Ceramic Tile and Bath Furnishings Show.

Hey, Doc! Can I Get a Building RX?

 
Just two years after its Febuary 2009 launch, Chicago’s Rebuilding Exchange (@RXChicago) is getting ready to move their entire operation to a new home that totals twice the size of their current space and located closer to the heart of the city. The group, which is a project of the Delta Institute, works to divert building materials from the waste stream by promoting sustainable methods of deconstruction and making used material available for a low cost. It is not your typical architectural salvage source filled with over-priced antiques and rare finds; instead, the Rebuilding Exchange will take in 80 to 90 percent of a disassembled home, everything but the drywall and foundation, and markets to first-time homeowners, do-it yourselfers, designers, and artists alike.

I took a tour of the organization’s current location in November, where Rebuilding Exchange executive director Elise Zelechowski brought up two startling statistics: 1) 40 percent of landfill waste comes from building materials, and 2) that only 6 percent of LEED projects take advantage of re-use MR credits. While the Rebuilding Exchange only takes in materials from residential deconstruction, it made think: How incredible would it be to see a program like this at scale within the commercial sector? And the success numbers of this project are there too—in just two years it has diverted over 2,000 tons of building materials from landfills, created job training programs, and offered community education and building workshops.

Aside from the fact that this is not only an inspirational and transferable project, one of my favorite parts of visiting their facility was seeing some of the products that have been created using RX materials. Picture frames, farm tables, benches, and art objects were on display to demonstrate just how limitless the possibilities of designing with reclaimed materials can be. If you want to see some fun projects, both large and small, that make use of materials from the ReBuilding Exchange, visit its Web site (http://www.rebuildingexchange.org/) and blog (http://rebuildingexchange.blogspot.com/). These projects are definitely worth checking out!

--Brittany Hahn

Contract magazine is proud to announce a blog installation from one of three guest design student bloggers. Lisa Backus, Brittany Hahn, and La Keisha Leek regularly will be writing and sharing their design experiences at TalkContract for the next year. Check back often to see what's the buzz among the next generation of designers, and be sure to share with them your feedback and design advice by commenting below.

Video: Evidence-based Design in Action

It seems like evidence-based design has been the talk of the A&D town for the last couple years, and why not? When research proves that design designed around actual data points and user functionality pays off, evidence-based design is a “no brainer.” As one of the top firms advocating the Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC) program, sponsored by the Center for Health Design, HDR Architecture has launched a series of case studies on the subject, as a follow-up to its Evidence-based Design for Healthcare Facilities book.

“It’s important that we stress the importance of designing healthcare environments based on research, not old processes,” says Cyndi McCullough, director of clinical services for HDR, in a statement. “Hospital administrators are continually searching for proven, cost-effective strategies when it comes to design. These videos show completed projects where clients implemented evidence-based design principles and experienced success.” 

Here’s a peek at one of the videos:

Episode 1: The New Hanover Regional Medical Center segment explains how design solutions like private patient rooms, family amenities, decentralized nurse stations, and new technology significantly increased patient and staff satisfaction scores.

Episode 2: St. Mary's Medical Center North in Knoxville, Tenn., case study looks at how features such as tracking boards, hands-free communication systems, room service dietary, and bedside admission make the care giving process more efficient.

Episode 3: Case study of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Ida., shares the results of a noise study conducted on a patient unit.

View them all at www.hdrinc.com.

--Stacy Straczynski

Strategically Starbucks: Designing for Waste Streams

As designers of the built environment, what is our role in the often-ambiguous topic of waste stream integration and education? And where should it place on our priority list?

This may not be the most glamorous of topics, but I find it fascinating! Starbucks’ unveiling of its recent logo update brought back to me memories of an impactful lesson I learned as a 2010 GreenBuild Volunteer: How to properly dispose of a Starbucks hot-beverage cup. If you’re unfamiliar with the procedure or happened to miss reading Fast Company’s five-page article on the matter, I’ll lay-out the seemingly simple instructions on how to dismantle that three-piece suit that defines the Starbucks experience:

1. Cup = Compost
2. Lid = Landfill
3. Cardboard Coffee Collar = Recycle

Three separate waste streams. But how often do you come across a compost or recycling receptacle inside a Starbucks or out on the street? The reality is that the rules of recycling are a bit confusing. And even if you do know where to put what, you might not have that option readily available to you.

Never did I think learning about waste-stream management or a simple thing like tri-sorter recycling chutes would get me this jazzed, but it’s happening.  And momentarily putting the Starbucks cup aside, my query is this: LEED certified projects are required to provide areas designated for recyclable storage and collection, but what percentage of projects that take this into account when they are NOT seeking certification?

(The team at GreenBuild made this a huge priority and set a 95 percent landfill diversion rate as their goal for the conference. Not only were recycling stations set up at regular intervals throughout the convention space, but volunteers were placed at each one instructing attendees on the correct way to “throw away.”)

As for the recycling efforts of Starbucks, their Web site states their goal as, “By 2015, we plan to have recycling available in all of our stores where we control waste collection and serve 25 percent of beverages in reusable cups.” Being the environmentally-conscious coffee addict that I am, I certainly plan to do my part by continuing to bring my personal tumbler with me each visit, even if it does mean missing out on carrying around that sassy, new siren logo.

--Brittany Hahn

Contract magazine is proud to announce a blog installation from one of three guest design student bloggers. Lisa Backus, Brittany Hahn, and La Keisha Leek regularly will be writing and sharing their design experiences at TalkContract for the next year. Check back often to see what's the buzz among the next generation of designers, and be sure to share with them your feedback and design advice by commenting below.

Sludge as a Means to Sustainability?

Soon architects and designers may have a brand new material to build with—sludge! Yes, that gooey, smelly waste you see floating around in rivers that rumors claim can turn you into a three-armed, four-legged, purple-spotted mutant. (I’m sure anyone who’s taken a dip in New York’s Hudson River can verify this.)

 
While it may seem a bit disgusting—okay, very disgusting— the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) is toying with the idea of turning the ooze from Gowanus Canal, a highly contaminated waterway in Brooklyn that has been dubbed a Superfund Site by the E.P.A. due to its more than 300 cubic yards of sludge, into glass, according to a recent article at the Popular Mechanics Web site.

The process is called vitrification and would produce giant cubes (about 4 ft. by 4 ft.) of harmless, eco-friendly glass that would then be suitable for building and other design uses.

The article details the steps: Once the sludge is collected and placed into molds (Cue the next new episode topic for Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs!), it is heated to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit to kill of any existing bacteria, germs, or other nasty matter and then filtered to remove any remaining toxins. The heat simultaneously causes any sand or particles in the goop to mix with metal particles and form blocks of safe and durable glass.

 
What a fantastic plan! However, while vitrification is a viable solution, it is also highly costly, and all that sludge may just wind up as hazardous waste in a landfill somewhere anyway (or in a sewer to create the next batch of alligators to bring rise to New York City’s urban legends). How terrible when there’s another solution!

But regardless of ROI and red versus black budget comparisons, I think the takeaway here is surely the matter of possibility. As professionals in construction, design, and government legislation continue to experiment with new and innovative ways of recycling to push the limits of known sustainable practice, we are continuing to discover that we have yet a multitude of untapped resources to further reduce pollution and size down our carbon footprints. But what is the price tag to a healthier way of life? Shouldn’t improving our environment take precedence over financial factors?

-- Stacy Straczynski