Design Strategies for Sustainability Comprehensive Approaches
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…
Design Your Own Sustainable City Interactive Planning
Yesterday I watched a group of middle schoolers argue passionately about where to place a sewage treatment plant in their imaginary city. Not exactly the kind of debate you'd expect…
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…
Why Your Energy-Efficient House Doesn’t Actually Save Energy (Spoiler: It’s Not the Technology)
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…
Design for Sustainable Development Global Challenges
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…
Why Most “Green” Building Is Actually Just Expensive Theater
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…
That Time I Learned How Real Community Planning Actually Works (Spoiler: It’s Messy)
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…
When High Schoolers Design Better Communities Than Most Professionals
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…
Why I Started Buying $800 Jackets (And Why They’re Actually Cheaper)
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’s School Project Turned Our Dining Room Into Urban Planning Central
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…