Green Building Quotes

When it becomes economically possible, building will become montage.

For centuries, building materials were free. You want to build a house, you cut down some trees. But we haven't been thinking about the cost to the planet.

What is now called 'green architecture' is an opportunistic caricature of a much deeper consideration of the issues related to sustainability that architecture has been engaged with for many years. It was one of the first professions that was deeply concerned with these issues and that had an intellectual response to them.

Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders' spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground.

We want our buildings to work like a machine that will create a pleasurable environment.

Everyone must be clear that business as usual is not an option. Most of us live in buildings erected long before we were born and our successors will have to live with the environmental consequences of the buildings we construct today. It is vital that we minimise harmful impacts for those who come after us

My studio cube is an experiment in solar heating and design. The south wall is covered with glass planks that collect and distribute heat naturally to my work studio on the second level.

In the United States alone, 450 billion square feet of glass facade is produced every year. What if we could take this chance to use the glass to harness solar energy and allow the architecture to respond to the light and heat of the sun, to create photosynthesis and generate solar energy?

I'm very optimistic about the future. I'm just not optimistic about the skyscraper as a building typology that is suited for the future.

God, we don't have nearly enough skilled carpenters, electricians, plumbers for the work that needs to be done in taking every single building in Canada and making it carbon-zero, a net-neutral building, by improving insulation, modernizing furnaces, improving the geothermal possibilities, heat pumps.

The government is a very large constructor. They have schools, colleges, hospitals and courts, offices. We are trying to influence the public works department to adopt green buildings.

As the world's 'most dynamic' cities seek to manage their own urban growth, American state and local officials have much to offer. Our mayors can share their experiences in urban design, clean energy projects, Smart Grids, codes for energy efficient buildings, transportation safety, and innovative environmental solutions.

Cities generate most of the global economy, and most of its energy use, resource demands and climate emissions. How we build cities over the next decades will largely determine whether we can deliver a bright green future.

When eco-towns were first announced we said that we would support environmentally-friendly development where local communities supported the home-building; where infrastructure was in place and where the growth was genuinely green.

Homes and buildings, many of which are old and drafty, eat up 40 percent of the energy America uses. Such inefficiencies perpetuate our reliance on foreign oil, imperiling our national security and increasing our contribution to climate change.

The shan-shui city idea is trying to bring traditional values and ways of living to modern high-rise architecture.

Organic architecture seeks superior sense of use and a finer sense of comfort, expressed in organic simplicity.

One of the most obvious reasons to start using timber rather than concrete is that it's the one commonly grown and therefore exceptionally renewable building material that we have available to us. And it acts as storage for carbon dioxide.

We are very proud of our design for the Transbay Transit Center. This will be a beautiful, functional and sustainable building for San Francisco.

A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.

I try to leave a light footprint. I'm involved with Global Green, which aims to educate people about sustainable building and the greening of schools. I try to be aware about the consumption of unnecessary things in a consumptive culture.

I never said I was opposed to the LEED program or to green building - I'm not.

Under the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Program, homes are independently verified to be measurably more energy efficient than average houses.

There's this very vulnerable planet of ours with finite resources. Architects and designers have, I think, a fair responsibility for conserving energy and materials, and making things durable.

The Texas Energy Office's Loan Star Program has reduced building energy consumption and taxpayers' energy costs through the efficient operation of public buildings, saving taxpayers more than $172 million through energy efficiency projects.