—CURRENT ACTIVITY—
RMI is currently engaging participants from across the engineering value chain in a series of conference calls to tailor 10xE for implementation and impact. Following this series, we will move to Phase 1 of the Summer Study, where we will launch working groups to research and develop cases from June through September 2009.
Please look through the partnership and involvement tab, and contact us for further details. Also, check here for weekly updates on 10xE!
2/1/10 - Autodesk collaborates with Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) to address sustainable design challenges
Autodesk collaborates with leading innovators who are addressing sustainable design challenges. Through public and private relationships, Autodesk provides technology and support for initiatives that promote sustainable design.
Autodesk and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) are collaborating to support RMI’s Factor Ten Engineering (10xE) initiative. 10xE aims to bring about a design paradigm shift by providing designers and engineers with a tangible guideline to whole-system thinking that will help them realize radical efficiency gains. Among other things, by combining RMI’s integrative design approach and Autodesk’s experience in building information modeling, sustainable design and digital prototyping technology, the 10xE initiative aims to have designers and engineers take a more holistic design approach, with a stronger focus on energy and resource efficiency. The outcome of this project will be case studies that highlight 10xE design principles. The case studies, and the design principles they reflect, will be used to create a variety of teaching tools and to help transform engineering design pedagogy and practice, with the hope of unleashing the next wave of engineering innovation that our world truly needs. Learn more about Autodesk.
1/6/10 - RMI and AIChE Cosponsor Design Case-Study Competition
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) today announced that it was collaborating in a design case-study competition with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The competition is for case studies that describe the designs behind radically efficient processes, devices, and systems that cost nothing or little more than standard design. The case studies must also describe how much energy and resources these processes, devices, and materials save over conventional designs.
5/27/09 - First round of conference calls a success
RMI's 10xE project (Factor Ten Engineering; see www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Newsletter/NLRMIspring04.pdf) got underway recently with a series of conference calls with a group of distinguished engineers and engineering professors.
The three groups included, among others, Gary Lawrence (ARUP), Sridhar Kota (University of Michigan), Leidy Klotz (Clemson), Mike Bertolucci (Interface), Hans Zulliger (Foundation for the Third Millennium), Judy Walton (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education), Clark Bisel (Flack + Kurtz), Gil Masters (Stanford), Eric Beckman (University of Pittsburgh), John Kennedy (Autodesk), Sandy Mendler (Mithun), Andy Ford (Fulcrum Consulting), Alisdair McGregor (ARUP), Dan Nolan (DoD), Eng Lock Lee (Electric Eye), Charles Ainger, and Gary Downey (VA Tech).
RMI's goal with Factor Ten Engineering is to create a series of teaching tools that will help engineers design things so that they use radically less energy and resources than they currently use to achieve the same goal or create the same product. These teaching materials—centered around a casebook of extremely efficient projects and systems—will be used to teach efficiency concepts and design to both engineering students and practitioners. Getting the input of both teachers and practitioners is thus vital to the effort.
Some of the comments RMI's 10xE project team (Amory Lovins, Alok Pradhan, Ari Yi, Tripp Hyde, Tali Trigg, and I) heard included:
• more "bullet-proof" business arguments;
• make sure we include architects and contractors;
• include greater descriptions of the processes and what prompted decision throughout the processes;
• show more detail in the technical numbers and how the calculations were made (engineering profs like to get students to rework the problems);
• shorten the "summer study" and push out the timeline a bit; and
• consider the different audiences and how to present the material for those audiences.
"It's great you guys are doing this," one of the participants commented. "It's needed and it's timely."
We think so, and we think if we do it carefully enough it could have a tremendous influence on the design, building, and retrofitting of power and industrial plants, commercial and residential buildings, and vehicles and transportation systems. Now, onto the case-studies!
Cam Burns, RMI
For more information about 10xE, please contact Project Manager Alok Pradhan (apradhan@rmi.org).
