For the past five years, Google has been running its own Healthy Materials program, which evaluates products for their potential health risks to employees.
That program worked fine when Google was just renting space and only had to worry about things like off gassing from furniture or paint. But when the search engine giant got into ground-up construction, “we were running into a lot of commodities” whose content wasn’t always transparent, says Drew Wenzel, Google’s campus design technical specialist. Consequently, the company wasn’t getting answers about products fast enough to make informed design, construction, and cost decisions.
“We tried to do this ourselves on one big project, and then asked ourselves if there was a better way,” says Wenzel.
That better way, he believes, is the Quartz Project, a year-long collaborative effort that Google entered into with Healthy Building Network, think step (a sustainable software provider), and Flux. Quartz Project is providing what it touts to be the AEC industry’s first free and open-source initiative that brings health and environmental information on 100 building products into a single database.
“Too many design decisions are still being made without the benefit of this information,” Drew tells BD+C. This database, he explains, allows designers and engineers to incorporate the data into existing analytical and design tools.
The Quartz Project launched its database at the VERGE 2015 conference in late October. Since then, “there’s been a lot of excitement in the AEC community” about the product, says Vivian Dien, a product manager for Flux and its Quartz Project Lead. The collaborative will be giving demos of its portal at Greenbuild in Washington D.C. next week.
This database offers product profiles for 100 commonly used building materials, from acoustical ceiling panels to XPS insulation. The information for each product includes its general composition, impurities, health profile (the product’s various health risks as a percentage of its total content weight), and environmental profile (such as Cradle-to-gate LCA results, end-of-life treatment, and so forth).
Dien says Healthy Building Network did an extensive scan of existing research and information to assemble this database. HBN was also charged with vetting the information.
The main value of this database, say Dien and Wenzel, is aggregating and standardizing product data into an open-source environment. They are quick to note, though, that the Quartz Project has avoided assigning specific health risks to individual products. “The risk portion needs to be carefully thought out,” says Wenzel. “We hope that software engineers will look at this database to develop tools that can integrate this information into a Revit model to have conversations early in the design process.”
They also see this database as a “benchmark,” which can be used to understand a product’s health baseline and to track improvements.
The Quartz Project is the industry’s latest effort to bring greater transparency to product content. Other prominent groups in this arena include the Health Product Declaration Collaborative, an open-standard format for reporting material content and potential health hazards; and The Cradle-to-Cradle Institute, with its five levels of certification for products as they travel a path to meet the organization’s criteria for material health, reutilization, renewable energy and carbon management, water stewardship, and social fairness.
Wenzel views those other sources as “predominantly” for products “that are unique or highly controlled.” Whereas the primary purpose of the Quartz Project’s database, he says, is as “an early-phase design tool.”
Related Stories
Wood | Apr 13, 2022
Mass timber: Multifamily’s next big building system
Mass timber construction experts offer advice on how to use prefabricated wood systems to help you reach for the heights with your next apartment or condominium project.
Sponsored | BD+C University Course | Apr 10, 2022
Designing with commercial and industrial insulated metal wall panels
Discover the characteristics, benefits and design options for commercial/industrial buildings using insulated metal panels (IMPs). Recognize the factors affecting panel spans and the relationship of these to structural supports. Gain knowledge of IMP code compliance.
Building Materials | Feb 17, 2022
3D-printed megapanels, unitized window-wall assemblies now available from Sto Corp.
Panel manufacturer is collaborating with Branch Technology and Kawneer North America on prefabrication solutions for building facades.
3D Printing | Jan 12, 2022
Using 3D-printed molds to create unitized window forms
COOKFOX designer Pam Campbell and Gate Precast's Mo Wright discuss the use of 3D-printed molds from Oak Ridge National Lab to create unitized window panels for One South First, a residential-commercial high-rise in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Building Materials | Nov 29, 2021
Daltile expands its Unity Collection of porcelain tiles with a new color
Addition of "Taupe" gives Daltile's Unity Collection three warm and three cool colors.
Urban Planning | Nov 11, 2021
Reimagining the concrete and steel jungle, SOM sees buildings that absorb more carbon than they emit
The firm presented its case for a cleaner built environment during the Climate Change conference in Scotland.
Sustainability | Oct 28, 2021
Reducing embodied carbon in construction, with sustainability leader Sarah King
Sustainability leader Sarah King explains how developers and contractors can use the new EC3 software tool to reduce embodied carbon in their buildings.
Sponsored | Glass and Glazing | Oct 1, 2021
Specifying Responsibly to Save Birds’ Lives
Realizing sustainable, bird-friendly glass design
Sponsored | Glass and Glazing | Oct 1, 2021
Seizing the Daylight with BIPV Glass
Glass has always been an idea generator. Now, it’s also a clean energy generator.