NoSleep, I appreciate you posting this. I would like to answer in a coherent manner, however, it will take me a couple of days to do so. In the meantime, I was really hoping for some hot sex in a bamboo forest, LOL.

i agree the terminology is campishly overused. but it is not new. most of the g&s practices have been around and called different names based on different cultures. a lot of it has just been re-introduced to american people and enhanched with new technologies.
right now business is great and it is relieving lots of people from guilt.
few years from now g&s lifestyles will be all common practice and everybody will be doing heroin again. we humans are just too much...

WK - you go girl! It must be the L.A. attitude kicking in :)

DubK

there is a bamboo forest at the Hunnington Gardens in Pasadena. meet tumbles and I there this weekend...bring Katie

Man, you LA 'nectors are insatiable.

I actually heard a lot of people talking about just this issue in the hallways at the HolcimForum on Sustainable Construction last April. Architecture needs to cut a balance between the starchitect's focus on the seminal image (of a building, an idea, a designed landscape, whatever) and on the whole-systems orientation of most sustainability concepts (water, energy, etc). Landscape architects are better at reconciling science/engineering and the art/image in this respect. We still have a ways to go.

i think that 'green' is just another way to make $$$...anytime there is a new movement or idea, count on people jumping on the bandwagon to make a buck.

'cept that this time what sustainability concepts actually get translated into physical and programmatic solutions in cities will actually affect lives, economies and futures... maybe it's about the money as far as firms are concerned, but the consequences are very real.... imagine a green Beijing or Delhi or LA....

I would go as far to say that, if architects and planners can come up with a truely workable "green" design and planning vocabulary and sell it to leaders, then we'll be able to make our respective vocations relevant again.

urbanist

you do have a point about 'selling' it to the leaders / decision makers / policy writers. Here in LA, it is still very hard to get solar panels or grey water systems passed through the various building departments and other government entities.

There needs to be a change in policy which will allow for green building to be easily integrated into building.

One of the things that amazes me about working in LA is the concept of rain water runoff and management. Basically the city wants all water to runoff your site and into the storm drains; they dont want it to perculate into the ground - even when the earth is composed of a decomposed limestone (which will absorb the water). This is just more water that will eventually have to be treated (by publically funded treatment plants)

Frankly I've given up on the use of 'green' image altogether and opted for MINTinstead...

mdler,
that's interesting and bit distressing. Garcetti (councilman) was just talking about greenbuilding in LA and how the city's being all progressive an' all.. you should send him a note and give him a view of reality

As Orhan pointed out many of the "new green" best practices have been known about and or practiced for a couple of decades if not hundreds or thousands of years......
In my mind the whole green-sustainability debate/issue
is more about the opportunity it provides for educatign the vast majority of the population and more specifically the design professionals, about the reasoning and providing them with the tools (policy, tech etc) to actually make a change.....

In my mind good design as always equalled sensistive, contectual and local which is what "green" is all about......

As Urbanist said....the real world impact could-should be great...
Imagine a green Delhi or Beijing!

Finally,
I too was mislead by the title...I was expecting granola crunching naked ladies (or men)......

i was talking to one of my older collegues...and he wa saying when he started his firm it was an ADA firm. he had started when ADA was just passed and the firm got off the ground around the buzz of being accessible and complying with the new laws.

needless to say, at some point the marketing as an ADA firm disappeared. green is not a gimmick...it is just what we ALL need to do! you need to learn it in schools. just as many of you learn codes, zoning, and all the other classes besides studio.

now will it create a counter-culture. it will draw out annoyed responses...just as when you are working on a beautiful project...and discover there is a code problem the hurts the over all design! that always pisses me off...but it is how i ought to build/design.

mdler, i think you spend way too much time at the L.A. D.O.B.

I was sure this was about yet another DIESEL campaign...

http://liwf.net/?c=11&p=8

http://www.notcot.com/archives/2007/02/global_warming.html


j.

This is an economics question.

Once commercial enterprises detect a new trend in the culture that people are willing to pay $ for, guess what? Everything new is now "green"--a brand, in other words. Whether or not a particular product or service actually benefits the physical environment is another question. Caveat emptor!

sheep

LA still wants low density, sprawing development. I have met with Eric Garcetti personally on this issue

they call themselfs GREEN CAPITALISTS and they aim to continue to be the owners of society by coopting the 'green' movement of people seeking sustainability and reversal of human harm on earth

basically if everything is 100% recycled renewable efficient they still want to own the institution that own the rights to provide this

a conference they had called SOLFEST flopped so it is clear the public has not been duped

i like raj's juxtaposition of ADA and sustainability. being a young designer, i wasn't around when the buzz of ADA began. i think he's right when we have to consider this as a necessity in design and work around those parameters to create forms.

i wonder if the transition of the Slow Cities will catch on. I was fascinated by the idea.

by the way, the NPR program used the word porn for shock value in their title. looks like it worked here too.

the fact that all the oil companies are going green...

exactly!

in a more of when we run out timeframe...

OK, so I'm back to attempt a coherent response to this issue.

I agree that there is a danger in overusing the language associated with the green movement. I also think, however, that many people still don't get it, and the media's way of trying to convey ideas is often to run them into the ground (I guess I do this too).

is academia's concentration of green design becoming overly obsessive to the point of disregard for intelligent design?

Hmmm. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Unfortunately, many academic institutions have NOT been concentrating on green design for a while, which is one thing that prompted the 2010 Imperative. This has luckily gotten many design schools in gear. As for the intelligent design part, I personally think that designing a carbon-neutral structure IS intelligent design, and that all forms of design should have a seat at the table, so long as they are geared towards a more sustainable building future.

first thought was: are they talking about this?

but, actually, sustainability is a cultural problem.

so...i feel obligated to post for obvious reasons...

I share many of the sentiments in this thread everytime I post under this alias...a handle I chose long before Al Gore was awarded the peace prize for his efforts.

It's like being named "good design"....and how unoriginal is that?


I'm with WonderK on green: there is room for intelligent design to be green - in fact - when wouldn't it be? That wouldn't be very smart...

If anything, schools need to be teaching more green design - there are still too many young students coming from the suburbs they've grown up loving and too many object buildings coming out.

Hi, GreenDesign! I went back to grad school to learn "you". Have any tips for me, LOL?

Laru, thanks for posting that article. I thought it was very poignant. Forwarded it on to all of my family.