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 straightforward process for development, creating defined districts for zoning along with a web for transportation. But as the way we interact with the city evolves, including the buildings within it, the grid lags behind, representing the same functions that it did centuries ago. These massive infrastructural frameworks have grown to the point of being outmoded, trailing the urban evolution around and within them. We are at a point for a reassessment for how best to use this wealth of connective tissue that provides access to and from our homes, our jobs and our leisure both inside and outside of the city. Continue Reading…
Archives For New York City
The ranks of green-minded architects appear to be growing. The growing number of LEED accreditations and certifications alike point to a larger knowledge base that can be pulled from at the start of every new building project. But, to the best of my knowledge, we are not seeing more projects designed and funded by architects. This one-stop-shop package, though an attractive vision to many architects, is rarity in the profession that ultimately remains a service business to development clients. Even if architects are pushing sustainability, developers are the ones that have to pull the trigger and they often have little reason to.
When New York City residents awoke on Tuesday morning, forecasts already pointed to the imminent blanket of heat that was going to cover the city only hours later, enough to make the groans of stirring from bed a little deeper. Nevertheless, it was no day off for the corporate machine so the trains were still running, the lights were still turning on and the air conditioners were already humming. By the time I got into work our office received an email from the management company of the building we are in requesting voluntary support for immediate, emergency energy reduction: