Reviews » Archives » September 2009

“No state did well on all smart growth principles.” But Indiana isn’t even trying.

“What if your client (or boss or colleague) came to you one day and said, ’Let’s build a green building!’ Where would you start? You might have to spend weeks on research to figure out what this ‘green building’ concept is all about. Instead, LEED has taken that big first step, developing a method that walks users of the rating system through a series of user-friendly categories and credits to create a green building.” {8, 15}

Why are so few of the great green ideas of Amory Lovins and Stewart Brand (How Buildings Learn) ever implemented? In part, because the building process is too specialized, too dominated by habit, and too hasty. The authors of The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building know this process intimately, and they explain how to redesign it in order to build much greener buildings. Their advice is convincingly backed up by their frankness and their stories. They don’t duck or minimize the fact that most people involved in the process are comfortable with the status quo, and have lots of reasons to resist leaving their “silos” and entering into the necessary close and cooperative relationships with other specialists. The only fault I can find with this book is that it doesn’t have the killer title it deserves to set it apart from the herd.