One of the reasons that sustainability measures can be so easily sidelined in our efforts of prioritization is that value of the contributions of natural systems or the liabilities of their predicted absence never factor into the bottom lines of our society. In a culture of buying and selling products, natural capital rarely makes it to the balance sheet. The proposal of trying to effectively “price” the natural world offers an interesting solution to our unfettered assault on environmental assets, but even if it were ever enacted it is unlikely to have significant long term affects on how we live. Trying to commoditize the natural environment only tries to describe it within the confines of a limited language. The fact is that the natural environment has no finite value, but instead is uncompromisingly essential. Continue Reading…
Part of ensuring that sustainability is more than just a technological fix to supplement a wasteful lifestyle is using design to reveal processes and concepts to onlookers that result in actually imparting knowledge. This can make the jump from simply catching attention to raising awareness and understanding. Designers are often presented with opportunities to decide whether a sustainable component will only be a hidden part of the inner workings of a building and landscape or a feature that is incorporated into how the design is perceived and experienced. If the goal is to change the course of our culture to more sustainable ends then some of the most successful designs are the ones that can successfully allow people to interact with sustainability itself. Continue Reading…
Given how much room for improvement we have in making our buildings more sustainable, we should certainly welcome the efforts of companies to release more green building components. Recently, business has been good. The slow permeation of sustainability into the culture of design and construction has brought new products to market every year for nearly every stage of the building process. For as much as we need more opportunities, however, it makes no sense to preemptively rush a product to market just for the sake of getting more green items on the shelf. On the contrary, a faulty green product could do more long term harm than a shortage of green solutions. Continue Reading…
Pop culture’s interpretation of “green” urban landscapes have a tendency to draw a literal representation of a more sustainable city. These “Garden City” visions can include plants growing from virtually every spatial nook and cranny possible. With flowing strands of climbing plants scaling facades and trees not only lining the streets, but poking out of sky gardens stories off of the ground, the idea of a more environmentally responsible cityscape is often presented to the public as being the result of the integration of flora and fauna.
While incorporating foliage and creating micro-climates carry a number of benefits, a truly green city has to revolve around the integration of systems to help it emulate a natural ecology. Plants should be treated as one component of a network of sustainable efforts in order to be properly utilized. This vision is not really “wrong” as much as incomplete and runs the risk of misleading people into thinking that making cities sustainable is as simple as adding plant life. There is no real solution that involves only planting our way to stewardship.
In virtually every industry and profession we can point to occurrences of codes and regulations that create needless amounts of red tape, adding unnecessary time to the schedule and taking away valuable resources from the budget. By most businesses, regulation is seen as a hindrance that opposes free market capitalism and, as such, should be minimized. But a complete lack of regulation, even in a fundamentally good pursuit like sustainability, can not only produce a series of liabilities but specifically those that undermine the very goals that sustainability is trying to accomplish.
I recently wrote an article describing geothermal heating and cooling, making no secret of my strong support for the technology and its implementation. On the mainstream of residential construction, geothermal is still rather new so many municipalities are still trying to catch up to the learning curve of the repercussions of installing new wells without hindering the expansion of the budding industry. In doing some research on geothermal for a project in Rhode Island, I came across a surprising interface of regulatory oversight and sustainability that underscores the conversations that they need to continue to have.
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After decades of trying to build an industry based around a diversion from the chemical-laden farming practices of agro-giants, organic farming still makes up an infinitesimal portion of America’s produce. Despite the apparent strength of naturally oriented stores and markets, when it comes to planting acreage and shopping baskets, organics do not hold a meaningful presence at the table—largely due to lower yields and their affect on profitability. Due to its inherent control over growing conditions, indoor farming could be the medium that allows organic produce to harvest more of the national market share.
I recently read a fascinating post by Steve Savage, over on Sustainablog, who did some analysis of farming data collected by the USDA. His reported conclusions give us a glimpse of organic food’s place in American agriculture—and you need a magnifying glass to see it. According to Savage, harvested organic produce currently comprises a mere 0.52% of all cropland in the country in 2008. To an architect in New York City, where organic products seem to be available on every corner, the number caught me by surprise. Continue Reading…
In a way, professional expertise can be a double-edged sword. When a focused group of people dedicate themselves to an industry niche they become able to unlock and extract potential due to their heightened knowledge and experience. We call them “experts,” and defer to their opinion and assessment for engaging with the field in the future. At the same time, “experts” can also wield their power for ends that are less innovative or progressive. The same aura of experience that can ignite enthusiasm in consumers or investors by saying, “Sure, there’s no reason we can’t do that” can also stifle revolutionary thinking by claiming that advances “simply can’t be done.” When we hear an expert say it’s impossible, most of us can’t really argue.
This barrier of plausibility ends up being an industry excuse that bars advancement and sustainability encounters it all the time. Why is our water not cleaner? Why is public transit not fiscally self-sufficient? Why can’t we survive on only renewable energy? Because it simply can’t be done, or at least so we are told. Continue Reading…
When it comes to the question of how to heat and cool our homes, there is a great answer right under our feet. A client recently expressed interest in exploring geothermal for a home renovation in Rhode Island and I wasted no time in jumping on the opportunity to cement it as one of our goals for the project. Despite Americans’ slow adoption of the technology, geothermal offers an efficient and sustainable way to let the earth do most of the work in heating and cooling a home. It also offers one of the best solutions to target energy efficiency and the reduction of reoccurring fossil fuel use. Continue Reading…
There are times when sustainability takes the back seat in political address, earning only brief glimpses amidst purportedly grander plans for our country’s direction. Tonight was no such occasion. President Obama made sustainability a fixture in his State of the Union address to the country, touching on numerous points as priorities for how we should utilize sustainable goals to strengthen the economy and improve our quality of life. Though some of the mentioned goals were admittedly very tenacious, it is encouraging to see that the White House is willing to put sustainability center stage. Continue Reading…
[Editor’s Note: Below is a guest post from colleague, blogger and fellow architect Brandon Specketer. With years of experience in sustainable architecture and graphic design, Brandon is currently a resident of New York City’s Upper West Side and works as an Associate at Cook+Fox Architects.]
A question has been rattling around in my head because of the holidays – is our current consumerist culture incompatible with the larger goals of sustainability? While the atmosphere of the holiday season has subsided, what remains among the drifts of accumulated snow are piles of trash. Bags filled with empty boxes of computers, clothes, books and other gifts that had been given and received. All of this is because of the heavy influence cultural conventions have on our behavior. While the consumer culture may be the elephant in the room when it comes to bigger environmental and social discussions, I do believe that there are businesses like the Paris shop Merci that use consumerism to serve larger environmental or social goals. Continue Reading…