Sustainable Design

The time is now for design to be frugal with resources and friendly with the land.

In the past two years with the fallout from the financial implosion and the drying up of credit, the developer of land and the builder of structures have all but come to a screeching halt around the world. The investor of the sprawling housing subdivision has been waiting for the supply to be absorbed and the commercial space will have to wait until people are working again.

While government control and regulation attempt to tackle the problems with the mortgages that were created by the government in the first place, the long base of stagnate money flow brings the economies of the world to a snail's pace. The design profession has contracted and contracted occupying itself with marketing, reinventing, and the lowering the standard of our lives by allowing compensation to be prostitute to the little work that is available. The good news is we are not at the beginning of the cycle, the bad news is, we don't know how long the cycle is going to last. If the governments continue their regulatory squeezing, out of control spending and increasing taxes on the risk takers, then the design profession will not be sustainable at any level.

The way sustainable design will occur is when regulatory and tax structure is again in the favor of the risk taker. The risk of capital and investment in a high reward and open market low taxing environment is what makes the new developer start planning and the owner start building. When this occurs we will start planning and designing.

The new parameters will need to be for the architect to lead this next wave to a higher standard of sustainability for the owner, client, and for the designers as well. We bring to bare old uses in new ways, create a more integrated built environment, and the designers explore ways were we can take ownership or develop the project. Until the designer does have ownership will sustainable design take place with strong roots that will survive through the next fall cycle in the world economy.