Recently I was asked to give a talk about sustainability at the White House to over 40 federal agencies. So I gave my talk and showed these slides, and afterwards I was asked, "Mr. McDonough, what do you think of nuclear power? A lot of environmentalists are now in favor of it because of concerns about global warming." And I said, oh, I like nuclear power. I’m a big fan of fusion. I think we should invest lots of money into nuclear power and consider using it for all our energy needs. And look—we’ve already got the perfect nuclear power plant. It’s 93 million miles away. It’s wireless. The construction costs are zero. Its operable lifetime is infinite. It’s right there. What are we waiting for?

Posted by Deb Snoonian on Nov 17, 2006 at 5:22 PM
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Soon after Hurricane Katrina obliterated thousands of homes in New Orleans last year, a legion of architects, designers and planners descended upon The Big Easy with offers of assistance, much of which came in the form of design competitions for new housing. We could debate the value of these competitions ad nauseum, but instead I'll point out one, sponsored by Global Green, that focused on sustainable design. The winning entry, shown below and cheekily titled GREEN.O.LA (get it?), was designed by Andrew Kotchen and Matthew Berman of Workshop/APD. Their entry features a 12-unit multifamily housing structure, six single-family homes and a community center. According to the architects, the project will incorporate a number of sustainable features, such as green roofs, solar panels, rainwater and greywater recycling, geothermal heating, and factory-assembled components to reduce construction waste.

The awards jury was chaired by--you guessed it!--Brad Pitt, who just these days. Already a developer has kicked in $100,000 to purchase a site for the project in the the decimated Lower 9th Ward. A groundbreaking is scheduled for January 2007, but Global Green is still raising funds and seeking donations for the project.

Oh, and did I mention that Global Green has also set up a green building resource center for NOLA residents at a local Home Depot? And that the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund is giving Global Green a grant to rebuild two area schools?

It's really gratifying to hear good news coming from New Orleans for a change. Let's hope that even more deep-pocketed organizations step forward to help get these projects built.

In case you just can't get enough of post-Katrina design ideas, here are some links:

• Images of all the finalists from Global Green’s competition
• The Katrina cottage, designed by Marianne Cusato as an alternative to the trailers FEMA provided as temporary shelter, soon to be sold at Lowe's as a kit house
  
• Architecture for Humanity's collaborative housing and relief efforts in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (boy, those AFHers get around)
  
• Two competitions sponsored by Architectural Record and Tulane University: one for apartment complexes, and a student competition for a single-family home

Posted by Deb Snoonian on Sep 20, 2006 at 12:46 PM
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First there were treehouses, and now there's the Fab Tree Hab, brought to us by the Smart Cities group at MIT's Media Lab. It's an absurdly simple concept: A couple of MIT architects got together with an engineer, presumably over a few beers, and asked themselves, instead of building a house, why can’t we grow one?

Posted by Deb Snoonian on Aug 21, 2006 at 5:01 PM
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"Did you watch that PBS show about sustainable skyscrapers in New York?" "Did you see that special on PBS where they talk about new cities in China?" "Why is Brad Pitt narrating a series about green design?"

Posted by Deb Snoonian on Jul 25, 2006 at 3:09 PM
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I'd never heard of the Petersen Automotive Museum until yesterday, but it makes sense that it's located in Los Angeles, the birthplace of car culture. There's a temporary exhibit there through mid-October called Alternative Power, which chronicles the history (and ponders the future) of vehicles powered by steam, hydrogen, electricity, biodiesel--anything but gasoline. It's encouraging that an auto museum is tackling this thorny issue... now if only they could solve L.A.'s traffic problem...

Posted by Deb Snoonian on Jun 20, 2006 at 2:06 PM
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