Building Calories: Moving Beyond Greenwashing to Investigate the Value of Living with Plants

In 2013 ArchDaily published the article “Can We Please Stop Drawing Trees on Top of Skyscrapers,” - its author was frustrated by rampant greenwashing. If you wanted it to look sustainable, you’d just have to put a tree on it. Plants have always been an effective marketing tactic to appeal to the environmentally conscious, but as soon as they are photoshopped in, they are often discarded at the first whiff of value engineering. Given the voluminous flurry of vigorous commentary and debate following that publication (2013, 2016, 2016) it is clear there is something that persists, perhaps a widely felt instinct that in truth, our urban “landscapes” are unsustainable, and often unlivable. Our cities not only take advantage of the ecosystem services of far-off forests and groundwater to support our carbon production, air pollution, and water wastage, exhausting arable land to feed our increasingly urban populations but simultaneously create urban areas devoid of life that increase our carbon footprints and negatively impact human health and well-being.

Agüé House / Atelier Marko Brajovic

Casa Agüé refers to lightness, like a feather that rests on the stones of the land and blends in with the treetops. The horizontal and modular typology architecture is divided between open decks and closed program modules. Its horizontality opens up, with maximum amplitude, to the panoramic view of the mountains and, on the horizon, the Bay of Paraty.

How to Design a 6m2 Bathroom?

As living spaces are becoming more scarce and expensive, design must create innovative strategies that maintain a balance between functionality and aesthetic expression, enhancing the creation of smaller spaces. With this goal in mind, Geberit has launched a competition across six European countries –Germany, France, Great Britain, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Denmark– to reimagine the bathroom inside a 6 m2 space, a common size in the urban environment that still allows for different layouts.

Little Black Cabin / Smith Architects

Little Black Cabin is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom, bespoke small space that is luxurious and peaceful. The 120-year-old cottage was salvaged, restored, and transformed from a dilapidated shack into a luxurious and highly crafted architectural cabin.

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