The Burden of the Design Profession | Nov 7th at 12:22pm
Gita Goven, Jonathan Marvel, and Jose Picciotto all gave presentations on the work that their design firms create. Apparently buildings account for almost HALF of carbon emissions — and so it’s amazing to realize what a burden designers have to help correct the problems cities are facing. Goven, Marvel, and PIcciotto are all doing amazing work — green fantasylands in Brooklyn, efficient buildings in Mexico, and affordable housing in South Africa — but are they the exceptions or the rule? The design profession seems fully aware of climate change and yet so many of the other people responsible for buildings and zoning (ie the political realm) must be fairly oblivious. How else to explain why sprawl persists? Or why buildings are still being built that have no natural ventilation? Just two examples.
All this has made me wonder if maybe we don’t actually believe — as a larger society — that sprawl is bad or that air conditioners are part of the problem.
Diana Lind is editor in chief of Next American City.
