One of my favorite blogs, Inhabitat, has been posting about these amazing air-cleaning or power generating large-scale infrastructure projects over the past few months, and find the concept pretty compelling. You can see one HERE, and one HERE.
It brings up a point I think the green generation needs to carefully consider – that the very notion of eco-friendly design and sustainability needs to become an integral part of the infrastructure. Perhaps even invisible or obsolete. We need holistic design solutions that are an integral component of the entire infrastructure of a place. Instead of the ‘checklist green’ we see proliferating the industry (its a great start!), we can start thinking of it as holistic design, which assumes energy efficiency and clean air as necessary principles – not as unique features, or checks on a list…
The underpinnings of sustainability (at least those that matter most to me) are broad-stroke components that should be common sense. Paying attention to the sun’s location in the sky, designing buildings to generate clean air, ensuring that the energy used to make a building comfortable is used as efficiently as possible… these things should be utilized in EVERY building – not just those deemed ‘green’ or ‘eco-friendly’… those words need to dissolve, and become background noise toward the larger cause of developing a quality, long-lasting built-environment for future generations to enjoy.
