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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
PROSE Award Finalist 2019 Association of American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence As a follow up to his widely acclaimed Sustainable Urbanism, this new book from author Douglas Farr embraces the idea that the humanitarian, population, and climate crises are three facets of one interrelated human existential challenge, one with impossibly short deadlines. The vision of Sustainable Nation is to accelerate the pace of progress of human civilization to create an equitable and sustainable world. The core strategy of Sustainable Nation is the perfection of the design and governance of all neighborhoods to make them unique exemplars of community and sustainability. The tools to achieve this vision are more than 70 patterns for rebellious change written by industry leaders of thought and practice. Each pattern represents an aspirational, future-oriented ideal for a key aspect of a neighborhood. At once an urgent call to action and a guidebook for change, Sustainable Nation is an essential resource for urban designers, planners, and architects.
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part One: Our Default World
Chapter 1: Where We Are
Endnotes
References
Chapter 2: Case Studies: The Future Ahead of Schedule
Humble Beginnings
A Real Challenge
A Partner Park
“Best” For About 10 Minutes
Boom to Bust
A Method of Improvement
Aiming for Closed-Loop
Smart Location
Prime Partners
Making It Happen
A Green TOD
Nudging for Better
Conscious Capitalism
Environmental Determinism
Bells and Whistles
Thoughtful Timber
Energy If, and When, Needed
The Next Generation
Top-Down Design
Energy, Water, and Waste
An Imperfect Legacy?
An Olympic Effort
Circular Energy
Seminal Sjöstad
Sustainability Without the Label
Children First
Self-Sufficient Designs
Community Strengths
A Blank Slate
Austin Energy
Ecological Presence
Economic Viability
A Mixed and Vibrant Population
Creative Reuse
Precious Water
A Green Context
Unity From Diversity
Where Walkability Reigns Supreme
Fingers of Nature
Sprawl Done Better
A New Start
Urban Design as Green Infrastructure
The Results Are In
Uptown Benefits Move South
Endnotes
Part Two: Our Preferred Future
Chapter 3: Where We Want to Go
A World Advancing Together
India
China
Nigeria
United States
Endnotes
Part Three: Theory of Change
Chapter 4: Igniting Community
How Americans Got Stuff Done
Perfecting Communities
The Theory of Change Tool
Endnotes
Chapter 5: Time
Humanity Gets its First Deadline
How Long Does Change Take?
Changelines: Predicting the Time to Reverse Course
Mature Changelines
Emergent Changelines
Changeline Conclusions
Endnotes
Chapter 6: Acceleration Strategies
How We Perceive Change
How Markets Influence Change
Campaigns
Communities and Networks of Practice
Pilgrimage Sites
Professional Ethics and Liability
Endnotes
Part Four: The Practice of Change
Chapter 7: Collective Effervescence
Community Organizing
Participatory Art
Anchor Houses
Spaces Into Places
Artist Venues
Local Burning Man
Food Culture
Edible Landscaping
Endnotes
Chapter 8: Self-Governing Neighborhoods
Neighborhood Dreams
Checkups
Charrettes
Tactical Urbanism
Street Fight
Business Improvement Districts
Just Neighborhoods
Data Infrastructure
Unfolding Governance
Endnotes
Chapter 9: A Theater of Life
Everyday Neighborhoods
Third Places
Microunits
Diverse Dwellings
Diverse Buildings
One Style
Endnotes
Chapter 10: Vibrant Density
Optimal City Height
Lovable Buildings
Unembedded Parking
Redevelopment-Ready Parking
Higher-Density Housing
Missing Middle Housing
Hidden Density
Coach Houses
Incremental Developers
Endnotes
Chapter 11: Mobility in Walkable Places
Bikesharing
Carsharing
Residential Vehicle Trips
Nonresidential Vehicle Trips
Induced Demand
Temporary Urban Highways
Urban Highway Removal
Endnotes
Chapter 12: Neighborhood Economy
Local Housing for All
Walk-To Jobs
Entrepreneurial Retail
Walk-To Retail
Delight Pedestrians
Zero Waste
Endnotes
Chapter 13: Urban Waters
Blue Infrastructure
Beautiful Engineering
Delight the Senses
Rip-Rap Pits
Fountains
Stormwater Transfer
Nonpotable Water
Wastewater Treatment
Clean Waters
Resource Recovery
Heat Recapture
Endnotes
Chapter 14: Stranded Carbon
Net-Zero Energy Ready
Goldilocks Glazing
Optimal Orientation
PHIUS+ Versus Passivhaus
District Systems
Behavior & Data
Endnotes
Chapter 15: The New Health, Safety, and Welfare
Active Living
Local Wellness
20 mph Streets
Walk-To Parks
Landscape Reuse
Open Stairs
Megatalls. Not!
Dark Skies
Night Lighting
Beautiful Lighting
City-Wide
Streets
Façades
Endnotes
Epilogue
Glossary
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
TABLE 8.01.
TABLE 9.1.
TABLE 10.01.
TABLE 10.02.
TABLE 11.01.
TABLE 13.01.
TABLE 13.02.
TABLE 13.03.
TABLE 14.01.
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TABLE 15.1.
TABLE 15.02.
List of Illustrations
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Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
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Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future
Douglas Farr
Cover images: © ArtVaider/iStockphoto
Cover design: Wiley
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Farr, Douglas, author.
Title: Sustainable nation : urban design patterns for the future / by Douglas Farr.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2018] | Includes index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017024943 (print) | LCCN 2017037603 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118417911 (pdf) | ISBN 9781118415351 (epub) | ISBN 9780470537176 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Sustainable urban development. | City planning–Environmental aspects. | Urban ecology (Sociology) | Urban health.
Classification: LCC HT241 (ebook) | LCC HT241 .F37 2018 (print) | DDC 307.1/216–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017024943
To the loving memory of my parents, Edwin Allen Farr and Doris Ingrid Magnuson Farr.
Foreword
To understand human history, start with the street. In the pattern of cities is the story of civilization.
Cities and the vibrant academic, artistic, financial, and political cultures they contain are where many of history's great ideas, social movements, and revolutions have naturally emerged and blossomed over centuries.
But as human ideas and ideals have evolved, the development of the physical city itself has been less revolutionary and less recognized. When I visit and speak in a city, whether Santiago, Seattle, or Stockholm, I like to show people a picture of a local street that was taken a century ago. I take this grainy sepia or black-and-white street image from the Internet archives and line it up alongside a second, modern picture of that same street. Almost invariably, the side-by-side comparison shows how an early 20th-century street, formerly populated with people, horse-and-carriages, streetcars, and street vendors—and brimming with all kinds of possibilities—was utterly lost to the motor vehicle. Brick buildings have been replaced by steel skyscrapers, and streetcars have been supplanted by nondescript, black Ubers, but the people have virtually disappeared from the streets. Little by little, and then all at once in the mid-20th century, we ceded our cities to our vehicles, and it was barely noticed. We didn't merely forget what the street used to be, we even forgot to ask the question of what and who our cities should be built for. We lost the plot because we missed the pattern.
Patterns, by their very essence, are discernable only over time and with repetition, so they may have been there long before they are even detected, much less responded to. We tend not to notice change that occurs slowly, like the evolution of our physical cities. This slowness means that we tend not to recognize impending disaster. We can readily identify the signs of war, crisis, and social and political dissolution that have passed, but we can't see it when it is staring us in the face. Global climate change may be the ultimate example of this. All nations, peoples, and industries are vulnerable, yet we haven't sufficiently developed to the point of acting with the necessary urgency.
We are at a point of cultural self-awareness where we are not bound to merely identifying past patterns, but can consciously create new ones to avert catastrophe. Looking for new patterns isn't just a search for new behaviors, routines, and actions; it's a fundamental part of being human. It requires ascertaining where we are, where we want to be, and how we can get there.
So, what stands between us and a literal Sustainable Nation? Merely ourselves. Change requires first that we change our minds. If we put a fraction of the effort into reinventing the world that we do unconsciously re-creating and reinforcing what is already there, we can make fast progress.
By changing our thinking, we can look more expansively at the problems we're trying to solve. We don't just need driverless or fuel-efficient cars to save our cities, we need better designed cities so we don't need cars in the first place. We don't just need cleaner and healthier air, we need more inviting, active streets where people have healthier options for getting around using their own energy, reducing emissions in the process.
One feature that characterizes human progress is the act of attempting something that has never been tried before. Whether in science, literature, culture, or technology, we celebrate innovation. It is beyond time that we name it and celebrate its role in the well-designed city, for it is on cities' mutable but sturdy bedrock that a Sustainable Nation can be built.
Janette Sadik-Khan
Preface
An Epic Journey
“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town”
Leo Tolstoy1
For millennia, people have been inspired by stories of epic journeys that lead to a better future. Literature, from The Odyssey to The Hobbit, is filled with narratives of challenging quests and the range of motives for making them: for honor, adventure, or self-discovery. In real life, the campaigns that inspired our fastest societal change—Franklin Delano Roosevelt leading the U.S. to mobilize and prevail in World War II; Martin Luther King, Jr., fighting for civil rights; Earth Day leading to the environmental movement—were all framed as ambitious journeys, as campaigns to achieve a better world: rid of Hitler and war; with equal opportunity for all; and pollution-free. Big important ideas.
In the U.S. today, as well as several other leading democracies, it can be hard to identify any journey worth taking. Facts no longer matter. “Balanced” journalists hand the microphone to science skeptics of all persuasions: to climate change, to evolution, and to the Big Bang. Want a debate on the theory of gravity? “There's this guy . . .” Our sped-up, media-obsessed times feature 24/7 news feeds, talking heads on split screens, and an amplified us-vs.-them divide. The message is all noise and no signal. It denies us the basic facts to frame a clarifying debate.
Headlines skew our reality, framing both the importance of the big, sensational, and rare event as well as the irrelevance of the everyday and routine. Global terrorism and local shootings get the bold print. Polls and surveys report state and national trends,2 struggling to communicate how these forces are playing out in our daily lives. Human-interest stories still get their cameo: the rare local hero choosing to do the right thing in these jaded times. This wall-to-wall media free-for-all can make us feel powerless and frustrated and without either common ground or common interests to advance. It can work to diminish the value of everyday activities and the value of a virtuous life lived locally. It nudges us to retreat and disengage, and threatens to put our country on a downward spiral.
But under the surface, I believe that Americans are ready to devote themselves to a greater good, to a journey: a nonpartisan campaign to rebuild our torn fabric. We are hungry for a group undertaking, larger than the individual, where cooperation and interdependence are essential to its success. The mission has to be worthy, above reproach, and based on our professed shared values. That common denominator is the first phrase of the U.S. Constitution:
“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . .”3
The epic journey proposed here requires no actual travel. It is a national “staycation,” a journey of local and personal transformation, an appeal to apply our better selves to the opportunities to make each and every one of our communities more “perfect.”
It starts by allowing ourselves to tune out the timewasting static of digital media, to focus our attention solely on the well-being of the places we reside and the people we share them with. The focus is on local, rather than national, action. The talking heads we most need are not on TV; they are neighbors talking across thresholds and fences.
It advances as we permit ourselves to feel passionately about seeing our own communities as a mirror of a greater and better society, and by investing the love necessary to elevate them to align with our highest ideals.
It intensifies as we shake off our fears and unmute ourselves—on carbon dependence, on inequities, and on not having the answers—and let this work help to define who we are. Should we choose to join this epic journey, as many have done before us, we—along with the people and places around us—will be transformed for the better.
It plays out in neighborhoods, the theaters of daily life, rather than on the national stage. Were Sustainable Nation to call for a national plan to do anything, it would not work. Our long-held rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—give us an independent spirit and a reluctance to be told what to do, especially at the national level. Yet, in the absence of a forward-looking plan, the business-as-usual scenario becomes our national plan by default. Achieving national goals by promoting more perfection locally is our best path forward.
It takes us back to our evolutionary roots of clans, tribes, and villages banded together to survive and prosper. Community building is a muscle that has become weak through disuse. The historic challenges we face offer an opportunity to use our democratic freedoms of speech and expression to deliver a preferred future ahead of schedule.
This Historic Opportunity
The story of human civilization is a long, erratic march of progress. If we start the clock of civilization with the societies of Mesopotamia and Egypt in the year 3,100 BCE (Before Common Era),4 it has taken us civilized humans 204 25-year generations5 of trial and error to build the world of today. Ancient life was hard. Our ancestors endured natural disasters—famines, droughts, and plagues—and then inflicted other types of disasters on themselves in the form of slavery, war, and genocide. The pace of progress was slow, uneven, and unpredictable due to their ignorance about how to do better.
The pace of progress picked up when the invention of the scientific method made possible the discovery of the laws of nature, and later the laws of mankind. Using data-based insights, societies began to make informed policies and investments to improve the rudimentary building blocks of well-being, formally referred to as the public health, safety, and welfare. This bettered the human condition and clarified our interdependence with the natural world. Now fast-forward.
A Generational Timeline of Civilization. Copyright Farr Associates
There has never been a better time, on average, to be alive than today.6 More people live longer, are less poor, are better fed, are better educated, and in better health than at any time in human history. But these benefits are not evenly distributed. There are enormous gaps between the haves and have-nots both nationally and globally.
wick•ed prob•lemnoun a problem with incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements7
We know this because for the first time in history, the information revolution has made us aware of the living conditions worldwide, revealing a humanitarian crisis of unmet human potential. Add to this the two wicked problems of surging population and climate change (Chapter 1). Individually, any of these three challenges would be daunting; put together, this confluence of humanitarian, population, and climate crises appears overwhelming and seems hopeless. In the face of the data, it is hard not to conclude that we are totally screwed. But taking a step back shows that there is another way of looking at it.
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
—Rahm Emanuel8
Sustainable Nation embraces the idea that the humanitarian, population, and climate crises are three facets of one interrelated human existential challenge, one with impossibly short deadlines. Billions of human beings are poor, uneducated, in poor health, and face bleak lives. They, their children, and their grandchildren deserve better. Global population is expected to exceed 9.7 billion people by 2050,9 stressing the earth—s carrying capacity. And to avoid increasing temperatures on earth by 2°C, most unextracted fossil fuels must stay in the ground: a pivot to a noncarbon economy that must take place by 2050.
The vision of Sustainable Nation is to accelerate the pace of progress of human civilization to create an equitable and sustainable world in four generations. Humans struggle to care about future abstractions—but if we set our deadline at 100 years, a baby born today will be alive to see the change. This is a story we can all connect to, and is the reason why we should care.
“May our children's children be friends.”
—Clay Bradley10
lo•cal ac•tornoun an individual, with or without an official role, who is passionate about improving his or her community
The core strategy of Sustainable Nation is the perfection of the design and governance of all neighborhoods in the United States and beyond to make them unique exemplars of community and sustainability. Under this strategy, local actors will pursue a new vision of health, safety, and welfare—a new common good—and in so doing, will seek to reverse three harmful and “wicked” national trends: obesity, carbon pollution, and sprawl. In the mantra of the 1960s, “Think globally, act locally.”11
And welcome home.
Endnotes
1.
Goodreads, “Leo Tolstoy—Quotes” (n.d.).
www.goodreads.com/quotes/57886-all-great-literature-is-one-of-two-stories-a-man
; accessed July 3, 2017.
2.
S. Perry, “America's Obesity Epidemic, State by State,”
The Lincoln Journal Star
(November 18, 2016).
http://journalstar.com/america-s-obesity-epidemic-state-by-state/article_b2060f2a-2dba-535e-b604-8137c301dcce.html
; accessed July 3, 2017.
3.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, “The Constitution of the United States” (2016).
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution
(last reviewed October 12, 2016); accessed July 3, 2017.
4.
Oxford Reference, “Timeline: 31001000 BCE” (2012).
www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191735363.timeline.0001
(last updated 2012); accessed July 3, 2017.
5.
D. Devine, “How Long Is a Generation?” (n.d.).
www.ancestry.com.au/learn/learningcenters/default.aspx?section=lib_Generation
; accessed July 3, 2017. Note: Historically, the average length of generations was likely 2025 years, much shorter than the current average of 2730.
6.
See M. Ridley,
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
(New York: HarperCollins, 2010).
7.
A. C. Edmondson, “Wicked-Problem Solvers,”
Harvard Business Review
(June 2016).
https://hbr.org/2016/06/wicked-problem-solvers
; accessed July 3, 2017.
8.
Goodreads, “Rahm Emanuel > Quotes > Quotable Quote” (n.d.).
www.goodreads.com/quotes/717228-never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste
; accessed July 3, 2017.
9.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “World Population Projected to Reach 9.7 Billion by 2050” (July 29, 2015).
www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html
; accessed July 3, 2017.
10.
Personal communication (email correspondence) with Mark Zadrozny, November 23, 2016.
11.
The Telegraph
, “Obituaries—David Brower” (November 8, 2000).
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1373616/David-Brower.html
; accessed July 3, 2017.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book while running a design practice (Farr Associates) and chairing a national board (CNU) takes a dedicated team. My wife, Gail Niemann, has now twice put up with my every-10-year let's-make-us-crazy need to write a book. I thank her for her grounding presence and critical listening over the nearly two-year period when she would have much preferred that we were out having fun.
This book would not have happened without the fiery intelligence of Sydney Blankers VanKuren. Syd went from being my star graduate student to running our sustainable urbanist enterprise in no time flat. She was a perfect collaborator and a sunny and disciplined researcher and editor, sustaining a can-do, California optimism even as the number of contributing authors ballooned to over 70. She was also impatient, driven, and on occasion bossy; an ideal skillset for managing a distracted author. As further proof of Syd's capacity to multitask, in the time it took to write and edit this book, Syd got married and gave birth.
The design patterns that comprise the bulk of the book are curated distillations of the work and ideas of dozens of my heroes. I remain starstruck by the individual brilliance of the contributors and am awed by the synergies between their collective work. It was a joy working to develop the patterns. The creative process started with a conversation outlining the broad (frankly vague) themes of the book. The contributors (often with a team) would describe their work, while Syd and I would lay in wait for pattern phrasing to materialize. I would translate our interpretation into a digital cartoon of a book spread showing graphics, paragraph titles, and word counts. The authors then made their powerful magic, doing the impossibly hard work of condensing careers full of insights into far too little real estate. I owe them each my sincere and humble thanks. Christopher Alexander, and his seminal work A Pattern Language, was an ever-present north star.
My talent trust was wide and deep. I owe thanks to the CNU Board, for alpha-testing some of the change-related ideas herein; to Jennifer Hurley, for her insights on the theory of change; and to Scott Bernstein, for introducing me to practice networks. My friends Andres Duany, Jacky Grimshaw, Rick Moser, Robin Rather, Janette Sadik-Khan, Dr. Emily Talen, and Laura Toups delivered straight talk at just the right times to avert numerous self-created disasters. Thanks to Peter Calthorpe for his insights on building heights in Asia and to Dr. Nanette Benbow for her insights on structural interventions in public health. Thanks to NYCDOT for permitting use of the images from Street Fight. The graphics troika of Kareeshma Ali, Matt McGrane, and Kelly Moynihan shaped the book's bright palette, graphic clarity, and overall aesthetic; Christina Bader provided her revered soft-touch edits; Tim Kirkby patiently iterated diagrams of urban form; Olivia Dorow Hovland critically researched dozens of case studies; and Stephanie Gough imbued the book's many charts, graphs, and art pages with an elegant beauty.
I want to thank my three editors at John Wiley and Sons: Helen Ealing Castle, for her steady hand and keen insights; and Amanda Shettleton and Margaret Cummins, for nudging us over the finish line.
Part OneOur Default WorldFearful
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”
—Marie Curie1
This chapter provides the starting point for Sustainable Nation: a distilled, but not simplified, snapshot of the issues and opportunities the world and the country now face. Using the tight editorial focus of Sustainable Nation to filter our now-daily information overload, this chapter summarizes and frames the data and emotions of many of today's biggest issues in just 22 pages.
The exhibits are organized into global and national threats, barriers, and progress, and grow in relevance and emotional impact with each additional spread. The findings provide a remarkably complete picture of the threats we face, the barriers to overcoming them, and our progress to date. These overlapping and contradictory findings fight one another for primacy and urgency, putting one's mind on high alert in search of productive next steps.
The Tocqueville Effect: Social frustration increases as social conditions improve.
One nondata anomaly bears highlighting: although the world is far from perfect, there is no better time to be alive than today. Incredible progress has been made on seemingly unsolvable global problems such as poverty, disease, and even climate change. Despite this progress (some would say because of our progress), we are less satisfied with where we stand. All of this points to the importance of individuals coming to terms with and understanding where we are—not as a record of deficiencies, but as the dynamic starting point for all that follows.
Global Threats to People and
Planet Merit Our Empathy
Poverty and inequality limit men and women worldwide from achieving life's potential.
Human-induced climate change threatens vulnerable populations and drives extinctions.
Pessimism And Inequality Are
Destabilizing National Threats
Less trust, more fear, and social isolation threaten the bonds of democracy.
The American Dream is threatened by persistent inequality and spiraling health costs.
Ineffective Governments And Closed Or
Rigged Markets Are Top Global Barriers
Fragile governments, corruption, and underdevelopment retard global growth.
The private sector is key to meeting the needs of new billions while stranding carbon.
A Broken Congress And A Materialist
Culture Are Barriers To U.S. Progress
Special interests and gridlock lead to underinvestment and a tilted playing field.
Our material consumption makes us less happy than those with less stuff.
Public Policies Prompt Private Sector
Innovation To Advance Global Progress
The success of The Millennium Development Goals previews the Paris Agreement.
Fast global growth is driving renewable costs to below those of conventional technologies.
While Work Remains, The U.S. Is Healthier,
Safer, And Better Off Than Ever Before
State and federal policies have saved and improved the lives of countless Americans.
The design of the built environment shapes our health, safety, and well-being.
Endnotes
1.
Marie Curie,
Pierre Curie: With Autobiographical Notes by Marie Curie
(Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1963), 83.
References
Chapter cover image: Free-Photos via
Pixabay.com/
Creative Commons CC0
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Minority Poverty
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Note: Each cell reports the percentage of children with family income in the quintile given by the row conditional on having parents with family income in the quintile given by the column for children in the 1980–85 birth cohorts. See notes to Table I for income and sample definitions. See Table II for an analogous transition matrix constructed using the 1980–1982 figures.
Healthcare Expenses
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the Economic Case for Health Care Reform.
www.rila.org/news/pblccomments/health%20care%20public%20documents/whitehouseeconomiccaseforhealthreformstudy.pdf
. Accessed July 31, 2017. The chart on p. xx of this book is a reproduction of Figure 3 (p. 5) of this report.
Global Barriers
Fragile States
The Fund for Peace. (2016). Fragile States Index 2016.
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. accessed June 22, 2017.Reproduced with permission from J.J. Messner.
Corruption
Transparency International. (2015). Corruption perceptions index.
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Literacy
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2016). UNESCO eAtlas of Literacy. Education Indicator: Adult literacy rate, population 15+ years, both sexes (%). Accessed Oct. 5, 2016. Reproduced based on UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS),
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; accessed June 24, 2017.
PBS. POV: World literacy rates by country.
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Infrastructure
Schwab, K. (2011). The Global Competitiveness Report 2011–2012. Table 5: The Global Competitiveness Index 2011–2012: Basic requirements. Copyright World Economic Forum.
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Global Population
The World Bank. (2016). World DataBank: Health nutrition and population statistics: Population estimates and projections.
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; accessed June 27, 2017.
Carbon Assets
Carbon Tracker Initiative and The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. (2013). Unburnable carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded assets.
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; accessed June 27, 2017.
Note: P1 indicates reserves with high certainty.
National Barriers
National Fuel Tax
U.S. Department of Transportation. (2015). Highway Statistics 2014—Federal Tax Rates on Motor Fuels and Lubricating Oil (Table FE-101A).
www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2014/fe101a.cfm
. Last modified December 18, 2015, accessed June 27, 2017.
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). (2017). Frequently Asked Questions: How much tax do we pay on a gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel?
www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=10&t=10
; last updated February 28, 2017; accessed June 27, 2017.
Pomerleau, K. (2015, March 3). How high are other nations' gas taxes? The Tax Foundation Tax Policy Blog.
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; accessed June 27, 2017.
Corn Subsidies
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. (2016). Feed grains database.
https://data.ers.usda.gov/FEED-GRAINS-custom-query.aspx#ResultsPanel
; ;ast updated June 12, 2017. Accessed June 27, 2017.
Infrastructure Investment
White House, Office of Management and Budget. (2016). Historical Tables: Table 9.3. Major Physical Capital Investment Outlays in Percentage Terms: 1940–2018.
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; accessed June 27, 2017.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. (n.d.). Economic Research & Data. Selected Interest Rates (Daily)—H.15. Historical Data: Federal funds (effective) annual.
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. Last updated June 27, 2017; accessed June 27, 2017.
Overconsumption
Calculated for new single- and multi-family houses completed; data from U.S. Census Bureau:
U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder. (n.d.). Selected population profile in the United States: 2015American Community Survey 1-year estimates (Table S0201).
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Trash
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Material Culture
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Global Progress
Millennium Development Goals
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; accessed July 31, 2017.
Note: Statistics from the report are © 2015 United Nations. Reprinted with the permission of the United Nations.
Note: Icons are © 2000 UNDP. Reprinted with permission of United Nations Development Programme.
Paris Pledges
Jeffery, L., et al. (2015, December 8). Climate Action Tracker: 2.7°C is not enough—we can get lower (Climate Action Tracker Update).
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Note: INDCs are intended nationally determined contributions.
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Electric Car Costs
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National Progress
Seat Belts
1979–1999 Observed Seat Belt Use Rates:
Nichols, J. L., and Ledingham, K. A. (2008). The impact of legislation, enforcement, and sanctions on safety belt use (U.S. Transportation Research Board (TRB) National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 601. Project Number: 17–33). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
2000–2016 rates:
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Note: E-Codes 890–899 (until 1998) and X-Codes 00–09 (1999 and after). Deaths are shown to the nearest ten.
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ACA Uninsured
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Cohen, R. A., M. E. Martinez, and E. P. Zammitti (2016, May). Health insurance coverage: Early release of estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 2015.
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®
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Note: Reproduced with permission from Edward Mazria, Architecture 2030.
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“The future is already here—it is just not very evenly distributed.”
—William Gibson1
Society does not advance uniformly. Any snapshot of the present is blurred by the presence of elements from the past and future. Although these past and future outliers could be thought to distort a clear picture, they are very much a part of the story of any given time.
Of particular relevance to Sustainable Nation are those future-oriented places and buildings with sustainable performance that goes well beyond current norms and practices. To perform as well as they do, these projects require some of the highest design quality of any projects built. These glimpses ahead provide us with specifics about our preferred future, essential to setting attainable aspirations as we work to perfect communities.
Yet, for all of the sustainability ambition they embody, the following case studies are underperforming in one key metric: time. The project timelines document the years, sometimes decades, and occasionally a generation or more, required to make them happen. Nearly each step of the process, including acquiring land; gaining entitlements; arranging for design, finance, and construction; and commissioning, can take precious years in a time of urgency.
This project management diagram captures the brutal reality that a project has to strike a balance among scope, budget, and schedule. The need to build a world of high-quality, sustainable projects quickly and cheaply raises this question: when we can't really compromise on quality, how can we overcome this persistent tradeoff between scope and budget? Put another way, how can we tackle our carbon pollution challenge at the massive scale and urgent pace needed?
Copyright Farr Associates.
Buildings
Bullitt Center
Seattle | Washington | United States
Seattle's Bullitt Center is the most sustainable office building in the world—a title that the City does not want it to hold for long, in the hopes that even more sustainable development will occur in the future. The Bullitt Center is one of the first buildings to be certified under the Living Building Challenge and has drawn acclaim for its adoption of features such as composting toilets, which are typically used only in smaller constructions. Offline and off-pipe, the Bullitt Center's footprint is literally restricted to its site area.
Humble Beginnings
The Living Building Challenge (LBC) was first codified in 2005. It instructs architects and developers on how to create a building that is regenerative. For most buildings, even those that adhere to the most stringent LEED standards, sustainability means finding a way to mitigate harm as much as possible. In contrast, the 20 LBC standards ensure that buildings erected according to its rules have a net positive impact on the environment. Any buildings applying for certification must achieve every single standard to be certified, and they have to achieve these standards not in estimation or projection, but in actual practice. Each building is monitored for an entire calendar year after construction to make sure that its goals are actually achieved. Only then can it claim certification under the LBC.2 As of September 2015, there were eight buildings that had achieved full certification. The Bullitt Center is one of them (Figure 2.01).
FIGURE 2.01.The Bullitt Center.Copyright Nic Lehoux for the Bullitt Center.
Panel of facts for Bullitt Center.
The Bullitt Center is often referred to as the “greenest commercial building in the world.”3 The Bullitt Foundation, whose mission is “to safeguard the natural environment by promoting responsible human activities and sustainable communities in the Pacific Northwest,”4 needed a new office space. Their previous home, located in a drafty barn loft, was inefficient and uncomfortable. During their search, though, they couldn't find any space that came close to the values that they were supporting in their grant making. Denis Hayes, the conscience of the project and Bullitt Foundation president, advocated the LBC as the goal of the building because of its close alignment with the foundation's philosophy.
A Real Challenge
The Bullitt Center is precedent-setting within the LBC. Not only is it the first LBC-certified office building, at six stories tall it is also one of the largest certified buildings. At that height, figuring out how to implement the necessary technologies was a challenge. For example, many Living Buildings utilize composting toilets to cut down on water use and adhere to the standard that they process their own waste. But for a building six stories tall, the travel distance of materials is increased, making implementation of these toilets a little more difficult than normal. A special foam (which is produced with each use) that helps smooth the trip to the basement composters is an example of just one of the unorthodox solutions that the Bullitt Center came up with in its pursuit of certification.
Although they used unique approaches, it was important to the Bullitt Foundation that none of the materials or technologies used be state of the art. Also, building materials are locally sourced and available in the region. For example, all wood in the project is from within 1,000 km; steel and concrete are from within 500 km. The designers wanted to achieve certification using only off-the-shelf products easily available in today's market, in the hopes that this would show just how much is possible now.5 There is no need to wait for better technology. Buildings can be built to the most rigorous sustainability standards today.
Using these off-the-shelf products, the Bullitt Center found great success. It is within one-half mile of over 20 bus routes, a streetcar, and a light rail stop. All rainwater on the site is directed into a cistern that provides all the necessary water for the building. The elevator is 60 percent more efficient than standard elevators, but is rarely used because the wood and glass staircase is so inviting (Figure 2.02). Workstations for the building's tenants are all situated within 30 feet of a window. To promote biking and transit use, no car parking is available. Instead, the building has copious amounts of bike storage—specifically, parking for 29 bicycles (25 long-term spots, and 4 short-term spots) and a repair station—as well as showers on each floor for commuters who opt to pedal to work. The building has 575 solar panels and is powered by a 244-kilowatt rooftop solar array that produced more than 90,000 surplus kilowatt-hours of energy during the building's performance period.6 The building is expected to generate a total of 230,000 kilowatt-hours annually.
FIGURE 2.02.The Bullitt Center site plan.Copyright Brad Kahn.
So much can be accomplished with today's technology.
A Partner Park
The building is situated on a corner lot, surrounded by many other existing buildings. While the building itself was being constructed, the Bullitt Foundation also took part in the redesign of a previously neglected piece of public land next door: McGilvra Park. They brought in native plants to eliminate the need for irrigation and took efforts to increase the usability of the park by installing new seating and recreational objects, such as a Ping-Pong table. The street separating the Bullitt Center from McGilvra Park was permanently closed to through traffic, so the site is now a public plaza, increasing pedestrian presence and safety in the area.7
“Best” For About 10 Minutes
Since opening, the Bullitt Center has been widely celebrated. It is fully leased out, occupied by tenants who are enthusiastic about the Bullitt Foundation's mission. Living Building projects currently in the works are citing the Bullitt Center as their inspiration, as are more diverse architectural projects including the Obama Presidential Library.8 But while the Bullitt Center deserves all the praise it is getting, it does not want to stand as the best or the greenest for long. Instead, it hopes to serve as an example of just how green buildings can be, providing motivation and inspiration for others to better their efforts, achieving higher efficiency and more environmental benefits. The Bullitt Center is just the beginning.
Method Plant
Chicago | Illinois | United States
The City of Chicago's Pullman neighborhood has a long history of industry as the former site of George Pullman's master-planned industrial town built in 1880. While the buildings of his town still stand, the industrial aspects have changed. More recently, Alderman Anthony A. Beale and Pullman community groups fought to bring the Method Plant to their neighborhood because of the jobs it would bring to the area. The plant reinvents Pullman's manufacturing past, churning out cradle-to-cradle-certified cleaning products in a LEED Platinum-certified building that also hosts the world's largest rooftop greenhouse. The plant also renews and preserves 17 acres of land.
Boom to Bust
Chicago benefits from its location at the confluence of waterways and the nexus for national railways. As the city grew, it branded itself as an industrial town, home to factories, meat-packing houses, and grain elevators, producing goods to be shipped off to the far reaches of the country either by ship, through the Mississippi River or the Great Lakes, or by railroads, cutting through America's heartland.
In the late 1800s, George Pullman, the inventor of the luxury Pullman train car, established a company town south of Chicago. The town was meant to meet every need of his workers. There were row houses, retailers, schools, and churches. There were also stringent rules for how the workers could look and act in the town. When the workers eventually rioted in protest against low wages and heavy-handed management, the town began a slow decline. Although many of the buildings are still used, their residents no longer assemble train cars.9
A Method of Improvement
Instead, some Pullman residents now work at the newest factory on Chicago's South Side: the Method soap factory (Figure 2.03). Method, a company originally founded in 2001, produces home and personal cleansers that strive to use few chemicals.10 The brand is known for its partnership with Target stores nationwide and can be identified by its sleek bottles and colorful designs. Prior to the construction of the factory, Method partnered with other companies and factories to produce its products.
FIGURE 2.03.A 230-foot wind turbine generates more than 50 percent of the building's annual electricity requirements, while solar-tracking photovoltaics do double duty by generating electricity while shading the parking lot.Copyright Method Products, PBC.
FIGURE 2.04.Inside the Method Plant.Copyright Method Products, PBC.
Opened in 2015 on a brownfield site remediated by Method, the soap factory is certified LEED Platinum and employs 120 people.11 Not only does the facility make soap, it also makes all of its own plastic bottles on site12 and is topped by the world's largest rooftop greenhouse.13 Seventy-five percent of the products that Method produces in the facility are certified Cradle-to-Cradle.14 The factory reinvents the neighborhood's industrial past, adding an environmental twist.
SEE ALSO
+Open Stairs
Ch. 15
+Nonpotable Water
Ch. 13
+Behavior and Data
Ch. 14
Panel of facts for Method Plant.
Industrial facilities are not often considered in the sustainability conversation. They are rarely very attractive buildings and can often produce items that do more harm than good. They can be a symptom of a society that is steadfastly dedicated to consumerism and thus necessitates the construction of production facilities to produce the goods that it requires—but not all industry has to be viewed so negatively.
The Method factory is an example of how industry can benefit the community and the environment. Situated on 22 acres, Method only utilizes 5 of them for its factory, parking, and associated infrastructure. The other 17 acres have been planted with native trees and perennials, the selection of which has been based on the oak-hickory savannah that existed in that area before settlement.15 Gotham Greens, the company that operates the rooftop greenhouse, produces one million pounds of produce annually, the majority of which travels just a few miles to stock the shelves of Chicago's South Side grocery stores.16 Furthermore, one-third of the employees working at the factory live in Pullman, shortening commutes and invigorating a local community.17
Aiming for Closed-Loop
The factory has ambitious environmental goals. Method strives to eliminate the transfer of materials to landfills and hopes to recycle or compost anything that does not go into its final products.18 Although the manufacture of the products will require the use of five to six million gallons of water a year, Method donated to a program through The Nature Conservancy that works with farmers in the region to help them reduce the amount of water they use.19
