From “Material Justice”: As I wrote eight years ago (“The Ethics of Brick,” Metropolis, June, 2005), sustainability is defined as the intersection of social, economic, and environmental value — the “triple bottom line” — but often the social dimension gets lost: “Green standards tend to focus more on end users than on producers of buildings, […]
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In Chinese cities these days, you would be hard-pressed to find urban enclaves that express how people in China once lived. If you walk the streets, particularly in areas that developed quickly, you’ll find the cities as a whole are soulless. This is largely because our new districts or cities started with huge over-engineered roads […]
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In Part 1 of this series, Monica Qing revealed how poorly planned roads are contributing to the disintegration of China’s cities. In this blog entry, she explores the reason these mistakes are made—and how to keep them from happening in the future.
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In a recent article for Metropolis Magazine, Susan S. Szenasy wrote about the sense of “malaise” that many “mature” architecture firms are experiencing today. She notes that these firms tend to write-off their lack of creativity and perceived passion for design to the likes of the economy, unwilling clients, a shift to fast-track design, and […]
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These past few weeks have been a roller coaster. Seeing how PDD is becoming more of an integrated approach within our projects, I have slowly been building a bit of anxiety to push this research to be fruitful as soon as possible. However, getting married, project deadlines and out-of-country travels tend to get in the […]
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RTKL Vice President Keith Campbell lives, works and sent his kids to public schools in Chicago. In this two-part series, he discusses how changes to downtown have affected the quality of city schools – and what can be done to continue to attract and retain the creative class.
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From the very beginning of my Kagan proposal, I had a feeling that measuring the effect that architecture has on happiness would be difficult. I was right. As I stated in my last post, my main research objective is to travel to a selection of the happiest and saddest cities in the US and investigate […]
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Do materials that improve physical health actually exist?
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Find out why Keith Campbell actually likes paying his property taxes in Chicago.
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On June 18, at the offices of the Architect of the Capitol, I led a discussion, “Sustainable DC: Buildings and Beyond.” Organized by the Washington chapter of the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment, the event brought together policymakers, analysts, and architects to discuss the recently revealed Sustainable DC Plan, which aims to […]
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