Have you heard of Nordhavn? The neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark, has received press in recent years as the most sustainable and resilient community in the world. Nordhavn, which translates to North Harbor in English, is a former industrial harbor. It is the largest metropolitan development in Europe and is meant to be “an urban archipelago or a series of dense neighborhoods on the water”. The architecture firm behind the development, Cobe, says that in just 40 years, Nordhavn will become a vibrant waterfront city, providing homes for 40,000 inhabitants and workspaces for another 40,000.
“The division of Nordhavn into islets makes it easy to stage the development with development taking place islet by islet and thus preventing urban sprawl. Future generations will have the opportunity to influence the architecture on the individual islets over time,” says Dan Stubbergaard, architect and founder of Cobe.
According to this issue’s “Trend Alert”, sustainability is becoming a trend all over the world. In Europe, sustainability is becoming mandatory, and clients are competitive in making buildings more sustainable, explains Matthias Hollwich, founder of HWKN Architecture. “In the U.S., it still feels more like it’s ‘nice to have’, and in the Middle East it’s just starting to become a thing. We are seeing progress,” Hollwich says in the article. But is that progress enough?
Way back in 2003, I became editor of one of the first green-building magazines in the design and construction industry. I will say that green building is much more ubiquitous now, but it still feels like an uphill battle every day. In the small community in which I lived the past eight years, nobody was building or remodeling sustainably and they were sneering at the idea of all-electric buildings and EV chargers. Heck, in the past five years of my daughter’s life, I’ve never hired a single babysitter who recycles—and these are teens! I’m always digging through the trash after they go home. It’s quite disheartening.
This issue is packed full of ideas, supporting research and the latest guidelines to help you to continue fighting the good fight. Are you interested in achieving zero net carbon and zero net energy? Read about ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 228-2023, “Standard Method of Evaluating Zero Net Energy and Zero Net Carbon Building Performance” in “Energy”. The standard provides the calculation method and factors needed to determine whether a building is or is not zero net. It can also show how close a building, site, community or portfolio is to achieving zero net status.
In addition, RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute) recently published a report titled, “Transforming Existing Buildings from Climate Liabilities to Climate Assets”. It offers a comprehensive strategy that combines analyses of operating- and embodied- carbon emissions, underscoring strategic material selection that focuses on low-carbon or carbon-storing products. Read the story in “Business”.
I hope this issue motivates you as you continue on the journey of doing better. With the knowledge we have these days (compared to what we knew when I started writing about green buildings in 2003), there’s really no excuse not to be doing our best.