Last Thursday, Urban Revision Salon hosted the lovely Eve Blossom of Lulan Artisans. (I was honored to stand in for Michelle Kaufmann who was out spreading the green architecture gospel nationwide.) Urban Revision shares offices, of course, with Architecture for Humanity and that was a particularly fitting coincidence here: Eve worked with AFH in Vietnam after earning a Masters in Architecture from Tulane. While there, she explains, she “discovered a passion for the hand weaving traditions of the region and realized their unparalleled talents and spirit. The creation of a sustainable market, livelihood, and wage for the weavers and their villages became a dream that eventually led to Lulan.”

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Water is one of the few substances on Earth that expands when it freezes. Most materials contract.
(This is why you should not put a can of soda in the freezer…)

A simple but environmentally important and unusual property of water is that its common solid form, ice, floats on its liquid form. As a solid, water is less dense that as a liquid, thus why it floats. This is due to how the molecules arrange themselves when freezing. What is even stranger about this is that colder water is more dense than warmer water, until it becomes ice.

The Mpemba effect is the observation that, in some specific circumstances, hotter water freezes faster than colder water. Crazy, huh?!

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The effect of dams have altered the rotation and speed of the Earth.

In Hong Kong, sea water is extensively used for flushing toilets citywide in order to conserve fresh water resources.

There is a misconception that a toilet flushes (or a tub drains) in a different direction when south of the equator. In reality, the Coriolis Effect is much too small compared to other influences on drain direction, such as the geometry of the tank; and the direction in which water was initially added to it.

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Erosion formed the Grand Canyon.

It takes 23 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes, it takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef.

Check out Dame Anita Roddick’s wonderful book on water:

In Architecture, we are always fighting gravity and water. Perhaps this is why I am so interested in them.

More on water…

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“This planet came with a set of instructions,
but we seem to have misplaced them.”

Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009 “When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was ‘direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.’ No pressure there. Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades. This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing. There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating.

Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done. When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums. You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power.

Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way. There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world. Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself.

The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity.

Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.

Today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history. The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant.

We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it.

We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich. The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable.

We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours.

Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.” So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are.

Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past. Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television. This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation.

You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss.

The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century.

Take it and run as if your life depends on it.” – Paul Hawken.

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How do we re-examine and re-question cities to see their issues as design problems?

Present Solutions That Expose Flaws In The Current Design

Exposing the problems through the (strategic) presentation of solutions is key, and you have to do it in a way that draws on good data. The effect of proposed/potential changes in design has to be measurable (in dollars, kilotons, time, units of energy savings etc). The communication of solutions for which you can show (with data, research etc) measurable, manageable positive impact is crucial to leading people down a path where thinking shifts from “why would this make a difference?” to “why haven’t we always done it THIS way?”. Thinking shifts when the alternative to current practice is clearly a better idea. The manner in which we deliver new ideas makes a difference.

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The PCAP calls for reductions in emissions in the US of 40% below current levels by 2020: that is 4% per year, every year. Can you imagine, how, over a 10-year period, you could reduce your own use of fossil fuels by 40%? (Think about heating, driving, airplane travel…) What would be needed for the US as a whole to achieve this goal?

Reply Submitted by Douglas Prude on Sat, 01/31/2009 – 08:26.

Reducing Emissions in the U.S.

The degree of difficulty in reducing emissions will depend on two things, location and investment. For those of us living in urban environments it will be easier. Most cities offer efficient public transportation and many have already embraced electric rail. People living in suburban and rural areas usually don’t have that option. They may have to invest in upgrades to their home such as a heat pump, tank less water heater and radiant barrier; naturally a hybrid vehicle would be a good choice as well. All environmentally conscious upgrades could be encouraged through tax incentives and manufacturer rebates.

Communities will have to decide to make the investment in rail, alternative energy, and sound urban planning. Investments will have to be made in waste management, transportation and building codes will need to be updated in all cities.

The bottom line is, we have the ability, we just need the desire. Changing habits is difficult but we’ve done it before when it has been necessary. The best thing that any one person can do is to pay attention to their local politics and make their voice heard through emails, letters and of course voting.

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Do rich countries have an obligation to reduce their emissions dramatically regardless of immediate participation by developing nations? Should the United States wait for commitment from new large polluters such as China before agreeing to large-scale emissions cuts?

Submitted by Maryl Kunkel on Mon, 02/02/2009 – 11:12.

What do we gain by waiting?

I think that every country is obligated to reduce their emissions, regardless of whether they are considered developed or developing. The United States should not wait for the commitment from new large polluters, because that sets a tone of hesitation, or doubt on our part. Our government can not hesitate to take action. Per capita the United States is of the largest emitters of green house gasses, which means that we have a large role to play in facing and combating climate change.

Besides, how can leading in renewable technologies and training workers in green jobs be a bad thing? What do we gain by waiting?

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Which comes first-changes in commuter habits, or the infrastructure to support them? An example: Portland, Oregon, is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the United States; nearly 3% of all commuters do so by bike, and the city boasts over 170 miles of bike lanes, and 30 miles of bike boulevards (or low-traffic streets where bikes are given right-of-way). Is the strong bicycle culture made possible by the legislative protection of bicycle resources, or does a strong bicycle culture put the legislation into effect? How can these principles be applied to other issues and communities?

Submitted by Sandra Chelnov on Tue, 02/03/2009 – 15:16.

We need to do both: change our habits and develop new infrastructure! Actually, I’m afraid that this question does not recognize one painful fact: We don’t have much time! Jim Hansen tells us we have 10 years in which to make our changes The quickest method we have to reduce our carbon footprint, the low-hanging fruit, is CONSERVATION of energy and this requires a BIG change in behavior throughout our culture . The economic downturn that we are in the midst of will help us . . . because folks are being forced to question their consumption patterns. Of course we need to envision and build a new much more sustainable infrastructure starting today . . . but let us recognize that these will take some time to get up and running. I would recommend folks check out The Low Carbon Diet: How to Lose 5000 lbs in 30 Days . . . its a great program for households to reduce their carbon footprint by way of eco-teams . . . we can reduce our CO2 emissions and strengthen our communities at the same time! Portland Oregon did a pilot of the Low Carbon Diet and households reduced their carbon footprint by an average of 22%!

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My own definition continues to evolve, it seems. Today I feel sustainability is another word for good design.

Perhaps I have just lost my patience with the rest of the building community, but it seems you cannot separate one from the other. I don’t care how “pretty” a building is – unless it has included green building practices then it can never achieve true beauty. Frank Lloyd Wright said that “form and function are one.”

This is more true today as the need and functions of sustainability are woven into the form of the building.

2. What will it take to create a shift in values and behaviors in our society in regards to sustainability?

Winston Churchill said (paraphrasing), “I have great faith in the American people to do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted every possible option.”

We WILL reach a sustainable economy. This is inevitable. The real question is how much longer will we allow the corporate interest of oil, gas and coal companies control our progress?

We have already seen a huge shift in values and behavior. But I don’t necessarily think it should come from the consumer up. It’s embarrassing that demand had to grow so great that consumers were forced to request healthy alternatives. Do companies really want to push the issue until people ask, “Can I get my paints without cancer causing chemicals?” “Can I have wood that did not permanently destroy our forests?” It seems crazy that we would let things get to such a state, but we have.

3. What are you most passionate about (as it relates to moving forward ideas)?

You mean aside from green building?! Currently I am very excited about CNC computer milling. I think it will usher in a new era of mass customization (that’s a great term, isn’t it?!). I have long been a fan of green prefab and am closely involved with what is going on there. The amazing work of Michelle Kaufmann and Steve Glenn will soon invite opportunities for all architects to get involved. I would love to see them license their branded technology the same way that Toyota is now licensing their hybrid technology to other automakers.

4. What are you inspirations? Who do you admire most?

Well, there is no shortage of brilliant, passionate and inspiration people.
I have now been fortunate enough to meet many of my role models and can now call them friends. A short list just off the top of my head:
David Orr, Oberlin College
Paul Hawken, Natural Capital Instutute
Ray Anderson, Interface
Jeff Mendelsohn, New Leaf Paper

Cameron Sinclair, Architecture for Humanity Anita Roddick, Body Shop Judy Wicks, BALLE David Gottfried, USGBC Allison Arrief, IDEO the list goes on and on.

5. How has Re:Vision inspired you?

I have to admit how surprised I was in the quality and caliber of the past entries. They far exceeded my expectations. But even more surprising, was that in most cases, it wasn’t the slick, polished presentation that won. It was the brilliant idea roughly presented that would often grab the judges attention. That really stands as a credit to the strength of the ideas.

6. How would you characterize or sum up the current state of architecture and building today?

Disappointing. The divide in the quality of Architecture has grown as much as the divide in between the upper and lower class. It seems there is no longer room for the solid middle class of architecture: strong, well performed ideas created at an affordable budget. Everything is either super high end or built as cheaply as possible. In both cases, design is seen as something added (like a chef would add paprika) rather than part of the process from the start.

In truth, we have an entire generation of architects that have forgotten how to design appropriate buildings. They have forgotten where the Sun is and how to formulate a strong idea.

The few that still can do this do it really, really well. Bart Prince, Norman Foster and Thom Mayne all know how to build a gorgeous, innovative and appropriate building.

7. What are some of the more exciting trends in architecture and building today?

Contour crafting will enable use to “print” our buildings in three-dimensions directly onto the site. Inexpensive solar panels will enable new streams of solar materials. We will just make everything to generate electricity.

But government regulations are a critical part of this process. Imagine if your local city government had laws to protect you such as:
* no high-VOC, toxic paints are permitted to be sold
* builders must recycle 100% of their construction waste
* no building may consume more energy than a baseline 3000 square foot building.

This gives you an idea of what we are attempting to do in San Francisco.

You’ll see this around the world as communities begin to realize they deserve to have a say on what happens in their hometown.

8. As you look to the future, what are your personal dreams for how architecture and building uses will affect the way we live in our urban communities?

I cannot only dream it; I can already see it happening.

I see building materials that grow and heal, like plants.

I see buildings that track the path of the sun, the same way a flower does.

I see inventive combinations of uses and functions within our buildings to create exciting possibilities for community.

I see every building as a 24-hour building: a place where we learn to maximize materials and energy to harness the full potential of every building in terms of energy, water and activity.

9. What are the challenges that lay ahead as it relates to architecture and building in an urban community? And are there any interesting opportunities?

The biggest challenge comes from apathy and complacency. People hate the current wave of buildings and development around them, yet they fight like crazy when the opportunity to change it comes along. What are they holding onto? Do you really like your strip mall that much?!

Sometimes I’ll have a neighbor complain about seeing the solar panels on the roof of one of our buildings. But their roof is made of toxic asphalt shingles. Now, which roof is ugly? At least mine produces clean energy.

10. If you had one question to ask everyone reading this interview, what would it be?

How can you be the change you wish to see in the world?

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