The Architect's Lair

Green Urbanism

Why leave green buildings to do all the environmental work? Green infrastructure, like forests, parks, alternative stormwater systems and recycled sidewalks, can also do some of the heavy lifting in an effort to make our urban environments better. For example, this article mentions the following:

And green infrastructure often does the job better than anything human-built, for much less money, as groups like the Tree People in Los Angeles and Cascade Land Conservancy in Seattle argue. Take storm-water management. With conventional approaches, runoff from roofs and roads is channeled into underground pipes and into lakes and streams, an expensive process that also causes too much water to flow too quickly, disrupting habitat for fish and picking up pollutants from city streets and yards, spoiling water quality for all. Trees and vegetation slow, collect, and filter flowing water, and replenish aquifers.

Enter the “green street” concept. In this, Seattle, the city of rainstorms, is leading the way. The city constructed the Street Edge Alternative (S.E.A.-Street) pilot project with a group of citizens. In this innovative streetscape, designers wove winding landscaped areas along the road edge to filter and slow the runoff into nearby Piper’s Creek. Some of these projects rise to the level of a new artform. The “Growing Vine Street Project,” designed by Carlson Architects and Peggy Gaynor, which carries storm-water over eight blocks of Seattle’s downtown, features a streamlet coursing downhill over a series of water and plant terraces that act as biofilters for stormwater, as well as walkways and gardens to be enjoyed by passersby.

Green infrastructure is a deep interest of mine, the natural outgrowth of my planning degree and an interest in sustainable design. The greater question is always, how can I incorporate it here in the stodgy and often less-than-progressive Midwest? and I haven't come up with a good solution for that yet. Building a green building out in the 'burbs doesn't work from a larger environmental point of view; what good is a green building when you have no choice but to drive to it? So green urbanism is really the next, natural step.

Reading

A round-up of articles from several editions of the PlaNetizen weekly news:

- Hidden costs in wood burning. Fairly straight-forward idea, that burning wood is awfully polluting. Some interesting exerpts:

Some pellet stoves, which burn nuggets of dried wood, are back-ordered 90 days, says John Crouch of the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association.

In some communities, mostly in the West, 30% to 80% of the wintertime particle pollution is attributed to wood burning in the home, regional and federal agencies say.

Kapahee and other environmental officials don't worry much about new stoves, which boast either catalytic converters or combustion chambers designed to minimize soot. But a wood stove sold before stiffer regulations took effect in 1992 can emit as much pollution as seven diesel buses, says Guillermo Cole of the Allegheny County, Pa., Health Department.

Which makes me wonder: how much pollution comes from a coal plant for the amount of electricity we'd use in a space heater? and how does that compare with a natural gas furnace in terms of pollution? unfortunately, these deeper issues wouldn't be covered in a little Yahoo article like this.

- Materials Guy: the Architecture of Shigeru Ban. This quote says everything about his approach:

The idea of building with paper seems riddled with problems - it is flammable, vulnerable to water, weak and temporary, but Ban turns all these arguments upside down: "How long do you think concrete lasts? It has many problems and it's very difficult to replace or fix. If a paper tube is damaged it can be replaced by a new one. The lifespan of a building has nothing to do with the materials. It depends on what people do with it. If a building is loved, then it becomes permanent. When it is not loved, even a concrete building can be temporary. And the strength of the material has nothing to do with the strength of the building. It depends on the structural design. Buildings made of concrete are easily destroyed by earthquakes, but paper-tube buildings can survive without damage." They are easily fireproofed and waterproofed, he continues, and they have significant advantages over other building materials in that they are cheap, environmentally friendly and easy to manufacture anywhere in the world.

'If a building is loved, it becomes permanent.' Very true. A well-made or historic building, if unloved, is often torn down. A cheap building like a Taco Bell isn't loved either, so it is torn down. It is the rare building that has been well-loved during its whole life, or has been brought back from the brink through copious amounts of money and hard work, that can go on with a life far longer than its materials might dictate.

- Tastemakers: Forbes picks for the Top Ten Influential Architects. No real surprises here, other than Rick Harlan Schneider. I've heard of him vaguely, but surely there are others more influential than he - if you want green architecture, look to William McDonough, who has built and written far more than Schneider. The thing that most amused me about this article though was that they used the icon of a man holding a T-square, and virtually none of the architects could design their buildings using a T-square - it's computers all the way now. The equivalent is like using an icon of a doctor with leeches to symbolize modern medicine. It just doesn't apply any more!

- Prefab Homes Get Fabulous: featuring a new trend of modern prefab houses, including ones sponsored by Dwell magazine and Ikea. Not terribly keen on the designs presented here generally, but prefab modern is an alluring idea.

- Speaking of Ikea... Portland gets an Ikea Wah! no fair. Not only does Portland get an Ikea before metro Detroit does, but the store is even near light rail and in a downtown location. Can you imagine the activity if there were an Ikea in Detroit proper, even on the relatively lame People Mover??

-  Want to save $3,150 in taxes? Buy a hybrid car. Beginning in January 2006, the federal gov't will offer up to $3,150 in taxes, depending on the emissions of the car. Plus with some cities offering free parking at meters, and other states offering unlimited access to HOV lanes, the reasons to not buy a hybrid are quickly running out. Now if only Michigan would offer a tax break for hybrids.... fat chance!

"I represent sprawl"

An article over at the Michigan Land Use Institute points out, with statistics, all of the reasons that Detroit is failing as a city. Most of these things I've heard before: the sprawl of the exurbs that takes the population away from established city centers, wasting money; the youth brain drain that led 100,000 young adults to leave the region (including my brother & sister into that one) during the 1990s; and how the population of the metro area has increased just 100,000 since 1970 despite the thousands of acres being eaten up by new housing projects every year.

However it was really this paragraph that took the cake:

The Republican-led House of Representatives, for instance, just elected 34-year-old Craig DeRoche to be its speaker. Mr. DeRoche, who once served on the city council in Novi, a Detroit suburb, and has all of two years of House experience under his belt, gave a foolish interview to The Detroit News soon after taking office earlier this year. In almost the same breath that Mr. DeRoche said he wanted to lower taxes and reduce government he also said that he wanted more government spending on new highways and was considering raising gasoline taxes to support auto-oriented growth. “I represent sprawl,” declared the new speaker.

Wow. The lack of understanding is just so profound. This is exactly what the Republicans accuse the Dems of doing: cut taxes one moment, and raise taxes the next. If he was my Rep, I'd be giving him a huge talking to via email.

Using the car pool lane - illegally

Carpool lanes are lanes on a highway specifically set aside for people who have more than one person in a vehicle, so that the highways can become less crowded as people share rides. These lanes are often less crowded than other lanes of the highway and consequently people will use any excuse they can to use the lane, even if they are driving alone. We don't have many carpool lanes on highways in the Midwest - Chicago is the only example I can think of - but there are a lot more out in California.

Now I shouldn't be surprised that people try to use the carpool lanes using dummies, but I am. A kickboxing dummy in this case, though the article also mentions people using everything from empty baby seats to mannequins. Is the $351 fine really worth getting to work or wherever a few minutes early? the arrogance of humanity continually amazes me.