Intercon

Restoring Infrastructure With Interaction Mayor Cory Booker said it well: “from the Transcontinental Railroad to the...
Sobering Fact: Water Through a Power Plant Can Fill the Empire State Building Every Day As Americans we use a lot of water—per capita, more than any other country on...
Rethinking the Urban Grid We often use the utilitarian, rational deployment of street grids as a boon to...

Restoring Infrastructure With Interaction

May 20, 2013 by T. Caine 0 Comments

Mayor Cory Booker said it well: “from the Transcontinental Railroad to the Hoover Dam, to the dredging of our ports and building of our most historic bridges – our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation’s infrastructure.” Throughout history the image of new infrastructure has been synonymous with progress. The need for newer, […]

Infrastructure + Services, Urban Planning

brownfield, environment, infrastructure, new, sustainability, Urban Planning

Sobering Fact: Water Through a Power Plant Can Fill the Empire State Building Every Day

May 3, 2013 by T. Caine 1 Comment

As Americans we use a lot of water—per capita, more than any other country on the planet. A huge portion (49% as of 2005) of what we use goes to thermoelectric cooling, or removing heat from our fossil fuel burning power plants. That’s around 200 billion gallons a day, but we have a lot of […]

Power Generation, Sobering Facts

Coal Plant, environment, new, power, sustainability, water

Rethinking the Urban Grid

April 23, 2013 by T. Caine 1 Comment

We often use the utilitarian, rational deployment of street grids as a boon to our best cities. American cities like New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. stand as the result of a preplanned order deployed to guide expansion over time. In many ways it has worked. Partitioning up the city has helped to shape a […]

Urban Planning

architecture, economy, environment, new, Street Grid, sustainability

Why LEED Doesn’t Work in Rural Africa and What Will

April 12, 2013 by T. Caine 0 Comments

This is a guest post by friend and former classmate, Charles Newman. Charlie has committed his architectural practice to helping communities in places around the world. He is currently working for International Rescue Committee in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo as the Community Driven Reconstruction Manager and he keeps a great blog on his architectural travels in Africa. Aside from being a LEED AP, his work consistently seeks to integrate sustainability.

While in a small southern town of the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid 2012, a colleague of mine approached me for some guidance on a large health proposal he was putting together. A portion of the grant would be earmarked for the construction of hundreds of clinics across the DR Congo, and he mentioned that the donor would be very interested in “green” building standards. Knowing that I was a LEED Accredited Professional, he began asking how we might be able to incorporate such building standards into the designs for the pending projects. I rattled off some general guidelines such as using local materials – recycled ones if available, incorporating existing infrastructure, natural ventilation, etc. He jotted down a few notes, then began to pry a little deeper. “What about the LEED point system? Could we incorporate that into our strategy?”

My response was frank: “No, not really. LEED doesn’t work here in rural Africa.” Read more…

Green Buildings

africa, architecture, environment, LEED, sustainability

Microcommunities Challenge the Suburban Model

April 1, 2013 by T. Caine 7 Comments

Outside of Seattle, the design-build firm Dwell Development is in the process of building out their vision of transit oriented development. They are calling it Columbia Station. Pitched within the rising popularity of the term “microcommunity” the project plan includes 15 residential homes all built on the same block and within a quick walk to buses and the commuter rail. As more of the designed units get built the proposal could be an example of the elusive search for a middle ground between urban centers and suburbia. Read more…

Green Buildings, Urban Planning

architecture, environment, Microcommunity, suburbia, sustainability

Do Not Skip the Simple Questions

March 20, 2013 by T. Caine 1 Comment

The scale of our society’s deficiencies in regards to sustainability can be daunting, even to proponents, and with a problem so large there is a tendency to look for large scale solutions. Rightfully so. We have a lot of ground to cover, so if we can catch up with some big moves all the better, and there are plenty of them floating around: carbon pricing, national recycling programs, grid-scale renewable energy, power plant emissions. The danger here is the misconception that the only solutions are difficult solutions or that sustainability itself is overly complicated. Once these impressions set in it becomes very easy for us to distance ourselves from contributing. After all, aside from a letter to elected officials and signing some petitions, how much can one do to support the construction of offshore wind turbines or improve state energy codes? Difficult questions have a way of dissuading us.

The truth is that there are countless opportunities for sustainable improvement that are very simple and the fact that they remain underutilized is not because the solutions or difficult, let alone impossible, but because no one has spoken up yet. Sometimes all we have to do is ask. Read more…

Cultural Norms

environment, office culture, recycling, sustainability

Repair or Rebuild: Part II

March 12, 2013 by T. Caine 0 Comments

In a previous article I dug into the first half of the Midcentury (un)Modern study conducted by Terrapin Bright Green that raised the question of what we should do with a group of over 100 energy deficient New York office towers built between 1958 and 1973. Once it became clear that a series of unique conditions were making this particular group of poorly performing buildings unadaptable the question became if there was a positive scenario for demolition and reconstruction. There could be a number of ways to stimulate or incentivize the replacement of these buildings to coax building owners into action–essentially paying them to make a change. However, even though it’s possible, is it positive? Is there a process that creates a new building while providing a net gain? Not only a monetary gain for the city, but a net gain in things like energy use, water consumption and air quality. Read more…

Green Buildings, Green Tech

architecture, building reuse, design, green building, sustainability

To Repair or Rebuild: Part I

February 26, 2013 by T. Caine 0 Comments

Time has a way of treating seemingly similar buildings very differently. More than just the years of abuse from the elements and the course of daily use, the change in priorities and cultural trends of how we live and work ripples through the built environment, re-calibrating the value of buildings at any given time. The empty warehouse spaces of SoHo that seemed valueless in the 40′s and 50′s were viewed differently twenty years later when artists filled the open floor plates with studios and differently again when they were replaced with high end retailers at the turn of the century. The iconic landscape of commercial office towers in New York is going through a similar transition as demands for office space continue to evolve while a great deal of the building stock is not the gleaming, glass facets of One Bryant Park. Some office space, built in a specific time for a specific purpose, has fallen from grace in comparison to newer brethren. Read more…