GREEN GAS STATION? The irony of a LEED-certified gas station includes the fact that U.S. gas stations each currently deliver, on average, about 850,000 gallons of fossil fuel per year, representing about 8,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per gas station annually — not to mention the wide range of environmental impacts along the overall petroleum production chain. This station is a beautiful structure — but how green can it be? Does a greenwashing project like this — however elegantly designed as a structure — deserve coverage in a professional architecture magazine? What about the designers of such a project? Author Philip Jodidio discusses the broader context below. Comment online. — Editor — Published 2010.0407
	HOUSING ON RUE DES VIGNOLES Eden Bio can be difficult to find. One might think it would be hard to conceal almost 100 new public housing units in this part of Paris's 20th arrondissement, but local architect Édouard François has managed to do so, inserting rows of low-rise apartments, duplexes, and small houses into the middle of a city block while presenting a minimal, modest face to the street on three sides. — Published 2010.0317
	NORTH AMERICAN WOOD The Richmond Olympic Oval, the venue for long-track speedskating events in the recent Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, is capped by a massive roof almost 6.5 acres (2.6 hectares) in size. The LEED Silver-certified building, designed by Cannon Design, features prefabricated pine panels spanning between hollow composite wood-steel arches to form a rhythmically pleated timber ceiling over the ice. — Published 2010.0310
	WROUGHT AND CAST IRON STRUCTURES Focusing on structural engineering issues involved in the repair, restoration, or adaptive reuse of older buildings for which drawings no longer exist, this article is the seventh in a series about antiquated structural systems that can be adapted or reanalyzed for safe reuse. — Editor — Published 2010.0224
	STUB-GIRDER COMPOSITE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM Focusing on structural engineering issues involved in the repair, restoration, or adaptive reuse of older buildings for which drawings no longer exist, this article is the sixth in a series about antiquated structural systems that can be adapted or reanalyzed for safe reuse. — Editor — Published 2010.0120
	AUSSIE ARCHITECTURE AWARDS 2009 On a windswept site in Australia's Snowy Mountains stands a rounded, steel-clad form, like a sleek spacecraft among the grasses. Anchored to a concrete plinth, this ground-hugging shelter by James Stockwell Architect deflects wind and transfers snow loads while offering its occupants expansive views of the Snowy and Thredbo River Valleys. — Published 2010.0113
	CHRISTMAN BUILDING For the new Christman Company headquarters in downtown Lansing, Michigan, SmithGroup set out to design modern, high-end offices within a historic building. What resulted, somewhat surprisingly, was a sustainable exemplar. Christman, a Lansing-based construction company, had purchased a 1928 building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and set a modest goal for sustainable renovation: basic certification under LEED for Core & Shell. — Published 2009.1216
	BAR HOUSE IN ASPEN The simple and strong geometric shape of the Bar House near Aspen, Colorado — which is a bar set boldly across, rather than nestling along, the valley floor — stands up to the rugged and majestic mountains that surround it. Despite its strength, this house by Peter Gluck and Partners is partly submerged in the ground, as if to lock it into the landscape. The views up and down the valley dominate the interior spaces, but they are tempered in different ways by the varied size and placement of the windows and the shape of the rooms. — Published 2009.1216
	PARKING GARAGE: GATEWAY TO THE FUTURE As we face up to the needs of climate protection over the next few years, we'll see that the decades-long trend of steadily increasing automobile vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. will be reversed for decades to come. Contemplating a nation, and ultimately a world, with declining total VMT, it's increasingly clear that henceforth, most construction of new auto infrastructure — almost any new lane-miles of highway, for instance — represents soon-stranded investment, at best. The parking garage may be an outstanding exception. As U.S. communities transition toward the more mixed-use, closer-in, denser development patterns that will support our restless lifestyles with less driving, "structured parking" can help finesse the fact that most of us will still be using cars for many years to come. — Published 2009.1202
	CHICAGO AIA AWARDS 2009 A utility plant stands in glass at the edge of the University of Chicago campus, the geometric tangle of its technical systems revealed inside the radiused crystalline form. — Published 2009.1118

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