Design Forward Creative Strategies for Sustainable Change
I'm staring at a concrete wall in downtown Phoenix that's radiating heat like a furnace, and I can't help but think about how badly we've screwed up urban design in…
I'm staring at a concrete wall in downtown Phoenix that's radiating heat like a furnace, and I can't help but think about how badly we've screwed up urban design in…
Last Tuesday, I was doing a final walkthrough on a net-zero home in Palo Alto when the contractor started showing off all the LED fixtures they’d installed. “These babies use…
I'll never forget the phone call I got three months ago from Maria, a sustainability coordinator working with a housing nonprofit in Phoenix. She was practically in tears. "We've got…
Two weeks ago I was standing in a client’s backyard in Palo Alto, looking at their brand new “sustainable” hardscape installation that was already failing. The contractor had used permeable…
You know those community meetings where city planners show up with fancy PowerPoints and ask for your “input” on projects they’ve already basically decided on? Yeah, I used to think…
Last week I walked into Roosevelt High’s environmental science classroom feeling pretty skeptical about the whole thing. The teacher, Ms. Martinez, had asked me to run some kind of community…
I’ve spent nineteen years designing outdoor spaces, and I learned pretty quickly that anything marketed as “sustainable luxury” usually means expensive greenwashing with a side of guilt-trip marketing. You know…
When my nephew Jake dragged himself through my front door last month, backpack hitting the floor with that particular thud that screams “I hate school,” I knew we were in…
You know what really gets me frustrated? Sitting through yet another presentation where some eager young landscape architect tries to convince me their drought-tolerant garden needs a misting system. It’s…
You know that moment when you realise you’ve been doing something backwards for years? That hit me hard walking through a cabinet manufacturing facility outside Flagstaff last month. The smell…