Longitudinal Slum

A Critical Approach to Sustainability

Panayiota Pyla seeks to address the importance of approaching the recent strategy of "sustainability" from a critical perspective.

Counter-Histories of Sustainability [Volume #18]

Uninventing The Suburbs

A couple of articles in the Times today featuring the environmental impact of the suburbs, and the possibility of uninventing them. One statistic highlighting the differences between suburban and city environmental impact is the emission of greenhouse gases produced by the average American (24.5 metric tons), versus the average New Yorker (7.1 metric tons).

The recent increased awareness of issues related to the environment is proving to have the potential to impact the perception and future production of the city (urban, suburban, exurban, etc...). It has taken something tangible (global warming and its consequences) rather than the intangibles that have traditionally framed the debate of the merits or demerits of suburban living, which have generally been found in the form of relative judgments decreeing the right or wrong of lifestyle choices. The immediate and easy actions taken to lessen one's environmental impact are found in compact fluorescents, smaller automobiles (maybe even hybrids), and recycling. Small things that add up, but are painless and don't require a dramatic lifestyle change. The question that should be posed is whether suburbanites are willing to accept radical lifestyle changes that have the potential of having a deep impact on greenhouse gas production, but would conversely alter the composition and make-up of housing development, or redevelopment, and deep ingrained ideas of what suburban living offers, or rewards those who choose that lifestyle. Given that the installation of clotheslines is forbidden in several neighborhoods (only poor people dry their clothes outdoors), it would seem the battle for change is nothing but uphill.

Rather than vilifying the suburbs, intellectual energy will need to be spent on both how to generate new development forged from productive agriculture land, and how to modify / alter existing suburbs. Either approach will require the buy-off of those who believe it is their God-given right to their own (brand new) single-family detached home surrounded with green lawn with enough spatial and visual separation from those who are different from them, and a radically rethinking of how to approach existing suburbs, how they are zoned, how land is parceled, and how building on this land is approached in the future. This has the potential to have the biggest impact - though it will take the most time.

Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You [NY Times]
Can We Uninvent Suburbia? [NY Times]

Green Roof - A Case Study

Assistant professor of landscape architecture at Harvard University’s GSD Christian Werthmann uses Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates' design for the ASLA's headquarters in Washington DC as a green roof case study for a new PA Press title Green Roof - A Case Study. As green architecture, sustainability, and LEED have all become hot topics in the last few years - and the ubiquitous green roof a token component in many design projects - this case study sheds light on both the historical underpinnings and technical issues associated with the design of a green roof.

Early on a distinction is drawn describing the correct terminology when talking of a roof that supports vegetation and any supplemental activity:

Roof gardens are installed to be accessed and enjoyed. They are more cost intensive to construct, heavy in weight with deep soil profiles, and maintenance intensive... Most green roofs are inaccessible, and they are mainly installed for environmental performance and visual improvement.

Despite the recent infatuation with the green roof, this building component has a long history tracing back many centuries to Northern European vernacular architecture with an obvious insulating benefit grounded in fundamental building technology. The history of the green roof also traces through the early roots of Modernism where roof gardens were intended to occupy the flat roofs of Early Modernism and support the demand for "light, air, and sun." The current green roof trend accelerated with German research advances in the mid-seventies, coupled with a newfound green revolution. While fully embraced in Germany and other areas of Europe, the green roof is only now beginning to make an impact in the United States.

The featured case study project was a unique opportunity for the ALSA to showcase green roof technology through building a green roof hybrid - both a green roof and roof garden - through an experimental approach that could serve as a case study within itself. This case study portion does a thorough job of documenting the decision making process leading to the completed design, and the layers which compose the end product, including the roles and responsibilities for the design team - architect, landscape architect, structural and mechanical engineers.

Being a quick read, this is a good introduction to the history and fundamentals of the green roof. With both genuine and disingenuous interest in sustainability sweeping through both the schools and design community right now (being green is often supplanting other design considerations at the moment), this can serve as a quick education into what a green roof really is, when it is appropriate and what are its benefits, and the fundamentals behind its construction.

Green Roof—A Case Study [Princeton Architectural Press]
Green Grows the Roof [papressblog]
top image courtesy ALSA
bottom image courtesy Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Grasscrete® Pimped At Pruned

Pruned does some pimping of Grasscrete®, a grassed cellular paving system that is an environmental alternative to traditional hard-top surface paving.

Grasscrete® [Pruned]

Green Architecture In NY Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine features Eco-Tecture with a look at green and sustainable architecture today.

Ouroussoff leads with a look at European attidudes toward green design and why America lags so far behind: "In Europe the guidelines tend to have to do with broader organizational ideas," Thom Mayne, the founder of the Los Angeles-based architectural firm Morphosis, told me. "Energy consumption, the organization of the workplace, urbanism — they’re all seen as interlinked. Here, the whole focus is on how to get these points. You just check them off: bike racks, high-efficiency air-conditioning units — it’s very narrow."

Arthur Lubow follows with coverage on Curitiba Brazil, long recognized for it's progressive urban planning at the leadership of Mayor-Architect-Urban Planner Jaime Lerner. An insightful look at the successes and future challenges of this city of 1.8 million people, and the leadership required to move forward progressive initiatives.

Why Are They Greener Than We Are? [NY Times]
The Road to Curitiba [NY Times]
The Zero-Energy Solution [NY Times]
The Accidental Environmentalist [NY Times]
An Eco-House for the Future [NY Times]
top image by Wijnanda Deroo
bottom image by Simon Norfolk

The Problems With LEED

The Next American City looks at the problems with LEED. One interesting note: the green New York Times Tower is not going to be certified because the process is "time-consuming and costly."

Despite the fact that they were building an exemplary green building project, the designers of the new 52-story New York Times Tower, on 8th Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets in Manhattan, did not apply for LEED certification. Architect Bruce Fowle of FXFOWLE, a leading green architectural firm, told the New York Observer that LEED was “time-consuming and costly,” and said “some of the prerequisites are not that meaningful.”

What's Wrong with LEED? [The Next American City]

Bloomberg Announces "A Greener, Greater New York"

New York City Michael Bloomberg announced 127 initiatives designed to help the city reduce the strain an increased population of over a million people by 2030 will have on the city's transportation, housing and energy systems. Included in the initiatives is the likely controversial congestion pricing plan, which will impose an 8 dollar fee on drivers below 86th Street in Manhattan:

“As our city continues to grow, the cost of congestion to our health, to our economy and to our environment are only going to get worse,” he said. “The question is not whether we want to pay, but how do we want to pay — with an increased asthma rate, with more greenhouse gases, with more wasted time, lost business and higher prices. Or do we charge a modest fee to encourage more people to take mass transit.”

The Plan is available for download from the PLANYC website.

Mayor Proposes a Fee for Driving Into Manhattan [NY Times]
image by Tina Fineberg/Associated Press
The Plan [PLANYC 2030]

Clotheslines & The Environment

Interesting piece from the New York Times Home & Garden section about the use of the clothesline as a tool for using less energy - makes sense. However, this behaviour is frowned upon by many homeowners associations:

That simple decision to hang a clothesline, however, catapults me into the laundry underground. Clotheslines are banned or restricted by many of the roughly 300,000 homeowners’ associations that set rules for some 60 million people. When I called to ask, our Rolling Hills Community Association told me that my laundry had to be completely hidden in an enclosure approved by its board of directors.

For more on clotheslines, click here.

Toxic Brooklyn

From VBS.TV, a seven part series on the shit-hole that is Greenpoint and Williamsburg, titled Toxic Brookln. I've never understood the allure of Williamsburg or Greenpoint - outside of a couple of charming streets the vast majority of these neighborhoods look like industrial and manufacturing wastelands. Toxic Brooklyn illustrates that they are in fact polluted areas that aren't safe to live in - it is home to the world's largest oil spill. This fact is conveniently hidden behind a thin veneer that attempts to portray this area as young, vibrant and creative, with developers taking advantage of the real estate potential in the neighborhoods and blanketing the area with high-rise condos or retro-fitting existing manufacturing buildings into high-end loft spaces.

Green Is The New Red, White & Blue

Thomas L. Friedman writes in Sunday's New York Times Magazine about what is at stake in the greening of America.