selophane.blog

This past week, the New York Times ran an interesting article about building green, not just in urban environments, but in suburbia too. The article deals with renovations as well as new construction and outlines some of the trials and tribulations home owners, architects, and builders can face when trying to build “green.” In light of tuesday being earth day I wanted to take a moment and discuss Green Residential Building (I wouldn’t go so far as to say architecture). Lately we’ve been plagued with ads telling us that all we need to do to save the planet is: change a lightbulb drive less use different soap insulate our windows switch to low flow faucets use cloth bags instead of paper or plastic etc But in reality these are just stop gap measures. Yes, they help. Yes, they are better than not doing anything. But without creating a real paradigm shift, that is to say the way we eat, work and live, we will always be playing catchup. Not only do we need to eat foods grown locally, but we also need to eat seasonally and organically. We need to work closer to home and in buildings that do not [...]