We look at all brands of General Motors and we can actually go from a sketch to a running prototype within our walls. I’ve worked at Mercedes Benz advance design in the past and also Mercedes Benz production and Audi advance design for my internship. And I’ve worked both in American and Europe, so it’s an interesting perspective, seeing how the Europeans create design and then having the chance to come back to the U.S. and use some of those learnings at home for an American company.

1. What’s different between the European and American relationship to the automobile?

I think it has to do more with the companies I worked for. I think that the Germans have a history of a technical aspect of loving technology in vehicles and paying a lot of attention to the function, and the mechanics, and just the love of the engineering of a vehicle. Americans have a broader perspective as they get excited about beautiful styling as well.

So I think American’s appreciate great engineering but we also appreciate great communication and communicating lifestyle and exciting surface development, and entertaining surface development. When you look at a brand like Cadillac, it epitomizes fashionable or stylish design.

2. What is most exciting about your work?

think the fact that it can morph into so many different things. As a transportation designer I’ve worked on advance design concepts and those are so interesting from project to project. We have a different set of criteria and a lot of the times we invent our own. We consider “what does this brand need, what’s missing”. We look at different trends, especially in our marketplace in California, where of course, there are the most enthusiastic car owners in the world. So we look at emerging trends, so my job changes on a daily basis from project to project.

I’m also excited by the fact that the sketch and what you originally wanted to communicate in the design is still communicated to the end buyer who’s considering “what did this person think of when they drew this vehicle?” So looking at all of those different aspects, your job can change from month to month, and day to day, so it never gets boring!

3. Is the car industry concerned with climate change?

Yes, absolutely. I think the issue is not going away and it’s not a trend. And I think that the car industry sees it as one of our most pressing issues. We, in advance design, look at it, we look at designing green from a power source perspective, and from a visual and design and product design perspective on a daily basis. So as far as what our studio does, yes, we’re completely immersed in designing green products.

4. What’s the fuel of the future?

Well, in my opinion there are so many different ways we can take it that still need to be worked out, proven. Because I don’t think that at this point we can say, this is the best way to solve it. And I think the way that we’re looking at it is almost a near term solution which would be something like ethanol, where somebody can buy it we have these sort of hybrid technologies that are both fuel and hybrid.

Then we have far term type of hybrid plug-ins, like the Volt, which are coming out in a couple of years. And then we have long term solutions like hydrogen. I think that a lot needs to change as far as infrastructure in order to make hydrogen feasible, but as far as a solution, I think that it’s a great solution. Maybe it would be a combination of plug in, electric, and maybe hydrogen as well. So a combination of some of these, but, as far as a favorite, I cannot say because I think that we still need to study a lot of these solutions first.

5. So what kind of mileage will the cars of the future be getting?

Good question. I think that even more interesting to consider would be what could the car of the future give back to the power grid? I think there are a lot of things we’re looking at having to do with those scenarios. When the car actually gives back by regenerating power through braking or other methods, and then at the end of the day when you drive it home it powers some aspect of your house. I think that would be the ultimate goal.

6. Did you notice any trends in the Re:Route entries?

Yes, there was a huge trend towards using a bicycle to create energy, and the other trend was that we really gravitated towards a systems approach. And I think that’s a great solution. How do we connect things that already exist and get people excited about using them in a system? Getting them to think about instead of driving their car, “OK, is there a bus at this stop, and can I take it, and what time will it be”, and using this sort of technology that exists today to communicate all of those things. And I think we all got excited about those possibilities.

7. When you design, is it a systems approach?

Well it depends on the product, so, by systems approach do you mean is are we looking at the whole brand, I think, yes we do, especially in advance design. What we do is we try and map out the philosophy of the whole brand and see where each individual plays a part and make sure that we’re not overlapping with our other brands. So yes, it is a systems approach from an advance design perspective. But a lot of the times in transportation design we’re designing a specific product, so we don’t get to look at the overall product range. So I guess that’s the advantage in working as far out as 15 years out in the future.

8. What are the challenges that lie ahead?

Well one challenge would be to change people’s mind set. Changing the way that we function on a daily basis and tweaking it little by little, so that we feel comfortable doing things a little bit differently. Like instead of shopping and having everything, driving around with all your stuff, having things delivered. Just little by little growing this movement – changing the way we think about things. And I think it’s already happening.

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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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1.   What sparked your interest in participating in a Re:Vision competition?
I initially found the competition through the Treehugger.com community. After researching Re:Vision’s mission and driving philosophy, I found that the intent was commensurate with my graduate research, and submitted one of my conceptual designs to the competition. I wholeheartedly believe that the initiatives proposed by the Re:Vision series are not just welcome in these times, but absolutely necessary.

2.    Were you inspired by nature?
One of the greatest lessons I learned though my research and design experiments during my graduate work is a specific understanding of Natural systems. Nature’s complex designs and processes have become inspiration for wicked human problems — where beautifully complex needs precipitate beautifully complex outcomes. I fully adhere to the notion that contemporary Design methods stand to benefit greatly from this understanding of Natural systems. The way we create has much to gain from Nature; the things we create have EVERYTHING to gain from Nature.

3.    What do you think of the scale of a city block?
In one sense, I think the question of scale is merely a question where one chooses to intervene within a contextual spectrum. It may simply be argued that a city block is too small, AND too big – but to do so there must be a point of reference. One of the traps of our industrialized culture (especially in the realm of ‘making things,’ i.e., Design) is a lack of consideration for context and consequence. We often fail to recognize the consequences of decisions because we limit our scale to too narrow a focus. Though we can’t consider EVERYTHING, we must create with the intent to be open to what considering EVERYTHING entails. When we specify a scale constriction of a city block, often we view that finite limit as one which relieves us of certain considerations. In our Natural reality, our decisions within that finite city block have consequences at scales from the molecular to geologic, from nano- to macro-. I believe to aspire towards a true sustainable future, we MUST be cognizant and responsible for of our ability to impact these scales directly and indirectly, both positively and negatively.

4.    Do you have a background in design?
Of course! I have a BA in Graphic Design, a BS in Industrial Design, and an MS in Architecture.
5.   What is the one idea you wish someone would come up with?
A scalable, ‘one-box,’ distributed, residential power generation solution tailored to household wattage consumption.

6.   Can you see your idea integrating with other ideas from previous competitions, and how?
The basic concept I proposed with Gravia is rooted in scalability, either by volume of units, or sheer output. I’d love to see the kinetic concept of Gravia morph into a small-scale universal charging station (for PDA’s, cell phones, etc.) as well as for larger-scale home devices (e.g. HVAC, lighting, appliances).

7.   Which of our Re:Visionaries do you admire most? What would you ask them if you had the opportunity?
Allison Arieff: How can I land an interview with IDEO? I’d love to get the chance to chat!

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By Zach Mortice
Associate Editor

How do you . . . design a residential mixed-use urban farming building that helps to rehabilitate a sprawling and disconnected Middle American city?

Summary: John Dillinger said he robbed banks because that’s where the money was. Urban Re:Vision has chosen a sprawling, freeway-choked Middle American city for their first full design competition because that’s where the most typical urban design problems are.

Urban Re:Vision, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that sponsors design competitions meant to improve the sustainability and livability of cities, searched all over the nation for an ideal site to build on, and found one in Dallas—known more as a capital of 20th century fossil fuels than as a standard bearer for contemporary sustainability. They enlisted the help of Mayor Tom Leppert, city agencies, various community stakeholders, and an actual client in a quest to liberate radical sustainability from the coastal elite cultural sphere that it’s usually associated with in order to address a wide swath of problems average American cities face. Dallas, like many places, is wide and sprawling, the least dense of any American city its size. Its central business district is disconnected from the rest of the city and is wrapped in neighborhood-dividing underground freeways. There’s an acute lack of public transportation, and socio-economic segregation flows from all of these urban rifts.

“We wanted a midsize city in the middle of the country with issues that everyone could relate to,” say Eric Corey Freed, an Urban Re:Vision board member and founder of organicARCHITECT in San Francisco. “If we did this in Portland you would read, ‘Oh, there goes Portland again with a great, cool thing we don’t have in the rest of the country.’ I don’t think that would have been as effective.”

Urban Re:Vision, has hosted several purely theoretical competitions in the past. Now, they’ve found an actual site just outside of downtown Dallas and an actual nonprofit client (Central Dallas Community Development Corporation) willing to build there. Announced in May, three winners (Little Architecture, a team composed of David Baker and Partners Architects and Fletcher Studio, and a Portuguese team of Atelier Data and Moov) will all meet with their client in late August or early September to negotiate building their mixed-use residential designs.

All competition entries had to operate at net-zero energy, waste, and water consumption and focus on urban agriculture as a way to re-knit disassociated pieces of urban fabric. Urban Re:Vision’s competition goals are ambitious, but they don’t focus on building shining, new eco-cities from nothing. They are exclusively interested in retrofitting existing cities, because these kinds of design solutions offer replicable lessons for other communities that single-swath master plans that rise out of deserts cannot. The competition focuses on sustainability as an energy and resource-use ideal, but also as a social ideal with the acknowledgement that no person or community is sustainable in isolation of any kind—economic, social, environmental, etc.

The competition received 121 entries from all over the world, which were judged by a jury of sustainability experts including Freed and Cameron Sinclair, Assoc. AIA, of Architecture for Humanity.

The design site is next to Dallas City Hall in a run-down and dilapidated commercial and residential neighborhood. Its total budget is $60 million, but funding is still being rounded up. The Central Dallas Community Development Corporation (CDCDC) has two blocks that are available for development, but the competition only requires designers to use one. It’s hoped that building there will spark a wave of sustainable development in the area. “We think it can be a catalyst for a part of the city that has been underdeveloped,” says John Greenan, executive director of the CDCDC.

The path to sustainability
The winning designs are formally similar, but feature subtle programmatic differences that encapsulate the various team visions of how sustainable communities are enacted.

The design by Charlotte-based Little Architecture consists of a 30-story tower with a vertical farming green screen across the east façade. It sits on a seven-story podium with a winding path that takes residents and visitors through sustainability education spaces and urban farming plots, up to a rooftop terrace. The podium also contains live-work spaces. This “meandering path,” as its designers call it, takes people through an organic slow food restaurant, an organic culinary institute, environmental learning lab, and an urban farming institute. Via elevated walkways and bridges, visitors find themselves in vast urban farming plots that will include grain fields.

“When [people] get to the end of the path, they have more skills and abilities that they can contribute to society,” says Brad Bartholomew, AIA, of Little Architecture. “They’re geared to the revitalization of the human spirit. I think about that as a resource.”

Little Architecture calls the project The Entangled Bank after Charles Darwin’s observations about the intense interconnectedness of all ecosystems.

The building’s green screen will have 80,000 square feet of vertical farm land in the form of stackable planter boxes that plug into the screen. This screen will be accessible from large “sky pastures” (the designers are hoping to integrate livestock into them) placed every four levels in the tower. From there, residents will climb ladders to get to their vertical planter boxes.

Each of the building’s 500 residential units will have enough photovoltaic panels to generate all its own power, mostly on the southeast and southwest façade. A copper tubing system on this side will heat water for residents as well. The interplay of glass and PV panels creates a rich graphic image (aided by subtle cantilevers and recessed sections) in the 773,000-square-foot building, and Bartholomew says this was largely determined by program and privacy levels. Bedrooms facing the southeast and southwest will have opaque PV panel walls; living rooms will use glass.

Little Architecture’s design is perhaps the most practical of the winners—but Bartholomew prefers the word “developable.” “I think that’s sustainable—not to out-design your means in terms of how you can develop your project,” he says.

Crossover appeal
The winning Portuguese team of Atelier Data and Moov modeled their design after a hillside eco-system. Their buildings feature valleys, slopes, and steep inclines, all planted with vegetation and insulated with sustainable straw bale construction.

The San Francisco-based team of David Baker and Partners Architects and landscape design firm Fletcher Studio decided to look beyond the competition’s immediate site and develop broad, axial urban greenways that stretch out into Dallas and cross over at the building site, forming an X, hence the name of their project—XERO. From a 16-story tower on each of the two site blocks, one axial greenway would follow the contours of the nearby Trinity River, as a park and linear orchard. The other would sprout up from what is now a linear progression of mostly abandoned lots and underutilized properties like parking lots.

This method of reaching urban agriculture and public green space beyond the confines of the CDCDC site was immediately apparent to both of the project’s primary designers, Ian Dunn, AIA, of David Baker and Partners, and David Fletcher, of Fletcher Studio. “This whole idea of the crossing greenways came within 20 minutes of our first meeting,” says Fletcher.

The two bands of landscaped green that define the project are an attempt to better integrate the dense downtown with the sprawling surrounding neighborhoods separated by a buried freeway, and to create pedestrian interest and destinations in an automobile-focused city. Dunn calls this an “archetypal problem” in American cities, and his design is meant to break up the waves of freeway belts and commuter byways to create a more walkable, livable, fine-grained urban experience. And to truly do that, he had to look far beyond the single block the competition had given him. “It’s something that’s applicable to a lot of these cities that have dense central business districts surrounded by freeways and empty lots,” he says. “You’re not going to fix the problem with a central tower. The problems are much more endemic.”

The team’s two 340,000-square-foot buildings are long and narrow—only 30 to 40 feet wide to aid cross ventilation and solar penetration. The south façade is covered in green screens of trellises and hydroponic trays, as well as PV panels. The north façade features slightly cantilevering, square porthole-like window sections that look out to downtown Dallas. Metal panels will cover sections of the building not encased in glass, green screens, or photovoltaics. Each building will also have two sky garden incisions that will be landscaped and planted. These buildings will lie on top of a podium that cantilevers outward over urban agriculture fields and also holds plots of crops on its roof. The entire complex will be surrounded by a large plaza filled with urban agriculture plots. Townhouse residential units and versatile retail and commercial spaces (from a single work stall to a complete storefront) will fill out the rest of the building podiums, inviting craftsmen, artists, and urban farmers in to sell their wares.

It’s a more spontaneous and informal vision of building community through sustainability than what Little Architecture imagined. Bartholomew’s plan, with its specifically programmed education spaces, approaches sustainability as an avocation to be perfected through serious and specifically directed study. XERO’s approach is more laissez-faire, and more willing to let people organize themselves. It considers social sustainability a natural byproduct of combining diverse people with diverse skills in a dynamic and fertile urban environment.

The XERO design features geothermal heat pumps for heating and cooling and gray water recycling systems that will retain and clean runoff water before it makes its way to the Trinity River. Appropriately then, Dunn and Fletcher call the design a “performative landscape”—a landscape that actively shepherds and restores natural resources by generating energy from the sun, cleaning polluted water, generating food, and creating microclimates.

Formally, the XERO buildings use organically irregular bulges, curves, and incisions to break up otherwise rectilinear massing, especially on the PV and greenscape-dominated south façade. Photovoltaic panel-skinned telescopic volumes that are dotted with green screens reach around the edges of the building, peaking towards the north façade, like an amoeba enveloping another organism. It’s a strident visual metaphor for a project in a city that has largely resisted the progressive creep of sustainable development. XERO will have succeeded if this synthetic organism is able to reproduce and spread beyond the greenway arteries that will extend from it, across the entire city.

Fletcher likens the form of his design to a chipped arrowhead, but he’s cautious about embracing any vaguely vernacular Old West motifs that are going to seem forced, unnecessary, or too easy the morning after. And it’s hard for both Dunn and Fletcher to isolate a singular idea of Dallas’s overriding architectural character, which was an important focus of the Urban Re:Vision competition. This project already rethinks the entire consumer relationship to urban food and energy, and Fletcher (a Texas native) wonders if it might be a good opportunity to let it rethink local formal traditions as well, and start over. “It’s a better habitat for a new Dallas vernacular than any other building I can think of there,” he says.

Hungry for green
So is creating a net-zero beachhead in the heart of big oil country harder because of entrenched attitudes about energy consumption, or easier because of pent-up demand for all things green? Greenan and the XERO team say it’s more of the latter, and there’s a chance that the building that results from Urban Re:Vision’s competition won’t even be the first true icon of Texas sustainability. That honor might belong to former oil magnate T. Boone Pickens and the Pickens Plan, which plans to build the largest wind farm in the world in Texas. “When Boone Pickens says it’s time to look to wind power,” Greenan says, “you can bet that a lot of other people in Dallas are going to start thinking about renewable energy.”

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And I also travel the country teaching workshops and lecturing to groups about renewable energy and green building, community design and redesign.

And my role is really several. One is to teach, to get this information out in whatever medium I can, whether it’s speaking to groups, or whether it’s writing or teaching. But my mission is to get information out and, also, to innovate, to come up with ideas and a lot — create a lot of ideas that I try to get out, along with other people’s ideas. So it’s a matter of assimilating what others have had to say about these issues, and introducing my own ideas, and trying to create packages that will help people understand what our problems are, and where we need to go, and what we can do about them.

1. What would you say you personally are most deeply passionate about as it relates to this topic of power and energy?

I’m most interested — most passionate about finding ways to meet our needs that don’t bankrupt the earth; finding ways to meet our needs for energy. For example, that ensure the future generations can meet their needs, that we don’t foreclose on future generations, or even foreclose on our own future; ways that we can live sustainably on this earth in tapping into all the generous supplies of renewable energy.

2. Not everybody necessarily understands the sustainable energy and living dialogue at sort of a day-to-day level, a human level, a community level. What is that you see all of this as doing for the way people experience life on a day-to-day basis in their urban communities?

For a lot of people, they still flip on the light switch, and there’s light there. They go to the gasoline — they pump, and they pump. There’s plenty of gas there. So I think that a lot of people are experiencing this at a different level though. They’re starting to experience much higher prices and — both in natural gas and electric bills and for gasoline at the fuel pump.

And so I think that for most people it — this whole idea of sustainable energy has been sort of abstract until now. And I think more and more people are getting the connection that our national security is at stake here, the type of energy that we consume as a nation; that that is affecting our national security. We’re really — in a way, we’re paying for the war on terrorism in two ways: we’re paying all these military expenditures; and, through our [petrol] dollars, we’re paying terrorist nations and, ultimately, terrorist cells.

So we — I think people are starting to catch on that we have an issue here with climate change, with higher prices. And the threat of national security … I think it’s starting to come home to people, that they’re really getting that something has to be done. So I don’t think it’s gone out of this abstract realm, some futuristic kind of thinking. I think it’s become real concrete for people that we need to do something.

3. How will people incorporate these things or adopt them — take it from being in their minds as important to changing their behaviors and their lifestyle, and what effects that would have on day-to-day living?

I think that people need direction. That’s the thing. And I think energy is a very mysterious thing to them. You see turning on lights and turning off lights, the real obvious things. But in most of our homes, for example, most people don’t have the foggiest idea where that energy goes and how much leaks through windows or around leaky doors.

And so we really need a tremendous amount of education to help people understand where the leaks are in their daily lives and how much energy is being wasted. So that’s one of the most important things right now, is that people understand how much we lose. In this society, we probably waste 50 percent to 75 percent of the energy that we consume. So that’s like going to the grocery store, buying 10 bananas, and throwing half of them away, or three-quarters of them away. That’s how wasteful we are. So education has really got to be important. I don’t expect every consumer, every household, everyone who lives in an apartment, or a condominium, or a townhouse, or a single-family home, or anyone who runs a business to to become an energy expert. I think that we need is the education that there is a problem, and there are solutions; and that we’re part of the problem — we can certainly become part of a solution — and that there are resources, folks who come in and energy retrofit for you, can do a simple, cost-effective energy analysis on your home. I think that’s really where this is going to be going.

There are a lot of do-it-yourselfers who will get out there and do it. But there are a lot of people that need guidance. They need to know the problems, know what the solutions are, and know that there experts that they can bring in to tighten up their homes and capture all that [laughs] energy that we’re currently wasting.

4. Do you have any thoughts of what will make these ideas, implementing some of these ideas or changes in behavior, meaningful, like a proactive choice on the day-to-day person to implement?

Well, I think savings on the utility bill will be [laughs] very meaningful to a lot of people. And I honestly think that a lot of people get that we have a problem with global climate change and that knowing that what they’re doing is contributing in some small way, I think, will help. But I think the meaning is going to be in utility bills. Everywhere I talk, every place I go, people are showing me their utility bills [laughs] or talking about their utility bills. And [clears throat] Americans are getting hit really hard right now. And I think they’ll see a meaningful difference.

There is some metric to measure what their impact is and what the impact of energy efficiency measures. And that’s probably one of the most important things we can do as a nation, is become efficient first and then think about the renewal energy technologies that we can employ individually or collectively to make up the rest of our energy diet.

5. When you say “become efficient,” can you elaborate? What do you mean by that?

Well, just virtually every aspect of our lives, from the showerheads we use to the light bulbs that we use — those are really two good examples — to the way we heat our homes. Let’s take an example: the average — if you live in an older home, and you have an older showerhead, it probably is using five gallons to seven gallons a minute. And there are models now that are currently available that will use under two gallons a minute.

And that simple shower — we call it a ["low flow,"] but it’s really a high-efficiency showerhead — it gives you a great shower — will save a family of four up to $250 a year. So here you’re making an investment. And you can buy one for $5, maybe $15 if you buy a high-end model. And so that unit will save you — that $5 investment will save you $250 a year, up — if — for a family of four.

Well, let’s just say that you bought one for $15, and it only saved you $150 a year. That’s a ten-times return on your investment. Imagine if our stock portfolios performed as well as that. And there are other technologies as well, like the compact fluorescent light bulbs. They’re — they screw into an ordinary light socket. They use a quarter of the energy of a standard light bulb. A single bulb will cost you a couple dollars, but it’ll save, over its lifetime, $30 to $60 in energy use. And that’s just a couple examples of the kinds of things that people can do. Those are some of the common things. Those are some of the common things.

And another area we have to look at — into is the types of transportation we employ. For most of us, our cars are operating at about 20 percent or 30 percent efficiency. And there are a lot of technologies that’ll help us boost that efficiency: the plug-in hybrids which are coming; the hybrid vehicles which are available now. But the plug-in hybrids — and that’s an area where people can make a huge change as well.

Our homes are also extremely leaky. If you take the average older home in the United States, and you add up all the leaks in the building envelope — in the roof, in the walls, in the foundation; you add up all those leaks — there are little, tiny cracks here and there, cracks around windows, cracks around the door, cracks where the wall meets the foundation. If you add those up, it’d be equivalent to a 3-foot-by-3-foot window open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year: a 3-foot window, a 3-[foot]-by-3-foot window open 200 — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Just sealing the cracks in the building envelope with caulk and [weather-stripping] — a very, very inexpensive way to seal up a house — can cut your energy — your heating and cooling bill by half, just overnight. And it might cost you a couple hundred dollars, at the very, very most, to do it. So that’s the kind of stuff that’s available to us. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that’s available to us that’ll make our society so much more energy efficient, reduce our fuel bills, and make us a lot more comfortable in the process.

6. How would you quickly describe or characterize the current state of energy generation and use today?

The current state of energy generation and use … Well, it’s primarily fossil-fuel-based. And it’s primarily based on two fuels that are in — that were — are no longer going to be cheap. It’s — [41 percent] of our energy comes from oil. And the end of cheap oil is here. We’re not going to see cheap oil again in our lifetime, because we’re close to peak oil production in the world.

And so, from this point forward, within the next few years, we’re going to start seeing declining extraction, which means the price is going to go — continually rise. Natural gas is very similar to that here in the United States. We peaked in natural gas production, peaked in the United States, in 1973. And we’re looking at natural gas supply starting to declining. And so we get 23 percent of our energy from natural gas and 41 percent from oil. So 64 percent of the energy that we consume is in short supply, and that’s going to have a tremendous effect.

The rising demand and falling supply is going to have a huge impact on how we operate as a society. It’s clearly going to affect us economically. So I guess I would say this, is that we’ve pinned our future on fossil fuel resources that are — a couple of them are entering into an era of declining supply. And we’re also using primarily fossil fuels, which — the combustion of which is using carbon dioxide, which is heating up our atmosphere. It traps — CO2 is a greenhouse gas. And it traps the heat radiating off the surface of the earth, basically like putting a warm blanket on or covering up with a coat; it’s making the earth warmer, and we’re paying a huge price for that economically.

7. What do you see as the exciting trends in alternative energy?

The most exciting trend is that people are getting interested in it and they’re we’re starting to implement the technologies that have been around for a long, long time. There are a lot of new innovations, new technologies; more efficient solar electric cells. There’s some fantastic work being done trying to create solar cells out of more common, more inexpensive materials.

But, to me, that’s not anywhere near as exciting as knowing the — as the fact that we’re really starting to implement these technologies. A lot of states have renewable energy portfolios. [There's renewal portfolio standards] which dictate that they produce a certain amount of energy within a fairly short period from renewables. And I’m really excited to see that happening. I’m really, really excited to see that states like Colorado [are at now] 20 percent of their renewable energy, and they’re not too — [20 percent] of their energy in the not-too-distant future is going to come from renewables.

And so it’s the implementation to me that’s really exciting — [and a big scale]. I mean, wind is the fastest growing source of energy in the world. And second is solar electricity, which is pretty exciting, which still pales in comparison to the other fuels. But the growth is phenomenal.

8. What would you say is special or different about how these ideas apply to urban communities specifically?

Well, I don’t know if there’s anything special. There are certain renewable technologies that aren’t applicable, that don’t work very well in an urban setting. And our challenge in the urban setting is to retrofit what’s already here, is to retrofit existing structures. And there are some limitations: wind, for example, wind [turbines]; it’s just a poor choice for an urban, or a suburban, environment; there’s too much ground clutter; there are too many trees and [laughs] too many buildings that get in the way of the wind. And so it’s very, very impractical.And, yet, most houses have a roof that is fairly well exposed to the sun. So we have opportunities to install solar hot water systems for domestic hot water and solar hot water for space heating. We have opportunities to add solar electricity. And so the urban environment does create some — there are some limitations. But, clearly, it’s not so – the limitations aren’t so severe that we can’t tap into the renewables.

But, again, in the urban environment, we see a lot of old buildings that need energy retrofitting first. They need to be tightened up. We need to make use of that energy in the house much more efficiently so we’re not wasting so much. And that’s America’s number-one goal right now. If I were energy czar, that’s what I’d do. I — we’d have a nationwide energy conservation program. And we could literally save 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent of the energy that we’re consuming right now, lower everybody’s fuel bills, and help reduce global warming.

9. As you look to the future, what are your dreams for how shifts in energy use will affect the way we live in our communities? What are your personal dreams for the future of how lives are affected?

Well, personally, my personal dream is that we go as close to 100-percent renewable as possible. We need to probably reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent, maybe 70 percent, to actually halt the warming of the planet that’s occurring now with devastating economic impacts.

So I could easily see — and I dream of the day that we will be getting 60 percent, 70 percent of our energy from the sun, and from wind, and from [micro-hydro], and solar hot air systems. That’s what I see, is efficiency — become very, very efficient — and then supply most of our needs through these renewable resources.

And a lot of people worry. They say, “Well, we can’t do that because the wind doesn’t blow all the time.” But we have an interconnected energy system. And so the wind may not be blowing here one day, but it’ll be blowing up north 50 miles from here. So the nice thing about the way the system is set up is that we have this interconnectivity that we can tap into. And energy can be shifted around as needed.

10. Through efficiency and innovation, can we really supply all our energy needs?

No doubt about it. There is so much solar energy available. There is so much wind energy available it would make your head spin. There’s enough wind energy just in the states of, say, North Dakota. If we could tap the wind energy in North Dakota and Texas, it would supply all of our electrical needs.

Now, no one is proposing that we do that, that we set up wind farms all across those states. But that’s abundant it is. The solar energy … hundreds of times, thousands of times, more solar energy strikes the planet than we need on a single day. So there’s just an abundance of renewable energy.

And if you look at the whole United States, you’ll find there’s certain areas where solar is quite prevalent; there are other areas where wind is prevalent; there are other areas where biomass would be — would help us supply our needs. So by mixing — by developing a system that uses a variety of these different renewables, we could easily meet all of our energy needs, without a question.

11. Out of today, what are your inspirations from the competition that you were privileged to be a part in terms of contributing and reviewing ideas and just making some selections? What inspires you?

Well, I think I was delighted to see the amount of [systems] thinking that occurred as the entrants, the people who entered the competition, who were thinking in terms of systems of creating, within a community, a variety of different energy resources … And they also looked at energy in a different way. When we think of energy, we think of turning on a light switch and getting light, or pumping gasoline into our car and driving off.

But energy runs through every aspect of our society. When you recycle, you save energy. If you capture rainwater off the roof to water your garden, you’re actually saving energy because it takes energy to purify the water in a municipal system and to transport it to your home. So I saw a lot of the systems thinking, which, I think, is vital to our success, is to think about the whole system and how food production, local food production, how local water production, recycling of gray water, capturing rainwater off the roof, and all the traditional energy issues — how people were thinking about all of those together. And I think the energy impacts will be tremendous.

12. Any maybe not shifts in perspectives or ideas but inspirations? … Any sort of new inspirations or new energy that’s energy?

I think energy is there. I feel energized by this process. I’m eager to see the end product when this gets put into action. That’s what really excites me, is the thought of taking all of these ideas, taking not just the top two or three proposals, but taking all of them, and picking the best ideas, the most practical ideas, the most economical ideas, and the most earth-friendly ideas; pulling all those out and creating a package, an entire package; when we move onto other areas of this competition, creating a whole package of ideas; and then actually seeing it implemented in a real community: that’s very exciting to me.

13. Tell me about that. What’s exciting about that?

Well, the excitement that this has been area that we’ve overlooked for so long; that when we creating a sustainable future, when we think about how we chart a pathway into our future, most of the thinking is about new technology: it’s about new homes, and new cars, and new trucks and busses, and new factories; it’s thinking about starting from scratch. And we honestly don’t have the luxury of bulldozing all of the existing infrastructure, all of the existing buildings and houses, and starting over. We have 125 million single-family homes in this country, many of which are energy hogs, resource hogs; they’re literally like patients on an internal — in an intensive care unit. They’re so dependent on the outside supply of energy and resources, just like a patient in an intensive care unit, that — and so we don’t think about, what would we do with those; how do we make them more independent; how do we make all this existing infrastructure more sustainable. And, to me, that’s what really exciting here, is that we’re finally thinking about what we do with what’s already here.

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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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1.  What sparked your interest in participating in a Re:Vision competition?
I have an interest in renewable energies.  I am especially intrigued by the idea of using human movement which is free and ubiquitous to generate energy

2.  Were you inspired by nature?
In the sense that nature provides us free and useable energy in the form of solar, wind, and, the ability to convert calories into human movement which in turn can be used to harness energy.

3.  What do you think of the scale of a city block?
It’s a great way to start thinking in small ways that can be translated into larger scales.  Everyone can relate to city blocks and think of ways in their everyday lives that they can save and generate energy.

4.  Do you have a background in design?
Yes, I am an architect.  I studied architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.

5. What in your opinion is the next step for developing the design of your winning entry?  Different materials?  Prototypes?
More research and actually installing it in a city block. My idea is to use human footsteps in sidewalks to generate energy.  There are materials out there that can do this using piezoelectricity but they have never been used in large scales.  One of the major setbacks is the lack of technology to store generated energy.

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So with light and bulbs on the mind (what can I say, it’s a sunny day out, too) I thought I could post a bit of melancholy trivia, used only to inspire us to seek grander things. Before that, however, please note that it comes from an art collective I participate and collaborate with called The Civil Twilight Collective ( www.civiltwilightcollective.com ). This quotation I present is in reference to the lunar-resonant street light design that they have created, which is currently undergoing round two of its prototype and we are in close communication with the city to find some pilot-installation sites! Without further adieu, here is some trivia which will make you question and, hopefully, inspire you to take ACTION:

“Perhaps the most fascinating fact that the collectives research revealed, however, is a little-known detail about the history of electricity: in the 1930s, with the spread of electrification and the consolidation of utilities, streetlights became a convenient way to off-load excess energy from the grid at night, when power demands dropped significantly. This intentionally inefficient system determined the norm for nighttime outdoor lighting levels, a standard that has not been revised since, even though the need for off-loading ended in the 1970s. What we now assume is a safety measure is in fact the forgotten remnant of an obsolete energy practice. Next Gen juror Fred Dust, head of IDEO’s Smart Space design practice, says the jury found this part of the proposal both shocking and compelling. “It’s such an archaic concept that it seems like science fiction,” he says.

Makes you wonder, how else can we boost efficiency? It all starts with a light bulb and then…

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