Buildings

On construction, cake, and local economic regeneration: why we should start with the materials

by

Could it be that we could create new housing, and new work spaces in such a way that each new development produces houses that lock up a lot of carbon in terms of their materials, generate very little carbon during their inhabitation, which create a diversity of new enterprises and livelihoods, show what deep public consultation in relation to development really looks like, all kinds of trainings, opportunities for people to invest in and benefit from the development, which create a huge sense of excitement and anticipation, invites the local community to get involved at regular stages and which create buildings and developments that feel timeless, rather than bound to a particular short-lived era of architectural fashion? I think so.

Urban agriculture isn’t new

by

In fact, it’s been around since 3,500 BC when Mesopotamian farmers began setting aside plots in their growing cities. In a review of urban agriculture throughout modern history at a symposium at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., a diverse set of academics and designers ranging from historians to landscape architects discussed how the practice has evolved over the ages, often been highly ideological, and continues to be loaded with meaning. Organized by professor Dorothee Imbert, ASLA, chair of the master’s of landscape architecture program at Washington University in St. Louis, the conference looked at why urban agriculture is such a hot topic among the public and designers now but also hoped to put the current interest in a broader context. As Imbert said, “the inter-relationship between food and the city has a long history.”

The Social Factor in Sustainable Architecture

by

I was recently struck by photographs of energy-efficient houses that were described as ’sustainable’ — built mostly with natural or recycled materials and even finished with environmentally friendly paint — however, they looked like regular modernist buildings. Can modernist architecture be called sustainable, if only ecological techniques are used? Or, is there still something missing?

The convenience city ultimatum

by

After 13 weeks of exploring the problems and opportunities of a sustainable Vancouver by 2050, what did 17 University of British Columbia students and three teachers come up with? Were they able to find a way to make housing affordable, our streets livable, and our burden on the planet much much lighter? Did they find a hopeful way forward, against the odds, to an equitable, affordable, sustainable, and economically vibrant city?

The impermanence of Eden

by

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s in Eagan, Minn., near an unusual farmer who worked a remarkable piece of land. The young Martin Diffley grew an array of vegetables on fields tucked amid grassy, protective hills and dense woods, a landscape much different from the deforested, monoculture farms so common in the region. Diffley established his Gardens of Eagan, one of the first organic farms in the Midwest, on land that had been owned by the Diffley family since 1855; pesticides and other common agricultural chemicals had never been used on it. But its edenic traits could not save it. In the late 1980s, as the Twin Cities oozed into the countryside around it, the forests were bulldozed and the hills flattened to make way for unimaginative houses in various shades of beige.

The story behind the loss of that place forms the broken heart of Turn Here Sweet Corn, a new memoir by Atina Diffley, Martin’s wife. The book is billed as a gardening guide, love story, business handbook, and legal thriller, but it is really a wrenching tale of a common yet private tragedy: the way development pressures push farming families off the land, and what happens to those families during and afterward….

The death of sprawl?

by

The United States has reached an historic moment. The exurban development explosion that defined national growth during the past two decades has come to a screeching halt, according to the latest US Census figures. Only 1 of the 100 highest-growth US communities of 2006–all of them in sprawled areas–reported a significant population gain in 2011, prompting Yale economist Robert Shiller to predict suburbs overall may not see growth "during our lifetimes."

 

Sandhill Cranes!

by

Good flying weather it was that scherzo of a morning, sunny, blustery, the sky a brilliantly clear blue vault, rare in our hazy, cloudy metropolis with its often dull light. They rode the strong south wind and sailed along, glittering and flashing in the sun. The heart does leap at such a sight and sound, and even now, typing these words, at the memory. Having come back from the edge of extinction, those big, elegant birds are a symbol that conservation efforts can work, do work, should work, a sign that if we care enough and work at it enough we can bend the grim line way from environmental catastrophe, help it arc toward sustainability and environmental regeneration.

Sanity checking an energy improvement proposal (I)

by

A few weeks back, I mentioned that I had an energy audit performed on my family’s home (a nineteenth century farmhouse on a stone basement in upstate New York, which we moved into last year). I outlined the findings and the proposals that my local energy efficiency contractor had suggested.

Since it’s a large commitment I set out to build my own model of the thermal performance of our house in a spreadsheet to make sure I believed in the improvements. In this post I am going to outline this model for the house as it functions at present. Then in a second post I will take up what the proposed improvements might do, and how the finances might work out.

Book Review: Tiny Homes, Simple Shelter: Scaling Back In The 21st Century

by

…Tiny Homes, Simple Shelter is a compilation of like-minded people’s stories. The common thread that weaves between the stories is the builders’ immense pride of place, a drive for independence and a vision that, when little goes to waste, life can have greater meaning.