ASHRAE NY March 2022 Newsletter 
President's Report
Hello ASHRAE New York,
It was wonderful to see so many of you at our February dinner meeting where Gina Bocra, our 2022 Distinguished Service Award Winner, Emily Hoffman and John Addario spoke about the NYC vs. NYS energy code, provided updates on Local Law 97, the fossil fuel phase out/electrification law and the future of the NYC energy code. We had over 100 people in attendance including 30 online making this our most well attended event since before the pandemic. We are looking forward to seeing you at our upcoming YEA, WiA, and student activities events as well as our Designer Series, tours and upcoming March 22nd chapter meeting featuring Christina Ciardullo, Co-Founder/Partner at SEArch+LLC.
For those of you who need Professional Development Hours (PDH) ASHRAE New York offers many cost effective programs including the Designer Series, our all day Earth Day seminar, some tours and our chapter meetings. Make sure to take advantage of these opportunities.
We want to welcome all of you who have recently joined our chapter! Over the last couple months, our chapter turned a corner and is now net positive 26 members (new members minus cancellations) since the start of our chapter year (July 2021). The pandemic severely impacted membership amongst all chapters across the world, but ASHRAE New York has persevered and has added and retained more members than any other chapter in Region 1 and are on our way back to pre-pandemic levels once again eclipsing 900 members. This is a great sign for our engineering community and we owe it to the enthusiasm of our Board and to our members. Make sure to participate and promote our Membership Battle within your firms. Winners will receive free tickets to the gala! Email [email protected] and check the website for more information.
The Gala is back! This year we’re hosting a Casino Night at the iconic Gotham Hall on May 20th. This event connects our entire industry for an evening of friendship, networking and celebration. New York has a long tradition of bringing our industry together and we cannot wait to see you there! Sponsorships are still available and all of the information about tickets and sponsorships can be found on our website and in this newsletter, and you can contact our gala chair Natalie Kovac at [email protected] or reach out to us at [email protected].
Make sure to sign up for the newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube to keep up to date on all upcoming programming. As always, please email [email protected] with ideas, thoughts and feedback.
Thank You,
Benjamin Rodney
ASHRAE NY President 2021/22
ASHRAE Dinner Meeting
Environmental Control and Life Support:
Designing Spaces in Outer Space
1 PDH CREDIT
As human beings move off the planet, going further, for longer than we ever imagined, our habitats and their humming machinery are all that stand between us and space. As interest heats up in more permanent lunar settlement, commercial orbital stations, and sending humans to Mars, many have started to re-imagine what it means for humans to live and thrive completely inside buildings where traditional rules of construction and mechanical systems don’t apply. What do we realize about our dependance on the planet earth when we suddenly don’t have a seemingly endless supply of material or environmental resources? What can ASHRAE Engineers learn from Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) designed to re-use and re-cycle air, water, and water materials? What can ASHRAE members give back to the aerospace industry from their years of knowledge designing for human indoor comfort?
We could even make this productive in terms of trying to understand their expertise/feedback which I can actually incorporate into upcoming publications with NASA….How about asking them to do some roundtables on questions such as:
- Can you apply the same ASHRAE IEQ standards in space as on earth? Which ones stay and which ones go?
- How much of our standards/guidelines in fact rely on assumptions about the outdoor environment?
- If you didn’t rely on the material systems you know - ducting, piping, insulation, etc -and had to start from scratch, could you imagine new ways of achieving IEQ performance?
SPEAKER BIO
Christina Ciardullo is an ASHRAE NY Member and a Senior Architect, partner and founder of the award-winning space architecture firm SEArch+ and PhD Researcher at the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture. With an undergraduate background in astronomy and philosophy, and a Masters of Architecture from Columbia University, Christina bridges a career between practice and research at the intersection of the natural sciences and the built environment, designing for a sustainable future for Earth and Space.She has worked in design positions ranging from New York City Planning, to NASA’s Habitability Design Center, to the award winning firms of Ennead Architects and Foster+Partners. She was the 2015/2016 Carnegie Mellon University Anna Kalla Fellow teaching interdisciplinary studios on closed loop systems, and the 2016 Buckminster Fuller Institute Fellow for Design Science. SEArch+ has won the 2015, 2019, and 2021 NASA Centennial Challenges bridging design for space towards sustainable earth development. Her current PhD work focuses on the integration of vegetation in and on buildings towards more sustainable cities.
Annual Gala Event
We are three months away from our annual ASHRAE NY Gala event, and we cannot wait to celebrate a successful year with our colleagues!
TICKETS ARE ON SALE online for this event. This is a great opportunity to network with industry professionals, recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to the engineering world, and also give back to the community. Please join us for a fun-filled Casino Night on May 20th, 2022 at Gotham Hall.
Visit our website to reserve your spot and purchase a ticket or become a sponsor. We have a specific page dedicated to the ASHRAE NY 2022 Gala (https://ashraeny.org/meetinginfo.php?id=194).
Calendar of Events
We are about 2/3 through the ASHRAE 2021-2022 year, and we still have a ton of activities planned for our ASHRAE members!! Please join us for these engaging, educational, and fun-filled events.
Visit our website at www.ashraeny.org to find out more information about each specific event and register online.
Membership Update
The Membership Battle is still on! Compete with other NYC companies to find out who has the strongest involvement in ASHRAE NY. This competition is based on how many members each company has and also total percentage growth of members from January 1, 2022 to April 15, 2022.
Winners of this competition will each receive (5) free tickets to the ASHRAE NY Gala held on May 20, 2022 at Gotham Hall. Show of your team spirit, your ASHRAE pride, and most importantly ... furthering ASHRAE's mission of fostering a growing community that Engineers can rely on.
Please visit our website at www.ashraeny.org for more information about this competition.
Newsletter Launch
There is still time to submit an entry into the Newsletter naming competition!
Due to technical difficulties on our website, we have extended the deadline for the Newsletter competition. You will have the opportunity to submit a clever name for the quarterly newsletter by March 31, 2022. The winner of the competition will be announced by April 15, 2022.
This is your chance to make history in the ASHRAE NY Chapter!!
Please submit your entries using the following Google form:
https://forms.gle/JRXdJmRdycK2Ltcg7
For more information, please visit our website at ASHRAE - Newsletter Archive (ashraeny.org).
What are you waiting for? Submit your witty response today!
Historical Committee
Have you ever picked up your psychrometric chart or ductalator and wondered about the history behind it? I thought it would be fun to take a look back in a segment of history and share any information I could dig up. This month, we will start at the beginning...
“Apparatus for Treating Air” was designed by William Carrier to air condition and control humidity at a Lithograph and Publishing Co. in Brooklyn in 1902. In 1906 Carrier received his first patent for his design. ASRE was founded in 1904 and John Starr was the societies first president. Starr was awarded a medal from Franklin Institute for designing refrigeration pipeline system. (Source ASHRAE Journal, June 1994). Another big development in 1904 was Carrier’s creation of the “hygrometric chart”. (Source: Donald P. Gatley, PE, Psychrometric Chart Celebrates 100th Anniversary). Relief came to subways riders at the Brooklyn Bridge subway station with installation of an A/C system in 1906. ASHVE formed in 1894 and 1911 the New York Chapter was formed and a year later organized a chapter meeting to present recommendations for heating and ventilation of movie houses. A committee was formed to engage in community outreach and created a junior course in Heating and Ventilation at a NYC educational institution. (Alfred Greenberg NY Chapter bulletin). The first annual “gala” aka finale dinner gathering was held at Murrays Restaurant in 1916. (SOURCE: ASHRAE JOURNAL, June 1994)
Mina Agarabi and Umamah Najeeb
ASHRAE NY Historical Committee
Recap of Recent Events
We had a great start to 2022 with two virtual meetings in the month of January. If you were unable to attend this event, or would like to view the presentation again, a copy of the presentations will be uploaded to our YouTube page in the upcoming weeks. Our YouTube page can be found here, ASHRAE New York - YouTube
- February 17th, 2022
RTEM & Tenants: Energy Management for Leased Spaces
ASHRAE NY and BE-Ex co-hosted this online webinar featuring an overview of the NYSERDA RTEM & Tenants program. The presentation included detailed information about tenant engagement requirements and incentive opportunities, and gave participants a deep insight on how tenants can low energy costs and comply with local laws. Guest speakers included:
- Dana Schneider, Director of Energy & Sustainability at Empire State Realty Trust
- Thomas Yeh, RTEM Advisor at NYSERDA
- Michael Daschle, VP of Operations at Brookfield Properties - February 17th, 2022
Chapter Dinner Meeting: Energy Code and the Road Ahead
This month's dinner meeting focused on the local and state energy codes and the future of energy codes and its relation to Local Law 97. We had a resounding amount of participants at this event (over 100 participants in-person and online combined), and we had a very engaged audience for our panelists. The guest speakers on the panel included:
- John Addario, Director of Building Standards & Codes @ NYC Department of Buildings
- Gina Bocra, Chief Sustainability Office at NYC Department of Buildings
- Emily Hoffman, Director of Energy Code Compliance at NYC Department of Buildings
- February 22nd, 2022
YEA Virtual Happy Hour
The YEA committee hosted a virtual happy as its first event of the 2022 year. This "meet and greet" event gave YEA members the chance to reconnect with young professionals within the organization and also discussed plans for the upcoming year. - February 24th, 2022
Designer Series: Psyched for Psychrometrics
This month's designer series featured a fun and engaging dive into psychrometrics and how to utilize the psychrometric chart to make better design decisions and solve problems with system operation. The lecture was presented by Julia Keen, a professor at Kansas State University.
