Architecture & Urban Planning

Baltimore doesn’t have enough trees. Arborists say cities should have a tree “canopy” of about 40 percent; Baltimore’s is 27 percent. A lot of people are doing good work encouraging tree planting in the city, but according to Morgan Grove, a social ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, “We do best in reaching groups where there’s already a lot of trees. We’re not doing so great in places where there’s not a lot of trees.”

This paper builds on a dialogue between barrio planners and municipal planners on spatial and economic changes in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Mission is a predominantly Latino neighborhood with vibrant streets that have reflected and been transformed by the investments and displacement of recent decades. Though the Mission has seen tremendous upheaval with the influx of new capital and communities, this paper contends that efforts of community members shaped the development of the neighborhood with street-level planning expertise.

On December 11, 2013, we released the report Changes to the Land: Four Scenarios for the Future of the Massachusetts Landscape (link will download report) to an overwhelmingly positive response.

Energy efficiency is particularly critical in affordable housing developments, says Jeremy Hays, Chief Strategist for State and Local Initiatives at Green For All, a sustainability advocacy group with offices in Oakland and Washington, D.C. According to Hays, apartment buildings built before 1970 use 55 percent more energy than those built after 1990, while low-income residents spend 400 percent more of their monthly income on utility bills than the average American.

The Technion has inaugurated a brand new visualization laboratory, the first of its kind in Israel, in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning. The new visualization lab is a research and learning facility, which allows one to “enter” a three-dimensional digital simulation (model) of buildings, cities and landscapes, whether they physically exist yet or are in only in the planning stages.

HOK Healthcare Sustainable Design Leader Mara Baum, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, has been selected to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Fellows Class of 2013. Baum oversees sustainability implementation, research, consulting and education across HOK’s global healthcare practice.

Before joining DTZ as the Energy and Sustainability Program Manager, Julia was the Sustainability Engineer for Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In her role at MIT, she helped facilitate and implement the energy efficiency programs and she was the Department of Facilities sustainability liaison to graduate and undergraduate courses for energy and planning. At MIT she developed a cross-campus energy reduction program for the existing building infrastructure in partnership with the local utility company.

How can human communities sustain a long-term existence on a small planet? This challenge grows ever more urgent as the threat of global warming increases.

Most likely the items in your home or office came from overseas. Today's report focuses on the question how those products got to you, and what is the impact on the environment and workers?