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 […]
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Rethinking the Urban Grid
April 23, 2013 
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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 […]
Read more Why LEED Doesn’t Work in Rural Africa and What Will
April 12, 2013 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 […]
Read moreMicrocommunities Challenge the Suburban Model
April 1, 2013 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 […]
Read moreDo Not Skip the Simple Questions
March 20, 2013 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, […]
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