AIArchitect

You are doubting the settled science about warming on Mars? Denier!!

Science is here to stay. Denial of physical reality is a good definition for insanity. There is a presence here in the AIA blog that has the political axe to cleave reason to polarized purpose. Typically with some brand of citation but rarely with the corresponding possession of knowledge.

The denier's are always armed with rhetoric and illusion. And that's one thing you'll find with *every* claim made by the Deniers (Maunder Minimum, sun spots, global warming on Mars, Little Ice Age, Vikings growing grapes, etc.) - it's composed entirely of shortchanged truth, ignorance, delusion and lies and serves some political purpose involving tax dollars.

I think the idea of a rooftop power plant is the most profound genius I have ever read in a blog anywhere. Almost 50% of the power we currently generate is lost between the point of generation and use by the line loss associated with AC power transmission.

Leadership in the White house to transform the built environment is long overdue. There is much work to be done, design solutions and leadership among architects is typically in the hands of those least celebrated and most unknown. BIG NAMES in the world of architecture in the US have failed to produce cogent vision of a sustainable future. Let's get started by being pragmatic.

The transformation of the American city is possible and necessary as well as eminent. We have every mandate to change that any civilization could ever need. We need to choose the transformation and articulate the vision of the desired future of the city before we can lead the masses into the future. So we need to accept the design problem on it's own terms.

There is pragmatic groundwork from which we could begin the transformation. Every home can be economically upgraded to achieve a significant reduction in the consumption of energy using nothing more complicated that external shade devices or movable insulation systems. We can show americans how to do this. Let the White house lead and change the tax law just a bit to let us make energy improvements to single family homes fully deductible in the first year after the improvement is made. The cost of debt is sapping the life out of the American working family. Financing energy improvements IS the BIG barrier to transformation of the existing American home to a more sustainable component of a more sustainable city. Take immediate action there and a positive migration to a more sustainable American built environment will take place.

There are many ways to use or adapt the existing built environment and make money or save money. Let's empower the change with design solutions and put architects back to work.

Let's accept the idea that working from home can save human resource, a lot of energy & time and the idea simply makes applicable sense in every major city. How hard is it to make it payoff for employer's and employees. Turns out every city has existing success stories to brag about.

Reduce waste and compensate for deficiencies is a general rule that leads to success. Do you really like commuting and would it not be better to telecommute instead? We all know this brand of stupidity when we experience it, so let's stop it. Dollars are made by migrating away from burdened systems that are expensive, to the obvious working solutions that are inexpensive. Keep the cars longer by driving fewer miles.

Build, drive & live Not-So-Big & not-so stupid! For example; Do not build coal plants which will accelerate global warming and poison the health of our population when it is better to build a permanent energy solution.

The rooftop of the American city is perfectly placed and we should build our much needed solar electric power plant on top of it. We need to acquire an aesthetic for practicality.

Forestall consumption of fossil fuels to generate electrical power. Let's break the addiction to foreign oil. Let us accept the strategic imperative to break our dependency on offshore oil and stockpile reserves to support our capacity to defend America.

Can the White house help architects to solve the rapidly evaporating American Dream problem?

Yes, let's conceive of a vision for the American city of the future and usher in new systems essential to sustaining the American dream.

The path we seek leads to a sustainable domestic economy. The struggle for balance between government, labor and capital is imperative to values, culture, time, place and the security of the American people, our way of life and our standard of living.

Affordable housing will become a practical reality when wages are adequate to meet the housing production & financing cost problem, or when the production of housing can both anticipate and produce housing at pricing that dovetails with the never ending erosion of buying power of the American worker.

That is a difficult thing to balance. So our vision of a sustainable pattern of living must first encapsulate & change the underlying drivers of the body of civilization itself, it's industry, capital & financial infrastructure, the systems & mechanism of growth and profit must be empowered as only that can sustain the way of life and the American dream. There is a solution. What is most important as an outcome for the American people? We cannot have or sustain the American dream unless American labor is valued beyond offshore prices for the same work. When we compete with offshore labor ten times cheaper than labor here we are trading the American dream away to enrich a few at the expense of many. We need to do the math here, maybe we can get some help from the White house.

In your listing of "architecture presidents", you forgot your AIA History 101. Teddy Rooselvelt, had a relationship with the AIA that transformed the White House and the city of Washington, DC.

A quote from above:

"Obama is the first president to appear city-literate—to understand from a community planning standpoint how the distrubution of uses and building stock of a locality affects the lives of the people who live and work there. And if that weren't enough, Kamin also brings us word that both Obama and Vice President-Elect Joe Biden see themselves as would-be architects."

Are you kidding me? A couple of years of "community organizing" as part of the Chicago political machine, and you become an urban expert?

Please, put down the Kool-aid, and slowly step away from the bar. I think you've had enough...

Were there any sources related to this essay? Also, how did you come across it?

Honestly, Zwirn, the author of the essay, has a point with regards to individual decision-making. If you ask anyone, I mean really ask any individual, what they'd be willing to do to live more sustainably--i.e.,possibly sell their house and move closer to work, use the car less, bike more, utilize public/mass transit, buy fewer things made in China, Ecuador, or wherever--I believe a lot of people would say that the change is too great and the costs too high. Or they might say it would be a huge inconvenience or just plain uncomfortable. We are after all creatures of habit, and we are all in the habit of doing things that make us more comfortable at the individual level. That translates to detached home. Property. Personal vehicle(s). Air conditioning. These are symbols of prosperity and individual freedom. These constitute the American Dream as we know it. They are what my parents wanted when they immigrated to the U.S. in the late 70's and they are what helped to motivate them to move from Los Angeles to Loma Linda when crime and high rent threatened their economic security, safety, and peace of mind.

I believe Obama and this generation of American people must redefine or at the very least, re-examine, what the "American Dream" entails or we risk sabotaging our efforts to turn things around in our society and our cities, which really represent our values.

Creating policies that attempt to make our cities denser while secretly we all want 10-acre homes and two or three cars to tend to the needs of our families seems like a conflict-of-interests.

Chimaobi, age 23

My favorite pessimistic essay on density and urban environments:

architects.org/emplibrary/Density.Zwirn.pdf