Sandwiched between Washington, the capital, and New York, the center of culture, commerce, and media, Philadelphia has long had an inferiority complex. But the city's recent addition of nearly 90,000 people since 2006, ending a population free fall since 1950, attests to Philadelphia's comeback. It wasn't easy, or without controversy. 

When William Pedersen, FAIA, cofounder and principal design partner of Kohn Pedersen Fox, bought a 3-acre piece of waterfront land on Shelter Island, New York, in 1981, “Things were a little different on the island,” he wryly recalls.

The new buzz words of the 21st century—“organic,” “ecofriendly,” “sustainable”—have inundated today’s architectural vocabulary despite their indifference to definition.