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Despite all the talk about energy efficiency, most buildings in the U.S. are leaky. Way too leaky. According to Department of Energy (DOE) statistics, air leakage accounts for 40 percent of energy costs for commercial buildings. That means nearly half your monthly energy bill is spent on heated or cooled air that’s escaping from places it shouldn’t escape from. That’s a lot of money to let just “leak away.” Although increasing efficiency of wall and roof insulation can help with energy costs, there are limits to what it alone can achieve in curbing your heating and cooling costs. It would …
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When you think “trendy,” older people might not be the first thing you think of.  Yet, Thomas P. Montgomery, Vice President for GLMV Architecture and a specialist in designing environments for the elderly, can tell you that old age today is not what it used to be. As the baby boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) closes in on retirement, the United States will experience the largest elderly population it has ever seen. Currently, one in four Americans is part of this demographic group, and boomers are expected to make as large an impact on long-term retirement living as …
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Thomas P. Montgomery’s professional future may have been decided when he was very young during visits to a nursing home where his grandmother lived.  “They weren’t great places back then,” Montgomery recalls.  As an adult, he would change all that. Montgomery, Vice President of GLMV Architecture, specializes in designing environments for the elderly that allow residents to make themselves completely at home.  In the past, long-term residential facilities housed large groups of people in one space and were heavily centralized.  “There was one huge dining room and one huge common room,” Montgomery recalls. “Residents often had to have a roommate. …
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The Via Christi Cancer Institute would be created from two thirds of the seventh floor of a busy hospital, explains Ryan Craft, Project Designer for GLMV. “We had to find the best way to separate ourselves and the construction mess from the rest of the facility.” The solution, implemented in collaboration with the project’s general contractor, was to build a temporary construction elevator and fasten it to the outside of the building. Seventh floor windows were turned into doors to allow access to the new “express elevator.” As a result of innovation and coordination of the project team, “All the …
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How we make accessibility . . . child’s play When the Sunrise Rotary Club decided to take on the design and construction of a $1.5 million boundless playground as a centennial project, GLMV Architecture stepped up to make it a reality. A boundless playground is one that is entirely barrier free.  It is equally accessible to all children, regardless of age, or physical, cognitive, developmental or sensory disabilities.  When GLMV took the project on in 2006, the concept was new to the area.  The Sunrise playscape was designed to be 70 percent accessible to disabled children or adults, when other …
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