Connecting to Dulles – or Not

 
What? In the Nation’s Capital, in a region that the Federal Government has scolded and threatened because of its car generated air pollution (remember, government is our industry here in Washington…) at a time of record congestion coupled with rapidly rising fuel costs and climate change, the Federal Government is refusing to fund a desperately needed extension [...]

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Architects Seek Irrelevance

Today in the press there is a good example of what the world is up against in the struggle to make places that make sense. First, on his website at www.hughpearman.com, the critic Hugh Pearman (I guess you could figure that out…), a Brit, writes a recap on the status of making sustainable buildings and cities [...]

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Let’s Unplug Everything

Let’s unplug all of our buildings. Think of it! Right now, we’re plugged in to water, sewer, electricity, gas, telephone (though fewer and fewer of us), cable. The technology exists to care for each of these systems unplugged – photovolatics for power and heat, wireless, water systems that can collect and recycle. Imagine your neighborhood [...]

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Best and Worst

Richmond, Virginia
There is a group you can find on the internet, at www.sustainlane.com. They rank cities every year for levels of sustainability and environmental friendliness. I was taking a look the other day at the top ten most sustainable cities on their list (sustainlane is now cited by all the media as the experts in [...]

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The Next City – An Inquiry Begins

 
Lisbon, Portugal
In recent months we have had the extraordinary opportunity to visit many cities around the world, from Istanbul to Cairo, Lisbon to Rochester, New York to Portland. Some we have visited many times, some for only a fleeting moment. But we have tried to think about each place, tried to get to know a [...]

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