Craig DiLouie

Construction employment expanded in 26 states and the District of Columbia between February and March 2010, yet only Arkansas and North Dakota have more construction workers than they did a year ago according to a new analysis of federal employment figures by the Associated General Contractors of America. The new figures, while offering room for [...]

Work is proceeding briskly to complete the reflecting pools at the site of the World Trade Center attacks in time for September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the attacks. But planners still have to figure out how to provide access to the memorial while construction continues on the larger site… The Wall Street Journal [...]

Ledalite has introduced Shine, a family of highly efficient (up to 92%), uniformly luminous recessed general luminaires available in a wide variety of sizes and lamping options including T8, T5/T5HO and the TT5 compact fluorescent lamp. Check it out here.

LED company Lunera Lighting has announced a partnership with One Million Lights (OML), an organization that distributes solar-powered LED lights to families around the world–with a goal to distribute 1 million LED lights–to replace environmentally toxic kerosene lamps and enable children to study at night. An estimated 1.6-billion people, live a life without electric lighting. [...]

GreenWizard, Inc., a website that allows architects, engineers, and contractors to cross-search, compare and document products for LEED and green commercial construction, has announced that it has closed a Series A round of private investment from a syndicate of venture capital funds and angel investors. The investment was $1.15 million. The syndicated investment was led [...]

The Lighting Controls Association has announced that EE110: Commissioning Lighting Controls, a new course I authored for the organization, has been added to its Education Express series of online distance education courses. Residing at the Association’s website, Education Express provides in-depth education about lighting control and controllable ballast technology, application, system design and commissioning, as [...]

UL Environment, Inc. has begun a collaborative effort to develop sustainability standards for indoor and outdoor lighting. These standards will assist consumers, designers, architects and building operators in identifying more sustainable options for interior and exterior light fixtures, LED modules and related lighting components. The standards will address entire luminaires, including reflector, aperture, outer shell [...]

In FMI’s Construction Outlook: First Quarter 2010 Report, the outlook for put-in-place construction for 2010 remains bleak. Total construction in 2010 will be down after declining in 2009, according to FMI construction economist Heather Jones. Residential construction is expected to begin recovering in 2010, while nonresidential construction will continue to decline in 2010. Nonbuilding construction [...]

At Light + Building, Philips introduced a 60W-equivalent LED replacement lamp. To be launched commercially towards the end of 2010 as part of the company’s Master LED line, the dimmable 12W lamp will deliver 806 lumens of warm white light and feature a rated life of 25,000 hours.