To the good fortune of many, no. Ten years after being founded on a shoe-string with an insurgent ”design like you give a damn” mentality, Architecture for Humanity’s relief efforts in Haiti suggest that AFH is no longer a humanitarian group working on the fringes of disaster response. And even if it was never completely accurate [...]
Back in October, I wrote about PNC Financial’s new green wall, which was attached to a relatively small portion of the facade of that bank’s austere Pittsburgh headquarters. One commentator expressed a fair bit of disdain for what he perceived as the bank’s similarly superficial attitude toward environmental issues in areas apart from its public [...]
Cliff Kuang over at FastCompany just posted about a Dutch company’s seemingly simple, but apparently substantial shipping innovation: collapsible shipping containers. Dubbed the Cargoshell, the containers would look identical to their rigid counterparts if their mid-sections weren’t creased with a perimeter-length hinge. But don’t let its appearance fool you; the Cargoshell may have a sea-changing [...]
Some months ago, I wrote about a Midwestern city’s struggle to restore and use its Art Deco movie theater. Despite the best efforts of local preservationists however, nothing ever happened and matters deteriorated so much that the downtown landmark is now a strip club.
Well, it turns out, much to my surprise, that such businesses are [...]
Washington, D.C. bicyclists got a big morale boost last month, when the Bicycle Transit Center opened to the public. Essentially a parking garage with changing rooms, the new hub has room for 150 bicycles - all of which get to reside in a beautiful structure designed by KGP Design Studio. The building is unabashedly different [...]
Should the Gowanus Canal be declared a federal Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency?
As if PCBs, heavy metals, raw sewage, and brackish tidewater weren’t damaging enough, New York City’s Gowanus Canal won’t get an answer until the end of an on-going political battle among forces wielding nearly as much influence on its physical state [...]
Judging by the positive captions of the many protester-taken photos of the new green wall hanging at PNC Financial’s Pittsburgh headquarters, I think the G-20 security personnel surrounding PNC Plaza were unnecessary; apparently financial companies just need some greenery to direct the ire of their philosophical adversaries elsewhere.
Not that PNC’s new green wall isn’t good [...]
You are forgiven if you assumed the landscape architecture profession already had a formal ratings system in place for gaging the environmental impact of landscaping projects. As energy-intensive as buildings are, the environmental damage wrought by big parking lots, nutrient-sapping and water-slurping landscaping, and the like is also huge and plainly evident.
Up to now, in [...]
A Santa Monica architect known for his high-rise designs is working on what may be the ultimate “spec” building — a 224-story skyscraper with green ambitions that would be the tallest structure in the world.
Two hundred and twenty-four story towers situated on man-made islands in desert regions are not “environmentally conscious.” Tacking next-generation solar panels, [...]
New Orleans is unlucky. Since 2005’s low point, it has been victim to the worst exhibits of public stewardship and post-disaster response possible. Beginning with foolishly-designed shipping canals/ levee-systems and unprepared disaster-response officials, missteps soon graduated to hopelessly inadequate provisions for temporary (and shoddily-built) emergency shelters, misappropriation-of-funds / self-dealing scandals, and a new crop of long-range planning initiatives that were tone-deaf to [...]