Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
The Rail~Volution Conference rolled into Los Angeles to illustrate how transit projects energize neighborhoods, meeting a significant demand for multi-density housing walkable to restaurants, offices, and shops. They can transform the landscape and mindset, in this case, of auto-addicted Southern California. One stop at a time.
Passive solar Earthships provide electricity, potable water, sustainable food production, with contained sewage treatment, and can be built anywhere in the world. Renegade eco-architect Michael Reynolds’ construction and design process called Earthship Biotecture creates beyond LEED Architecture, a sustainable green building design made of natural and recycled materials.
Three LEED-ND pilot participants—the Brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the SALT District in Syracuse, New York; and Tassafaronga Village in Oakland, California—show promise as neighborhood-scale revitalized green adaptive reuse in a difficult economy.
We must re-create cities greener and more sustainable from the ground up. The goal: compact living environments requiring less resources that maximize utilization of land, water and energy. Here are some suggestions.
Even Houston, the fossil-fuel-driven, no-zoning-free-market-build-here-there-everywhere-city has found its sustainable voice with the water-park-wildlife-habitat reclamation of Buffalo Bayou.
A pioneering green developer in Philadelphia plans the largest “Passive House” mixed-use energy-net-zero redevelopment along the banks of the Schuylkill River.