Blog

From design considerations in new buildings to increased efficiency of existing buildings, Organic Architect founder Eric Corey Freed shares thoughts, news and insights about the business of green building.

What Hurricane Sandy teaches us about our built environment

October 30, 2012

The profession of Design is about to drastically change. If you're an architect, engineer, planner or builder, the way you build is about to undergo some radical new transformations.2012 is on track to become the warmest year on record, with some 40,000 temperature records broken in the United States this year alone. In addition, Arctic sea ice melted to a record low this year, further adding to a grim list of milestones and warning signs that most people are ignoring.

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Inside Greenbuild

October 10, 2011

Celebrating its’ 10th anniversary, the Greenbuild Conference & Expo is the largest gathering of architects, engineers, developers, contractors and builders involved in the greening of the built environment. With a hundred educational sessions and over 1,000 exhibitors, Greenbuild is overwhelming, exhausting and exhilarating. Given the sheer size, it is the Olympics of conferences.

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Universities as green innovators

September 20, 2011

Stanford University has long held a tradition of innovation. The legendary tech startups, such as Yahoo and Google, that were founded by Stanford students in its hallowed halls is now the stuff of legend in SIlicon Valley. (In fact, Sun Microsystems got their original name as an acronym for Stanford University Network.) Billions of dollars have literally walked off campus, yet this atmosphere of innovation continues today.

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What happened to Modernism?

April 13, 2011

Modernism week is an annual event held every February in Palm Springs, California. Thousands of people descend on the Coachella Valley to tour some of the incredible examples of Mid-Century Modern buildings that exist here. To call them fans of modernism is an understatement. Most that I met had some deep, near fanatical, obsession with this particular period of Architecture – a period in which the term "modern" meant what it should.

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Design future: The possibilities are limitless…

January 26, 2011

Holiday toy story

December 20, 2010

With the holidays here, I was tasked with assembling the gifts for my two-and-a-half-year old daughter. This is an occupational hazard of every architect and contractor I know. Let's see: Five years of undergrad, three years of internship and two in graduate school. No wonder architects stand out as the best in the family at putting large toys together. (I also get asked by friends to assemble Ikea furniture in exchange for pizza.)

Facebook designs better communities than Architects

December 9, 2010

A blueprint for sustainability: Put AutoCAD models on the iPhone

November 15, 2010

I was talking with a senior person from Autodesk, the makers of the ubiquitous AutoCAD program, about the future of the design profession. Most of today's buildings, structures, bridges, and products are drawn with their software, so imagine the potential influence their interface have on us in our design decisions. Our conversation began by talking about using mobile devices, but quickly moving into what happens to the CAD files after the building is built.

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The need for healthy homes

November 5, 2010

You have probably been on dozens of home tours throughout your life. (I know I have.) And most of those were probably filled with people making haughty conversation about the lamp from Artemide, the cabinets from Poggenpohl or the fixtures from Porcelanosa.

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