Man, I gotta tell you something that’s been eating at me lately. Every week I get calls from folks who’ve hired some fancy architecture firm promising “sustainable design,” and then…
I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Tempe last spring, watching a heated conversation unfold at the table next to me. Two interior designers were arguing about whether using…
You know how sometimes you have to get a little dramatic to make a point? I mean, I’ve been trying to teach sustainable design principles for years, and I kept…
I've been thinking a lot lately about why some buildings just feel right while others make you want to flee immediately. You know what I mean – you walk into…
Last month I was helping a friend redesign her living room when she asked me something that stopped me cold: "How do I make this space sustainable without it looking…
You know what really bugs me about most "green building" conversations? Everyone gets so caught up in the sexy stuff – solar panels gleaming on rooftops, wind turbines spinning majestically,…
My friend Sarah called me from Melbourne last month, breathless with excitement about a building she'd just walked through. She's an environmental engineer who typically gets worked up about wastewater…
The other day I was crawling around another scorching attic in Mesa, thermal camera in hand, when the homeowner called up through the access hole: "So what's the secret to…
My neighbour Janet cornered me at the mailbox last Tuesday with that look people get when they're about to ask for free professional advice. "I want to make my house…
Walking through my old neighborhood last weekend, I couldn't help but notice how exhausted everyone looked trudging back from their cars. The subdivision was built in the 1990s with those…