Comments on: Do We Really Still Not Know What Makes It Green?

By: JoshMahar

JoshMahar — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:41:36 +0000

@6: We aren’t pioneers or inventors at all. Walking for transportation is obviously much older than driving. Passive ventilation and daylight have been known for millenia. Wasting all our time and energy coming up with impossible ways to sustain the unsustainable will do nothing. We need not think of the current state of humanity as a new challenge to rise above but rather a failed direction that needs to be halted and stepped back from.

By: Zero-speed

Zero-speed — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:39:04 +0000

While I’m not savvy on urban design principals I do notice similar parallels with other critical issues facing society (i.e. Public Health – basic services vs. pharmaceuticals). And, as Japhet eludes, it all comes down to economics and, more specifically, short term profit. Economic value needs to be derived from sustainability. Until then even a green Capitalist economy will be unsustainable and the issue of innovative design, density, transportation, etc. will be mute.

By: timetowakeup

timetowakeup — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:46:49 +0000

Hello Dan -

Thanks for the thoughtful post. If I may add to this comment:

~”Take for example the new Weber Thompson HQ that has been piling up green design awards. The two key design features that make that building most exceptional — passive ventilation and daylighting…”~

One more item to consider – beyon the passive ventilation and daylighting: This is a FOR-PROFIT building on a VERY LEAN BUDGET that has chosen to become a laboratory for sustainability. Not an easy thing to do these days. It is still a very tough sell to developer clients and this econonomy is not exactly making it easier.

I appreciate your irritation with the incessant questioning of “what makes it green”, but we need this. The truth is that we are all neophytes in this new game – lets at least appreciate that we are pioneers and inventors and risk takers in a new age. Some day, in the not to distant future, we will not longer need to ask ourselves “What makes it green” -technology and philosophy will have come to the point of inflection – that intersection where true change happens. The efforts, the measures that we take today will seem like Thomas Edison with the string and the soup cans. Sorry for the bad metaphor, its the best I could do on the run :).

By: Japhet

Japhet — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:23:57 +0000

ummm is it because green is not something you build, it’s an entire shift of the economy. Green banks and green underwriting guidelines, and appropriate transportation policy at the federal level would make every profitable new development a green development. We can nip at the margins of density and building envelope design, but until the federal transportation and infrastructure dollars are tied to appropriately dense zoning, then we end up with business as usual.

By: Joshua Daniel Franklin

Joshua Daniel Franklin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:40:11 +0000

Here’s a thought: every single household living in Seattle’s existing old “streetcar suburb” neighborhoods (Capitol Hill, Ballard, Wallingford, Ravenna, etc.) has a connected urban environment on the ground today. Why do most of us regularly drive places despite the fact that a car costs thousands of dollars a year? To get “a good deal” on lightbulbs at a discount retailer or broccoli at a discount supermarket. It’s the same reason we’re buying cheap sweatshop goods by the bargefull. It’s easy to push the true costs off where they’re not in our faces every day.

I also oddly found myself imagining your XTC quote being spoken by an Amish woman (maybe it’s all the Patricia Polacco books we’ve read to our 3yr old). Their sustainable ways have been in the news lately. Is that what it takes?

By: jeff

jeff — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:12:52 +0000

As a side note though, how can we ever NOT have this requirement if the Federal Govm’t and ADA has such strict requirements for handicapped accessibility?

By: jeff

jeff — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:11:21 +0000

Great question! Why do they force us to build parking stalls on private property? How is it fair that you can turn a once dead store into a nightclub and have people park along the streets and you as owner don’t have to pay to build parking like a new builder would?

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:52:41 +0000

I think the comments on this article are very instructive regarding the utter cluelessness of people for oh so many reasons.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009127356_megahomes27m.html

My personal view is that we don’t have a good way to get the USES, economic development and economic diversity people need for good sustainable neighborhoods. But, when I read the comments on the above article, I just want to scream.

There is a good reason why people target the real costs of all new building. Sure, build new correctly, but consider all of the costs when deciding if it is worth it.