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Chicago Passive House takes shape

In Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, an urban residential retrofit shall rise from a former taqueria and demonstrate that a Passive House is possible on a tight city lot… and a tight budget in this collaboration with Richard Avery.

Passive House

Dave has just received his certification to be a Passive House Consultant!

In a nutshell, Passive House is great energy-efficiency standard for buildings (not just homes) of all types and sizes, including schools and community centers, even retrofits in some cases.

LEED and high-performance update

Old and new - which is more energy-efficient?: A typical early 20th-century Chicago commercial building (left); Art Institute Modern Wing (right)

As data continues to come online, we’re getting a better understanding of how buildings old and new perform in terms of energy-efficiency.

10 hopes for the future of Chicago sustainable design

Got permanence? Ample natural light, high ceilings, strong walls and floors, and open plan layouts allow the former Main Chicago Public Library (now Chicago Cultural Center) to function perfectly as an art gallery with little adaptation.

A reporter recently asked me “where do you think Chicago is headed in term of sustainable design in the next five years?”

I thought about it for a while, and, thankfully, I got to write it and not just blurt something out.

Hope it’s worth reading.
This is my response:

A “Cross of Iron” and our resources

Dwight D. Eisenhower by C. Harrison Conroy. Image source: Eisenhower Presidential Library

On a recent, fascinating Chicago Public Radio Worldview program which explored the possibility of a space-based arms race and the wisdom of starting yet another potential conflict.

Why would this be of concern to an architect?

Real estate considers green retrofits

Is real estate coming around to the idea that rehabbing or retrofitting buildings to higher energy-efficiency standards may not only meet the bottom line to stay in the black, but may also be helping to stimulate a growing market?

Is green good enough?

Thoughts on the relevance of the search for sustainability in buildings

The restored Jefferson Reading Room of the Library of Congress

The name game

Anyone tired of the term ‘green’ as applied to buildings?
Of course, plenty of us are – whether design professionals, clients, contractors, or the average citizen. This much-touted, highly questionable, vague, and uncritical term attempts to describe a search for something larger and more relevant that is, by its nature, difficult to describe succinctly.