Best Green Buildings Since 1980

Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, William McDonough + Partners, 2001

image: Barney Taxell; mcdonoughpartners.com/Architect Magazine

Lance Hosey has written an interesting article entitled “The G-List – Is the rift between design excellence and environmental performance getting wider?” in Architect Magazine, more or less in counterpoint to other recent articles (e.g., see Vanity Fair, August 2010) lauding the “greatest buildings in the last 30 years” and which were sadly and dramatically lacking in examples of  great “green” buildings.  Hosey, certainly disappointed, asked 150 green building experts and advocates—including architects, engineers, educators, and critics from the U.S., the UK, Europe, and Asia—to name “the five most-important green buildings since 1980” and has compiled his “G-List” accordingly.

Includes a very good slideshow.

Inspiring.

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Vertical Gardens, Energy, Environment, Architecture & Design

 

 Ed Alcock for The New York Times

Vertical gardens have become fashionable since the French scientist and botanist Patrick Blanc showed their possibilities with the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, shown in 2006.

Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop has written a very interesting article entitled “New, Greener Version of Ivory Towers Proliferates” in an I.H.T. Special Report: The Business of Green, in the Energy & Environment section of Business Day in The New York Times (online) looking at vertical gardens in architecture and design.  Serious.

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The Economics of Response to Climate Change – The Dollars & Sense of Solutions to Global Warming

Photograph by Yoshikazu Nema; Artwork by Yuken Teruya

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist (2008), in his wide-ranging, very precise and honestly excellent article, entitled “Building a Green Economy” in the Magazine section of The New York Times (online) discusses with astounding and very welcome clarity not only the truly catastrophic environmental and economic consequences of global warming but also, and more importantly, now, the clear, reasoned and viable economic measures that can, should and will, given the necessary political will, offer solutions to this extremely serious and far-reaching problem.  Krugman’s article is not short, and it, for reason, requires some thinking on the part of the reader, but it is definitely worth every minute that you spend reading it.

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New Link Added, After Much Hesitation

Here’s a link to BLDGBLOG, a blog on, let’s say, architecture and environment.  It’s been around for a few years now and perhaps that shows in its style.  Nevertheless, it contains, a bit hidden away, some interesting material.  Take a look and let us know what you think. 

Is the problem only the font?  We get headaches trying to read it, especially their “Quick Links” sidebar.  But do it anyway.  (Perhaps one of you typographically inclined readers could help them out…)

designalog@live.fr