True Green
Given the growing concern about sustainability, it’s a good time to look back to the originating seeds of green, to the anarchic 1960s and Bucky Fuller’s philosophy of doing more with less.

Includes:

Photo courtesy Clark Richert

Postoccupancy evaluations offer a systematic process for assessing completed projects, pointing the way to better-performing buildings.

Photo © Peter Aaron/Esto

The collaboration between two Australian firms on Melbourne's new Council House 2 shows off the design possibilities for building-integrated HVAC.

Photo © Russell Fortmeyer

The artist Mary Miss and architects Marlon Blackwell, Kierantimberlake Associates, and Lake/Flato radically reinterpret site construction in three new projects.

Architects cannot approach the final frontier in low-energy, zero-carbon design without addressing that old energy hog—and beloved American friend—air-conditioning.

Photo: Courtesy Solomon Cordwell Buenz Architects

A sunny morning at the new Haus der Forschung in Vienna brings more than another day’s work. Through a system of mirrors, prisms, and fiber cables, sunlight itself is funneled into the foyer.

Photo: Courtesy Carpenter Norris Consulting

Efforts to make life-cycle assessment (LCA) an integral part of sustainable design practices are beginning to bear fruit. Since late 2004, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has been working to incorporate the methodology into its widely used building-rating system, LEED, and has committed to producing a detailed plan for integration by November 2007.

On the greenhouse gas trail, one engineer aims beyond "carbon neutral"
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions trading, a market-based strategy for mitigating climate change, has been steadily growing over the past few years, and furnishing and building-product companies are among the industries adopting the practice.

Following carbon footprints leads architects and consultants to their own doorsteps
Last month’s declaration by a United Nations panel that global warming is “unequivocal,” and that fossil fuel use is “very likely” to blame, should intensify discussion of the already hot topic. Of course, many “green” architects and their consultants were already focused on the issue, not only in relationship to the buildings they design, but also in regard to their own business practices.

With cities worldwide facing daunting environmental challenges on a global scale, a multidisciplinary team at Arup seeks to create a model for how cities can develop carbon neutrally. Read on.

Photo © Sascha Kletzsch

With energy-modeling programs and early input, mechanical engineers are increasingly involved in design decisions that are shaping the look of a new architecture.

Pictured: United States Courthouse, Seattle; Photo © Frank Ooms