Green Redux

Yes, it has been awhile since we’ve updated Green Redux, but we’re back! The past several weeks have been a filled to the brim with lots of exciting events, both personally and professionally, so while it may appear we’ve been slacking, we’ve just been completely otherwise occupied getting new projects off the ground.

I’ve been busy with my new post as Managing Editor of Inhabitat, which coincidentally kicked off with the start of spring design events in Milan and New York (if you haven’t kept up, check out Inhabitat’s great coverage of Milan Design Week, Designers & Agents, BKLYN Designs, and ICFF). And, Scott has taken on the exciting role of new dad (again) to my new nephew, born in April.

While in New York for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, I had the good fortune to meet up with Lloyd Alter of TreeHugger, whom I’ve enjoyed reading for quite some time. And, to my delight, my regular daily scope of his writing today turned up a great post that deserves a mention.

Lloyd and I have quite a few shared interests including prefab homes, preservation and sustainable development - he’s been a proponent of building reuse through a fairly regular column called Another One Bites the Dust. His latest post, Donovan Rypkema: LEED stands for Lunatic Environmentalist Enthusiastically Demolishing, highlights the absurdity of destroying old buildings in order to build new “green,” particularly in the name of LEED.

That’s not to say that the USGBC’s program hasn’t made a significant contribution to the momentum of green building initiatives, it has. However, just like every good idea in theory, LEED has its challenges (and critics) in practice. But that’s a post for another day, today is about Lloyd’s great report on Donovan Rypkema from the 2008 Heritage Conservation conference, so be sure to check it out. And stay tuned here, we’re back to our regular program. Cheers!