Entries by user

China Embraces Growth with Vertical Cities

The Cloud Citizen in Shenzen The United States has 9 cities with a population of 1,000,000 or more. China has 140- and that number is growing. China’s cities will not be like Los Angeles or Phoenix, however. Instead of sprawling expanses of suburbs and single family homes that stretch from horizon to horizon, China wants […]

Beijing’s Anti-Pollution Face-Lift In 6 Photos

Originally posted here on 11/10/2014   BEIJING — World leaders have descended on the Chinese capital for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, and the city has been scrambling to put on its best face for the titans of Pacific Rim politics. That means doing anything and everything to avoid another Airpocalypse — the dreaded extreme pollution episodes that […]

Top 10 green building products for 2015

Originally published here by the BD+C Staf on October 27, 2014 Breakthrough products include halogen-free polyiso insulation and a high-flow-rate biofiltration system. The FocalPoint Bioretention System. Photo credit: Design Workshop Last week, during the Greenbuild show in New Orleans, BuildingGreen Inc. released its annual Top-10 Green Building Products list. Now in its 13th year, the program acknowledges products that […]

Lend Lease Rolls CO2 Back to Pre-climate Change Levels

Article by Raefer Willis, originally published on LinkedIn  For over 650,000 years, atmospheric CO2 has never risen beyond 300ppm. Yet, in a short 65 years global levels have escalated to a frightening 400ppm and catalyzed climate change. These levels continue to rise rapidly everywhere… except inside Lend Lease’s Shanghai Headquarters. There, morning CO2 typically hovers around […]

Wooden skyscrapers could be the future of cities around the world

The development of engineered timber could herald a new era of eco-friendly ‘plyscrapers’. Christchurch welcomed its first multistorey timber structure this year, there are plans for Vancouver, and the talk is China could follow. When American engineer William Le Baron Jenney designed the world’s first skyscraper in Chicago in 1884, no one believed in his unconventional technologies. […]