Herdt a finalist for Green Building Council award

Herdt

The “BioSIPs” technology project by Julee Herdt, professor in the College of Architecture and Planning (CAP) at the University of Colorado Denver and a working architect, was selected as a finalist for the U.S. Green Building Council, Colorado Public Interest Design Award. Six statewide awards were presented during the Rocky Mountain Green sustainability conference in Denver.

Herdt developed and applied her original BioSIPs invention and tested it as the main building envelope and construction system for CU’s 2005 first-place international Solar Decathlon competition home design. The BioSIPs invention was cited by the international Solar Decathlon judges as being critical to the CU team’s back-to-back (2002, 2005) win in the overall 2005 competition.

Since those awards, Herdt has advanced BioSIPs structural insulated wall, floor and roof panels to exhibit strengths surpassing other SIPs in specific areas (compressive and transverse loading) as well as to exhibit super thermal values. BioSIPs full-scale prototypes were tested at CU Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science as well as for the construction of the solar-powered BioSIPs Research Structure built in Boulder through a dtate of Colorado Waste Diversion grant. Herdt is the CEO and president of BioSIPs Inc., a CU spin-off technology for commercialization of BioSIPs and other products from 100 percent diverted waste fibers. She will collaborate with the CU Denver Business School during the fall semester on commercialization and business planning for her company.