My nephew called me last Tuesday, completely overwhelmed about his first apartment renovation. "Uncle Mike, I want to do this green interior design thing, but everything I'm reading online sounds…
Standing in front of twenty-eight eighth graders last Tuesday, I found myself doing something I never expected when I started Smart Build Southwest: teaching kids how to design cities. The…
You know, I never thought I'd find myself digging through fashion brands' sustainability reports with the same intensity I bring to analyzing building insulation R-values. But here I am, at…
Last Tuesday, I found myself staring at blueprints spread across my kitchen table, coffee growing cold as I tried to explain to a frustrated homeowner why her architect's "sustainable" design…
Walking through a newly completed "green" subdivision in Scottsdale last month, I couldn't help but laugh at the irony. Every house proudly displayed ENERGY STAR certificates and boasted about their…
When my friend Sarah showed me the pictures of her newly renovated living room last month, I honestly didn't know what to say. The space looked like a magazine spread—gorgeous…
Last Tuesday, I found myself standing in the cafeteria of a brand new elementary school in Mesa, watching third-graders complain about how cold their lunch room was while the maintenance…
Three weeks ago, I found myself sitting in a cramped conference room with five other building professionals, staring at a problem that seemed impossible. A local nonprofit wanted to retrofit…
I've been wrestling with something that keeps me up at night. You know how everyone talks about sustainable design these days? But here's the thing that bugs me: most of…
The call came in at seven thirty on a Tuesday morning. Mrs. Rodriguez from Carefree wanted to know if I could help her understand why their new "green" house was…