News: Thought Bursts
Video: Center for Urban Agriculture Remix
11.19.2009 Mithun, Thought Bursts
Last week in the Greenbuild 2009 panel Urban Food Systems: From Vertical Agriculture to District-level Food Strategies, Mithun systems ecologist Critter Thompson and his co-panelists discussed urban food systems and the role food production, distribution, consumption and recycling plays in helping to shape sustainable urban communities. He also spoke about the Center For Urban Agriculture – a conceptual high-rise net-zero vertical farm Mithun designed for the Cascadia Green Building Council’s 2007 Living Building Challenge.
A few conference goers were hoping for more information on CUA so the Mithun video team provided an update that includes more discussion of community impact and urban food production (above).
Report From the City of Big Shoulders
09.21.2009 Mithun, Thought Bursts
It's sunny and warm here in Chicago. Lake Michigan is crystal blue...they have palm trees on their beaches (I kid you not). The only clue that it is not the Caribbean is that the palms are boxed.
Today at the 2009 ASLA Annual Meeting, I presented the Sustainable Sites Initiative with folks from the Wildflower Center and the USGBC to a packed house of over 300 people. The latest draft is being edited for release on November 5th in time for Greenbuild.
Don’t Drink the Toilet Water!
08.11.2009 Mithun, Thought Bursts
Sometimes even the most progressive "green" city can get in the way of being green. I recently experienced this with the building department of a major NW metropolis - which will remain anonymous since we have permits pending and don't want to see them slowed up!
Our design called for taking the storm water from the roof of the building and day-lighting it across a plaza before being cleaned in a bio-swale and re-used as grey water for the project. Our intent was to allow people in the outdoor space to experience the movement and sound of the water, and see its connection with the building.
The Estuarine City
07.20.2009 Mithun, Awards, In The News, Thought Bursts
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) recently hosted an open international design competition for ideas responding to sea level rise in San Francisco Bay and beyond. Mithun's entry, The Estuarine City, received an honorable mention along with 6 others of 130 competition entries from 18 countries. Mithun (architecture, planning, ecology) collaborated with experts from Bionic (landscape and planning), Regenesis (regenerative planning) and NSI (wetland planning) to find a solution to the 100-year 55 inch rise in the San Francisco bay tide.What I Did On My Summer Vacation
07.09.2009 Mithun, Thought Bursts
Ron van der Veen, AIA, LEED AP, Mithun Principal reflects on the great deal he learned while teaching at the Pilchuck Glass School during Symposium 2.5 Sustaining Creativity.
Don’t let the hippy, casual atmosphere fool you. This place is a serious international center for glass artists. I had the privilege last month of teaching at the Pilchuck Glass School for a week. My assignment was to focus on sustainability and the connection between art and architecture, but the significance of the week for me was much more as a learner.
Bike to Work Day, Week, Month!
05.15.2009 Mithun, Thought Bursts
May is National Bike to Work Month, Monday May 12th heralded Bike to Work Week and today we've arrived at the epicenter of work-related cycling frenzy. It's Bike to Work Day!
REI released a new iPhone application for tracking your ride and Mithunees share what they love most about commuting...
The Next Sustainable Design Agenda
01.22.2009 Mithun, Thought Bursts
With the optimistic agenda of our new president promising hope and change, it is an appropriate time to reflect on what we might call the “next sustainable design agenda”…