Adapted from IN CONTEXT #35, Spring 1993

Let's start with the bad news: our approach to creating our cities,
neighborhoods, buildings, and transportation systems is literally
killing us. It is the source of vast, though largely unperceived,
negative effects on the natural environment, our economy, our
communities, our health, and the quality of our lives.

• We're building structures and communities that alienate us from each other and from the natural environment.
• The materials used in the construction of buildings normally contain enough toxins to make some of us very sick and many of us chronically uncomfortable.
• Many popular building materials are extracted at enormous cost to fragile ecosystems in various parts of the planet.
• Land-use patterns in many areas make life without an automobile nearly impossible, contributing to our wasteful use of finite fossil fuels and to the automobile's dubious distinction as the world's largest
  single source of pollution.

Meanwhile, we ignore or waste resources freely provided to us in the form of indigenous materials, rain, sunshine, fresh air, and
landscaping.

The scope of the problem is vast. For example:

• Buildings account for more than 40 percent of all US energy use, in terms of both energy for materials and construction, and energy for heating, lighting,
  equipment, etc.
• Building placement - land use - dictates much of our need for transportation, which accounts for 26 percent of US energy use.

So altogether, about two-thirds of US energy use is determined by the current way we design our buildings and our communities. This
energy use in turn has major impacts on global warming, acid rain, the
trade deficit, and our foreign policy.

Clearly, there is simply no way we can achieve a sustainable future without major changes in our built environment.

Fortunately, as the articles in this issue demonstrate, there is a lot
of good news. Sustainable design has matured to the point where it can
deliver a built environment with a much lower environmental impact while enhancing health, community, and quality of life - all while saving money!

Indeed, the news about sustainable design is so good that we are
likely on the verge of a revolution in the building industry that will
totally reshape our communities over the next few decades.

This issue is a report from the front of that revolution.

Building Scale

Restorative Design an interview with Bob Berkebile, by Robert Gilman
Design that nurtures the heart and heals the environment.

Working With Light by Karl H. Maret
An Amsterdam bank building provides a decade of good results.

Audubon's Living Building by Mark Worth
This recycled Manhattan building is a whole-system success.

Institutional Inefficiency by Amory Lovins
Perverse incentives are perpetuating wasteful energy habits.

Small Is Beautiful by Matt Holland
Small houses for a changing population

Energy Stars & Green Builders by Doug Seiter
Austin's rating system for green homes.

Resource-Responsive Housing by Pliny Fisk
Eco-friendly grow homes.

Clearing the Air by John Bower
Seven do's and seven dont's for clean indoor air

Thirty Ways to Get Sustainable - At Home by the CI Staff

Community Scale

Eco-Community Design by Guy Dauncey
Bamberton: a plan for an ecological, humane community.

Transforming Inner-City Los Angeles by Lois Arkin
This inner-city neighborhood is ready for an eco-renaissance.

Reclaiming Community by Matt Holland
Cohousing in inner-city Portland.

Village Homes by Bill Browning and Kim Hamilton
A pedestrian-oriented solar community comes of age.

Community-Scale Technology by Bruce Coldham
Finding appropriate scales

Living Machines by Mary Guterson
Integrating wastewater treatment into daily life provides a lesson about efficiency and the harmony of nature.

Winslow Cohousing: A Self-Portrait by Sarah van Gelder
Residents of the first member-developed cohousing community in the US share their experiences after one year of living together.

Urban Scale

Urban Ecosystems by John Lyle
Cities of the future will embrace the ecology of the landscape, rather than set themselves apart.

Cities of Exuberance by Sarah van Gelder
Strategies for transforming cities and their sprawling suburbs, with a
focus on the tie between transportation and land use, plus a sidebar on Reurbanizing Toronto.

Reshaping the Urban Design Process by Wendy Morris
Urban planners in Melbourne, Australia, are building consensus among
building professionals about building sustainably, plus a sidebar on Women and Suburbia.

The Evolution of Eco-Cities by Tony Dominski
A three-step process toward restoring cities: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Anthropolis by Dan Fischer
A whole-systems vision of a humane, sustainable city

It's Time to Rebuild! by Robert Gilman
We have the skills, technology, and compelling reasons to do it; it's time to begin redeveloping our obsolete built environment.

Also:
Planetary Pulse * A King's Challenge * Seven Steps to a Green Business