livagreen » sustainability

Design for the Digital Age?

admin — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:56:18 +0000

“Mr. Gehry’s design is about bringing that same sensibility — the focus on refined textures, the cultivation of a sense that something has been shaped by a human hand — to the digital age.”

So the New York Times reviews the new building at 8 Spruce Street designed by star-chitect Frank Gehry — the tallest luxury residential tower in New York City. And it appears to be true from the inside and out – a beautiful and sculptural exterior with a function, cozy interior based on Mr. Ouroussoff’s assessment. Many of the architects earlier buildings had beautiful exteriors but poorly thought out interiors, “criticized for creating wildly sculptural forms that are nothing more than masks.” But this building appears not to do that and, if so it is likely to be some of Gehry’s best work.

But given the beauty of this facade as it reaches from Gotham to the sky — one has to wonder if the beauty is skin deep. Nothing is mentioned in the review about the building’s performance. Gehry is not known for producing the most green, high performing buildings, but one has to wonder — if this building is to provide a reference point for design for the digital age, then how does it speak about sustainability. Does it make any kind of statement other than reinforcing the consumption of the “pampered young professionals” who will reside there?

Planning Healthy and Child-Friendly Communities Conference Report available online

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:42:16 +0000

The Conference Report from the 48th IMCL Conference on Planning Healthy and Child-Friendly Communities in Charleston, SC is now available free online to review or download. The conference was outstanding, an unprecedented gathering of leaders and experts renowned for their breadth of vision, depth of experience, insightful strategies, tools, and wisdom.

For the first time, we are making audio and transcripts of keynote speeches, slides, and papers available online as an eConference. Now, you may register for the conference and listen to, and review or download all the presentations. Access is available until May 1st by creating an account at http://www.livablecities.org/user/register. Keynote speeches and papers have also been published in the form of eight new Documentation Sets on specific themes. Your city, firm, or university will find these invaluable resources.

The IMCL work of making our cities healthy and child-friendly continues. In the near future, we shall announce a Call for Papers and Invitation to Exhibit for the 49th IMCL Conference to take place in Portland, OR, May 2012. If you have subscribed to the IMCL Newsletter (see below), you will receive the first announcement.

Environmental Roulette

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:10:15 +0000

Meetings. Goals. Meetings. Many recent meetings and their subsequent goals and action items are telling us that the promises we made to ourselves over the past years are not being kept. It turns out with green building initiatives, effiecieny improvements, etc. many agencies are now backing down from initial claims that locations in the US could reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, 2014 or sooner.

The truth is that it’s too painful right now. The idea that Americans somehow changed their behavior after the release of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth was exaggerated. What is did create was more beairacracy, more urban planning acronyms, jargon and level of government to achieve climate goals – not to mention spawning a new era in the machine of the environmental consulting industry and the production of environmental reports to ‘cover’ development.

The graphs and charts we see now show that maybe this is not working – that democratizing a common good leads to profiteering and divisiveness in how to address the problem. Driving behavior has not changed and significant transport infrastructure projects see environmentalists as adversaries; residential populations continue to resist density in favor of the status quo and on claims of environmentalism; energy efficiecy programs are abundant but power loads are increasing.

People worry about federal dollars and stimulus, like trasit and renewable energy money that was promised in Obama’s first State of the Union address – however to be frank that money will be too much too late and it’s scale of impact to global. We need local leadership; we need people to stand up for more, affordable and environmentally friendly housing and jobs in the regional code.

Clearly to make the kinds of changes we need strong local and regional governmental leadership. Recent estimates from the San Francisco Bay Area indicate that even to achieve modest GHG emission reductions the price driving must rise (to close to $5/gallon); more housing must be produced (more than 200,000 housing units are projected to be needed in downtown San Francisco); more renewable infrastructure projects must be pursued.

If this can’t happen maybe we’re just screwed and we should give up on our both our meetings and our goals. We should all just live gluttonously and wait for the end in our V8 gas guzzlers while eating blue-fin tuna sushi.

Jason Corburn's New Blog: Healthy Cities

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:49:05 +0000

Check out Kason Corburn’s new Healthy Cities blog. Livagreen.com will be subscribing to his RSS feed under the sustainable communities tab. Jason is an Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He also teaches in the School of Public Health, is a member of the Global Metropolitan Studies initiative and Chair of the Executive Committee of the College of Environmental Design. His most recent posts cites a Contra Costa Times article on how “Residents of poor East Oakland die, on average, 16 years before residents of wealthier neighborhoods in the Oakland Hills.” indicating that to a large degree where you live and the quality of the environment “your degree of suffering and length of life.” You can also check out his two excellent books: Towards a Healthier City and Street Science published by MIT press.

Two Articles on Green Campus: Transportation and Energy

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:39:21 +0000

Two of the main culprits of emissions / pollution on corportate and educational campus in the US are 1) energy use (power, heating and cooling) and 2) transportation. Here are two discourses on this topic. First a discussion of coal for heat at universities in the eastern US and then a discussion about where we are with non-motorized transit and how campuses might provided catalyst environments for changing transportation behavior.

In terms of energy use on campuses, a 10 Janurary article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed., discusses the difficulties for campus trying to go off non-renewables. It cites Penn State which will in 2010 begin to upgrade it’s coal-power steam plants but is now under pressure to pursue more rigorous environmentalism. The articles notes Ball State University (geo-thermal) and UW-Madison (bio-mass) as examples of colleges pursuing adventurous solutions, but indicates there are costs (many requiring state and federal subsidies) and may lack relability.

Most renewable energy sources are not as reliable, potent, or accessible, and many experts predict that coal will continue providing a significant portion of the nation’s energy. To complicate matters, energy use on growing campuses is more intense than ever—in part because of the living arrangements of students, who occupy bigger spaces and have devices plugged into every wall. Coal is certainly dirty, but colleges that want to stop burning it might have to make significant investments and take some risks to find alternatives.

Likewise the transportation segment is a large portion of institutional GHG emission. It also is low-hanging fruit for campus wanting to reduce emission — simply shifting travel behavior. However A separate article from 22 Dec 2009 from ClimateEdu discusses how US cycling and pedestrian infrastructure lags that of European.

American urban planners and road engineers still have a knowledge gap when it comes to building infrastructure for bikes. In Europe, bicyclists enjoy cycling lanes separated from traffic by boundaries. Traffic calming devices and bicycle-specific traffic lights also add to the perception of safety, and European bicyclists can travel long distances without ever coming into close contact with a car.

Similarly to the discussion on coal, many times state and federal subsidies / funding is needed to implement large-scale projects, but that does not preclude incremental steps. Efficiency and behavioral program, as well as good day-to-day, contextual urban design can help address these step-by-step; with the hope of a large big-hit in the future.