The world’s greenest building uses only 16 kilowatts of energy per square meter, a whole lot less than the 80 to 250 kilowatts so common among traditional office buildings. Energy Plus, a 70,000 square meter complex in the Gennevilliers area of Paris, looks a little bit like a dismantled Pentagon, reassembled in the wrong shape. Its arms jut at awkward angles to maximize roof space—holding more solar panels than any other building, the largest solar array in the world—and exposure to the sign, inviting daylight inside to offset use of energy-guzzling artificial lights.

Posted by Lisa Selin Davis on May 8, 2008 at 4:49 PM
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What’s on the other side of Platinum? Those who feel that even LEED’s highest honor isn’t quite precious metal, or green, enough—or who feel it could use a supportive cousin to raise the bar for green building aficionados everywhere—have designed the Living Building Challenge.

Posted by Lisa Selin Davis on May 2, 2008 at 12:48 PM
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Los Angeles will now require all new construction to be LEED certified—the biggest city to make the leap to regulated green building. It’s good news. It really is.

Posted by Lisa Selin Davis on Apr 24, 2008 at 5:06 PM
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Maybe you thought reinforced steel or structural concrete were the most revolutionary building materials. Not so, according to Michael Reynolds:  architect, recycling hero, designer of the Earthship and now the “Garbage Warrior,” title of a new film by Oliver Hodge. Earthships are sustainable homes crafted from recycled tires, bottles, cans—turns out, fill those things with dirt and they harden into foundation-safe materials. Long-haired, the years of sun etched into lines on his face, Reynolds is feisty as he ever has been in his 35-year career.

Posted by Lisa Selin Davis on Apr 18, 2008 at 12:45 PM
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One of the suburbs' great promises was green: smog-free, high-rises left behind in the big city, an individual patch of parkland stuck in front of and behind your single-family home. Sixty years after Levittown, American's first true suburb, was plopped down atop 800 acres of potato fields in Long Island, we've learned the truth: suburbs, with their car dependencies, spread out infrastructure, and all that water required to keep those lawns looking pretty, are in fact the least green inhabitable spaces. The sub-prime mortgage meltdown has left thousands of new developments McMansion ghost towns. Suburbs are in danger of becoming eco slums.

Posted by Lisa Selin Davis on Apr 11, 2008 at 2:05 PM
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