Last week I’m walking through a furniture showroom with my neighbour who’s furnishing her new place, and we stop at this dining set with a big green leaf logo screaming…
I was cleaning out my old project files last weekend when I stumbled across sketches from a hospital renovation I worked on about five years ago. The drawings were covered…
You know what’s funny? Five years ago, I’d roll my eyes whenever an architect mentioned green roofs. Too many variables, I’d think. Too many ways for contractors to screw things…
The text message arrived at 2:47 AM. My client Sarah, a housing developer in Portland, was experiencing what she called "architect's insomnia" – that familiar 3 AM spiral where project…
You know how sometimes you're trying to explain something to a client and you realise you're using jargon they've never heard before? Happened to me just last Tuesday during a…
The maintenance guy at my daughter's elementary school looked at me like I'd lost my mind when I suggested replacing the fluorescent lights in her third-grade classroom with full-spectrum LEDs…
Last week I got an email from a colleague at another university asking about formaldehyde emissions in kitchen cabinets. She’d been getting headaches in her newly renovated kitchen and suspected…
Last week I’m standing in the lumber aisle at our local supplier when this young contractor walks up asking about “the most eco-friendly insulation you’ve got.” The guy behind the…
You know that feeling when you walk into a space and your whole body just… relaxes? I experienced this so powerfully last month when I took my daughter to a…
Yesterday I’m standing in the insulation aisle at Home Depot (yeah, I still shop there sometimes), and there’s this young couple having it out over R-13 versus R-15 fiberglass batts.…