What would make affordable housing more affordable? The implementation of cost-saving, sustainable features. Unfortunately, clean tech faces an uphill battle with adaptation in the industry. A national incubator aims to change that. Wells Fargo presents a program that promotes innovation in housing by assisting clean tech companies with an accelerated path to market. Three new residential housing technology companies just joined the incubator this spring—heading to a market near you. 3 The challenge with green innovation in affordable housing Innovative tech startups can have the amazing ideas and the promising products, but they struggle to find funding. Unproven technologies are often seen as a risky investment. The real estate industry is notoriously slow at adapting even proven technologies, which makes the challenge twice as formidable for green building startups. The journey to market is formidable for green startups, but not insuperable. Innovation Incubator (IN2) supports the research and development of the most promising startups. As a result, affordable housing builders and developers can feel more confident about investing in new sustainable housing technologies. IN2: the solution that fosters more solutions IN2 is a dreamchild. It unites the funding and industry savvy of the Wells Fargo Foundation with the research specialists and technology of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The program is part of Wells Fargo Foundation’s $1 billion commitment to affordable housing. Startups selected by IN2 receive $250,000 in non-dilutive funding to hone their innovations. They work side-by-side with experts at NREL and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Such collaborations give startups access to cutting edge research and testing. Startups also receive priceless networking opportunities, and their work is amplified throughout the industry.  Since 2014, the program has furnished product validation for 46 companies via NREL or the...

Back in 2015, General Motors, Google’s Waymo, Toyota and Honda made announcements that by 2020 they will have driverless cars. Elon Musk was even more optimistic and said that Tesla would do it by 2018, but when that failed, he moved up the release date to 2020. We are in 2020 and as we all see, there are no sign of driverless cars on the streets. Musk recently commented that by the end of this year, Tesla will have fully autonomous cars. While Tesla may have the technology to enable a car to finish a journey without any human input—what the industry calls level 5 autonomy—the actual development of the vehicle not only has to be safe, but also meet complex legal requirements. How do they work? In theory, self-driving cars need to be outfitted with cameras that can see all the objects around it and be able to react rather than steering into one. These cameras help the car to view objects, while there are also sensors that help them detect objects like pedestrians, other vehicles and road signs. Lidar uses lasers to measure the distance between objects and the vehicle, while tracking speed and direction. The sensors send data back to the car’s control system or computer to help it make decisions about where to steer or when to brake. There are also cases when bad weather, heavy traffic or roads signs with graffiti can negatively impact the accuracy of sensing capability to self-driving cars. We will have to wait and see if an autonomous car can drive as well as a human. Autonomous cars cannot make eye contact with others to confirm who has the right of way, react to weather conditions or make judgment decisions that are much more difficult...

Bricks are a burden. For more than 5,000 years, we’ve used the same inefficient, environmentally destructive products to build homes, businesses and institutions. Their cumulative effects left landscapes barren, air polluted and contributed to warmer climates. Innovation is in place for smarter bricks—if the industry is ready to get onboard. The life of bad bricks Clay bricks are respected for their durability and simplicity. Unfortunately, the benefits stop there. Mining clay requires stripping landscapes of their plants, trees and topsoil. The sublayers of soil and stone are inhospitable to plant life, leaving bald scars on the landscape for at least a decade. Once mined, raw materials are transported to kilns where fossil fuels bake bricks at 2,280°F. Carbon emissions continue to climb as the finished product makes its way to distributors and work sites. At the end of their lives, companies demolish bricks and ship them off to landfills. Except for very few historic sites, bricks are not recycled or repurposed: to do so, workers would need to scrape off old mortar by hand. But more importantly, the industry does not have an efficient way to test the integrity of reclaimed material. It all becomes trash. Geological damage, long-term environmental concerns and poor disposal practices make our old bricks our new bad news. Fortunately, a team of innovators at Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University has created better bricks that can usher the industry into the future. Maybe. Stepping out on a limb (with the others) Professor Gabriela Medero set out to reinvent the brick. She knew that sustainable building would require more sustainable building materials. The outdated practice of brick making desperately needed modernization. “It’s the exploitation of natural resources, it’s the… massive volumes of waste, together with the massive volumes...

Want to lower project costs and enjoy a faster build cycle all while improving the quality of the finished product? Of course you do. HercuTech’s HercuWall, the poster child of reNEWable Living Home 2018, makes it possible. The Product HercuWall offers the durability of composite concrete construction without the need for steel rebar. The product comes with a water and vapor barrier, and it is dust free, impervious to mold, and unappealing to termites. Each HercuWall kit is computer generated and precision cut to meet product specifications, including casings for windows and doors. Upon delivery, block masons and framers can quickly and easily assemble the prefabricated panels—each weighing 40 pounds or fewer–without any modifications on the site. Builders can enjoy less mess, no wasted materials, and reduced worksite clutter. Completed HercuWall products came in a range of insulation value ratings, including R-20, R-29 and R-33. When supported with energy efficient windows and adequate HVAC units, HercuWall can reduce energy costs by 40-60 percent. The performance of the product does not diminish over time, resulting in long lasting durability and comfort. Now for the information that you’ve been waiting for: HercuWall is competitively priced with block and wood framing. The prefabricated kits make it quick and easy to assemble, reducing the labor and time needed. HercuTech cites that a 2,400 square-foot production house can be installed in 2.5 hours and concrete placed in two more hours with a crew of five. According to the HercuTech website: “Experts predict that this type of construction will have higher resale value than conventionally built structures.” Live Applications There are several completed residences in Arizona as well as the Meritage Homes reNEWable Living Home, a partnership with BUILDER Magazine. The reNEWable Living Home showcases groundbreaking products in sustainable building....

Living in a futuristic utopia might be closer to reality than we realize. Brandan Siebrecht, a graduate architecture student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, revealed an ingenious hotel design that combines transport with accommodation. The concept aims to transform Elon Musk’s innovative Hyperloop One into a high-speed transit hotel. The Hyperloop Hotel shoots guests through tubes from city to city in a blink of an eye, all while never leaving their pod-like rooms. The concept enables travelers to manage everything from reservation, check-in and check-out from a device or a smartphone app. Basically, this futuristic transit system involves using magnets to levitate pods inside an airless tube, creating conditions in which the floating pods shuttle at near supersonic speeds. Guests would feel almost no sense of motion. The hotel concept uses sustainable, modular design in the form of shipping containers, all outfitted for luxury. Featuring customizable layout and design, each capsule includes an office, bedroom, bathroom and a living room. When arriving at destination, the shipping container “suite” simply docks to a modular hotel. 13 U.S. destinations Siebrecht’s proposal includes the following travel stations across the U.S.: Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Denver; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Nashville, Tenn.; New York; Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; Santa Fe, N.M.; Seattle; Washington, D.C. An award-winning hotel concept The Hyperloop Hotel is this year’s student winner of the Radical Innovation Awards, a competition for imaginative hotel designs, because it combines the comfort of a hotel with the convenience of speedy transportation, all in one. A jury of seven hotel investors, developers and architects selected Siebrecht’s idea out of over 65 submissions from 24 countries. The Radical Innovation team rewarded him $10,000 to develop the concept further. Costs and feasibility Siebrecht estimates each hotel will cost $10...

It seems when the country’s most successful entrepreneurs have finished disrupting industries on Earth, they invariably look to do the same in space. The world is witnessing a new era of space exploration that’s being headlined by companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, owned by tech billionaire CEOs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos respectively. The companies are a part of a private sector boom that has reestablished the United States as leaders of aerospace technology and exploration. SpaceX moves forward Leader of the pack, SpaceX is revolutionizing space travel in astronomical ways. CEO Elon Musk has always maintained that the fundamental breakthrough needed to transform access to space is figuring out how to reuse rockets just like airplanes, in order to lower the cost. Since 2015 SpaceX has been actively working towards that goal, recovering eight of twelve rockets launched. On March 30th the company took things one step further with the first successful launch and landing of the Falcon 9, a recycled rocket. The Falcon 9 previously had the distinction of being the first rocket to successfully land on a droneship. But even that isn’t enough for the company, as they continue to reach for the stars with their next goal to reuse the rocket within 24 hours. “We’re looking for true operational reusability, like an aircraft, an aircraft lands, goes to the gate, passengers come off, passengers go on, you refuel, and then you fly again. What we’re looking to do is exactly that..land and relaunch on the same day,” says SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell. The company’s most recent milestone was on April 30th, when SpaceX launched a government spy satellite for the US National Reconnaissance Office. This marked the first time the Department of Defense used SpaceX for a mission, where...

New year, new tech. Sin City begins 2017 in style, for a few days becoming the world’s greatest technology hub filled with innovations we didn’t know we needed. The automotive industry in particular is evolving at a fast pace. Trends in connectivity, fuel efficiency and social behavior drive its development. Manufacturers are also offering upgrades for everything from super-resistant windshields to autonomous driving. Corning Inc. premiered its newest Gorilla Glass, a windshield that is five times tougher and up to 60 percent lighter than conventional windshield laminates. The windshield provides real-time updates on traffic and landmarks while also enabling a lighter, more fuel-efficient ride. Ford is the first automaker to use Gorilla Glass in a production windshield. Its GT supercar model comes equipped with Gorilla Glass in the bulkhead and engine cover, cutting 12 pounds from the weight of the vehicle. Gorilla Glass Automotive can help automakers comply with rising standards: U.S. automobile fleets must reach 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, while European Union fleets must achieve 57.6 miles per gallon by 2020. Microsoft executives publicized that they would focus their efforts on connecting vehicles to Microsoft’s cloud services. The company describes its new platform as “a set of services built on the Microsoft Azure cloud and designed to empower auto manufacturers to create custom connected driving experiences.” It is not an in-car operating system. Instead, it is a “living, agile platform that starts with the cloud as the foundation and aims to address five core scenarios that our partners have told us are key priorities: predictive maintenance, improved in-car productivity, advanced navigation, customer insights and help building autonomous driving capabilities.” Renault-Nissan confirmed its plans to use Microsoft cloud services for navigation, predictive maintenance and remote care monitoring. BMW announced its partnership with...

Recent decades have brought about numerous developments in the structure of glass: layered, stronger, lighter, and even energy-producing varieties are used in homes and offices around the globe. Getting rid of glass altogether may be the next big advancement in transparent building materials. Glass has natural disadvantages. It is a poor thermal insulator, which requires HVAC systems to work harder, and architects to work smarter. Glass is also a relatively weak material. Wood, on the other hand, is a natural insulator. It moderates indoor temperatures with less drain on the HVAC. Wood is also one of the strongest, renewable, and most versatile building materials around. Wood is so versatile, in fact, that it can now become transparent. Sweden and the Unites States have both made large strides in transparent wood research. In both countries, engineers begin by putting wood through a bath of sodium hydroxide, additional chemicals, and hot water. This process (also used in the production of paper) strips the wood of lignin, the polymer that gives wood its color. The countries vary in what comes next. Lars Berglund, a researcher at Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, injects the wood with a polymer. Dr. Liangbing Hu of the University’s Department of Material Science and Engineering injects the channels with an epoxy. Both end with nanoscale tailoring that usher the wood from whitish towards transparent. The resulting products are similar. The wood becomes translucent, up to 85 percent transparent. The final product is also stronger than the original. As researchers refine their technique, they’re getting closer and closer to true transparency. The wood composite has roused interest with several major manufacturers. Both engineers believe that they are only a few short years away from bringing transparent wood products to market. Possible applications for...

If you’re looking to set your property apart from the crowd, high-end kitchens and bathrooms are an excellent place to start. Hands-free fixtures and appliances are quickly becoming standard features in fine rentals. New options permit these luxuries at multiple price points. For builds and renovations with leaner budgets, the GE Profile Series is a great introduction to hands-free appliances. The Energy Star certified fridge and freezer combos off hands-free auto-fill dispensers. Users simply insert their vessel of choice, press of a button, and move on to other tasks while the vessel is filled. Once full, the water dispenser automatically shuts off. Kenmore Elite 51773 includes a Measured Fill auto-fill dispenser with a few additional bells and whistles. The ice and water systems have Favorite Fill configurable settings, so that your residents get the perfect quantity every time.  When preparing for guests or an exceptionally steamy day, users can activate Accela Ice, which boosts ice production for 24 hours and then automatically shuts off. For kitchens and bathrooms, Delta Touch2O.xt Technology offers a range of operations. With the back of the hand, wrist, forearm or elbow, users can tap anywhere on the faucet to start or stop water flow. Some styles are equipped with true touch-free operation. Simply bring your hands within four inches of the sensor to activate water flow. To promote efficiency and resource conservation, the water shuts off within seconds of moving your hands out of the four-inch range. Safety features include an automatic shut off after one minute of uninterrupted water flow, as well as a blue indicator light to alert users that water is flowing or dripping. A step up leads to the Grohe LadyLux 3 Café and K7, two faucet styles that are activated via foot controls. The...

One common pain point for renters is noise control. Sharing walls entails a lack of privacy and the potential tension amongst residents. Innovations in building materials are now making units quieter, giving prospects yet another reason to love renting. Road noise (or the horrid violin practice of the kid next door) are no longer deal breakers for your prospective renters. Pennsylvania-based manufacturer CertainTeed has developed SilentFX QuickCut noise-reducing gypsum board. It is emerging as a fast and effective method of noise control within multifamily installations. The product is much easier to install than resilient channel or double layer wallboard. Installation techs can learn the process quickly, a winning feature for any new product. A traditional drywall knife and nails are all that techs need to install the boards. The product can be installed over steel or wood framing, making it a versatile product for residential and mixed used applications. Unlike boards with channels, SilentFX QuickCut will not decouple or short circuit. The integrity remains intact during and after installation. The leads to fewer call backs and complaints to your front office. The ease of installation and durability are attributed to the boards’ composition: two dense gypsum boards are filled with a viscoelastic polymer. The outer layers are covered with a recycled paper product that resists mold and mildew, ultimately contributing to indoor air quality. Fire resistant boards are also available. The gypsum board is designed for construction projects that require a sound transmission class rating of 50 and higher. SilentFX QuickCut smothers a wide range of frequencies, including airborne and impact sounds. For your renters, this mean optimal noise control. Finally, a product that can drown out the squawking of children’s toys, blenders, and the thud of an unsuccessful yoga practice. That alone is...

There is really only one renewable energy source that can power the whole planet —solar energy. The sun’s energy can power the earth many times over. We’re all familiar with solar technology’s limitless potential, but have yet to actualize its true capability. One of the main hurdles with solar technology is where to put it, as the places where we most need power are lacking space for the big, heavy panels. Silicon Valley startup Ubiquitous Energy, a company spun off by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State University, believes they’ve found the solution—a new type of technology that could span from industrial applications to consumer devices and handheld gadgets—cell phones and tablets that never run out of battery life. Sounds like fantasy, doesn’t it? Until now, solar cells have been only partially transparent and usually a bit tinted, but the startup’s transparent solar cells are so clear that they’re practically indistinguishable from normal panes of glass. Transparent solar is something taught in elementary school: the sun transmits energy in the form of invisible ultraviolet and infrared light, as well as visible light. A solar cell that is engineered to only capture light from the invisible ends of the spectrum, will allow all other light to pass through—thus, it will appear transparent. “It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way,” Richard Lunt, co-founder of Ubiquitous Energy, said in an interview with Michigan State’s Today blog. “It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there.” The secret to creating such material is organic chemistry....

What can you get for less than 400 square feet? How about a gym, a roof terrace, stainless steel appliances and the chance to finally ditch the roommates and lay claim to your own slice of paradise. That’s the option currently being offered by Carmel Place, New York City’s first ever micro-unit development. Originally called, “My Micro NY,” this Lower East Side building includes 14 affordable housing units and is set to open in February of 2016. Sitting smack dab in the middle of Kips Bay, the newly christened Carmel Place will be New York’s tallest modular building. Winner of the 2012 adapt NYC competition, which strove to uncover a solution to the City’s housing problem, Carmel Place came about through a collaborative effort between Monadnock Development and the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association. The project’s designers, naArchitects, chose modular materials to reduce construction time, and a series of architectural flourishes make use of vertical spaces to create a sense of openness and light. Built in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and delivered by truck via the Manhattan Bridge, the nine-story Carmel Place apartments rise up on 333 East 27th street like a set of building blocks – gray in color, but multifaceted in the opportunities they promise to weary urban renters looking for a small space they can call their own. Each unit comes outfitted with kitchenettes, mini-fridges, and a two-burner/microwave combination in place of a stove. While the bathrooms are restricted to showers only – no claw foot tubs in this joint – all the apartments are wheelchair accessible. The designers made sure to incorporate large windows, Juliette balconies and 9.5ft windows to create a sense of openness and light. With hardwood floors and mostly white cabinetry, sample photos project a...

For most of us, parking is little more than a necessary evil. If we could, we’d use the parking space for more units and enjoy the additional cash flow. But what if your parking lot could become an asset? From practical to extravagant, these creative parking solutions can transform a requirement into a revenue-generating tool. Creative Parking In metropolitan areas, the ability to offer multiple parking spaces per household may give you an advantage over the competition. Get the most out of your available space by ditching the traditional parking scheme for one that is growing in popularity in the UK. The layout above permits narrower rows thus potentially more rows for your site.     Automated Parking Urban luxury properties may consider electronic self-parking. The featured automated parking tower above is for a Volkswagen plant but add in a “valet” for the electronic system and you’ve tapped into a marketing feature. (Robotic Carpark in Dubai shows a non-commercial application.) It only takes 15 seconds to park or retrieve a vehicle. While the space savings is significant and the amount of parking you can offer tenants is appealing, the bragging rights may be a tower’s greatest appeal. Commuter Options Shuttle may be an excellent asset for suburban rental communities. When you can’t offer residents direct access to public transit, a shuttle to and from the nearest station can be even better. Residents gain access to affordable transportation into the city without concern for weather conditions, paid parking at the station, or parking security. Before implementing a plan, a quick survey from the community may help you determine the cost structure and travel times that will be most successful.     Added Amenities Adding amenities to parking areas is another way to generate revenue. Traditionally, this has...

Two Yardi commercial real estate clients were recognized this month with prestigious Digie Award honors from the technology-focused conference and networking event Realcomm. Deutsche Bank Wealth & Asset Management was recognized for “Best Use of Automation in Real Estate Investment Management” and Stuart Appley of Shorenstein received a “Digital Impact Award” for his contributions as an industry visionary. According to Realcomm’s website, the Digie Awards (the name stands for “Commercial Real Estate Digital Innovation Awards’”) were created to single out “companies, real estate projects, technologies and people that have gone above and beyond to positively impact our industry through the use of technology, automation and innovation.” Yardi is a recipient of numerous past Digie Awards for the innovation contained within its technology products, and this year the company’s energy efficiency monitoring platform, LOBOS, was a nominee. You can hear Yardi Senior Vice President of Global Solutions, Rob Teel, talk about the product’s role in the commercial technology platform in this video. Stuart Appley – Shorenstein Appley has been with Shorenstein since 2007 and serves as the company’s CIO. A self-described “cloud evangelist,” with a technology focused Twitter account, he has been responsible for pushing Shorenstein’s technology platforms into the realm of today’s best practices. The company chose Yardi to be its technology provider several years ago. “It was time to automate a lot of different parts of the business, and Yardi’s system was the only one that has the breadth to allow us to do that,” Appley noted. Realcomm recognized Appley as “an industry visionary and early adopter of an ‘all in’ cloud strategy for the business of commercial real estate,” who “elevated IT from a tactical to strategic role pursuing a business transformation through technology.” “Real estate, traditionally, never spent any money on...

The NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association recently held its second annual E.Con in Atlanta, a conference dedicated to e-commerce innovation. During the two-day event, last mile delivery stayed at the forefront of conversation. As the nation faces a shortage of 240, 000 truck drivers, e-commerce companies are actively seeking alternatives to traditional delivery methods. Panelists and attendees discussed four current trends: Unmanned vehicles The lack of CDL drivers and the high costs of employing them are leading e-commerce retailers to seek other ways of getting products from distribution centers to the homes of consumers. Removing drivers altogether could be the solution. That’s one approach that has been tried in Europe and Asia. Those programs started 10 years ago. Unmanned vehicles still haven’t caught on because studies (and many companies) suggest that automated trucks are most suitable for interstate conditions. The last mile in urban and suburban areas has risks associated with pedestrians, frequent construction and redirects, varying laws, and erratic behavior from human drivers nearby. More research and innovation will be needed to make companies and consumers comfortable with unmanned delivery vehicles in heavily populated areas. Uber-style delivery systems Independent delivery services are also popping up across the nation. Drivers for hire (those with a standard non-commercial license) can carry out deliveries from urban and suburban distribution centers to doorsteps. They do not require the pay or hours of career truck drivers. Start-ups and smaller e-commerce companies are exploring these options. They may become more prevalent in the future. There is one major problem. Currently, there is no software that coordinates product size, weight, and shipping distance with these drivers for hire. Everett Steele, CEO of Kanga says, “There is this idea, ‘I want to be the Uber for delivery,’ but one of...

It sounds unbelievable, but it all started only 25 years ago this week. On a March day in 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, established the first connection of his brainchild called the World Wide Web – a system for publishing information over the internet.  It was an idea that would change the world and life as we know it. Berners-Lee worked at CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland – and his intention was to help itinerant academics from all over the world run a complicated particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider. These scientists were eager to share information – data and test results – but had plenty of roadblocks. Berners-Lee’s proposal specified a set of technologies that would help overcome that; however, his initial proposal was not immediately accepted. Perseverance is what made Tim successful: by October 1990 he had particularized three essential technologies that remain today the foundation of the Web, visible on any Web browser: HTML: HyperText Markup Language is the publishing format for the Web that includes the function of formatting documents and link to other documents and resources. URI: Uniform Resource Identifier is a sort of “address”, unique to each resource on the Web. HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol allows for the retrieval of linked sources from across the Web. By the end of 1990, the first Web page was served. By 1991, people outside of CERN were able to join the community. Perhaps the most important thing in the history of technology is set on April 1993 when CERN announced that the World Wide Web technology would be available for anyone to use, for free. Today the World Wide Web is the most powerful communication medium we know. Whether we teach and...