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China takes technology to next level

By Arrol Gellner, Wednesday, January 7, 2009.

(This is Part 4 of a four-part series. Read Part 1, "China's growth has lessons for U.S."; Part 2, "As China grows, so do its problems"; and Part 3, "China at forefront of environmentalism?") more...

China at forefront of environmentalism?

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, December 19, 2008.

(This is Part 3 of a four-part series. Read Part 1, "China's growth has lessons for U.S.," and Part 2, "As China grows, so do its problems.") more...

As China grows, so do its problems

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, December 5, 2008.

(This is Part 2 of a multipart series. Read Part 1, "China's growth has lessons for U.S.")

Americans are no doubt getting tired of hearing how well things are going for China. Having painted much the same picture in my last report from Suzhou -- my Chinese home away from home -- I thought I'd dwell on a few of China's biggest headaches for a change. more...

China's growth has lessons for U.S.

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, November 21, 2008.

(This is Part 1 of a four-part series.)

Once again I'm in China, having carefully timed my visit to avoid the brouhaha of the 2008 Olympics. In the wake of that long-heralded event, and following China's first space walk, the Chinese are practically bursting their buttons with national pride. Many of them now perceive little of substance separating China's status from that of the United States -- oh, maybe just that little matter of differing political systems. more...

Technology may be architecture's worst enemy

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, November 7, 2008.

In the days of laborious handcrafting, before the coming of the Industrial Revolution, ornament such as carving or engraving was a hallmark of extraordinary quality. Yet with the advent of mass production in the mid-19th century, automated machinery could replicate the most elaborate decoration at nominal cost, whether for a piece of furniture or a whole house. more...

America's urban planning on wrong track

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, October 23, 2008.

What if we paved over the whole state of Wisconsin?

Actually, we already have. According to recent Federal Highway Administration figures, the United States has close to 240 million motor vehicles -- almost 40 million more cars than there are licensed drivers -- and just under 4 million miles of paved roads for them to run on. All told, some 61,000 square miles of the United States -- an area just a little smaller than the Beaver State -- is solidly paved over, either with roads or with parking. And of course, there's always more pavement on the way. more...

It takes a forest to build a house

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, October 9, 2008.

Back in the not-so-Jolly Old England of the Middle Ages, where many American building traditions originated, no one knew anything about structural engineering. Instead, carpenters used common knowledge gleaned from trial and error and handed down over the centuries. With no way to analyze the strength of their buildings, they just built them as stoutly as they could, using massive timbers hewn from lots and lots of trees. more...

Central heating's come a long way

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, September 25, 2008.

Nowadays, when you're feeling chilly, you just nudge your thermostat up a few degrees. Not too long ago, you'd have been in for a lot more effort: Until the 1880s, most American houses were still heated by an open fire. more...

Mom-and-pops can't compete in 'Anywhere U.S.A'

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, September 11, 2008.

For some years now, my favorite place to find a big old homemade slab of pie has been an unassuming mom-and-pop restaurant called Walker's Pie Shop, not far from where I live. It's the sort of place that hasn't changed in decades. Its decor, such as it is, evokes the home-improvement hit parade of another era: asphalt tile, Formica-topped tables, Masonite paneling, and glossy oil paint. more...

Urban planning's future: people, not cars

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, August 28, 2008.

What's an architect doing writing about cars, anyway?

I always get indignant e-mails asking me this whenever I criticize some aspect of our autocentric society -- whether it's our parking-obsessed city planning, our mania for fruitless road widening and freeway building, or our laughably primitive traffic control systems. more...

Skyscrapers wouldn't exist without prime invention

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, August 14, 2008.

For centuries, the drudgery of having to climb long flights of stairs ensured that few buildings were more than four or five stories high. Even at that, the least desirable dwellings were usually those on the top floor -- just the opposite of our modern preference. This idea held true until the late 19th century, when elevators began to appear in multistory buildings. more...

Double-hung windows on a Normandy?

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, July 31, 2008.

Can't distinguish a double-hung from a double-boiler? Then here in a nutshell are the most common window types, along with the architectural styles they're usually associated with: more...

Are architects becoming lazy?

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, July 17, 2008.

In 19th century America, the only way an architect could view historic architecture was to go see it firsthand (usually on another continent), or else find engravings of it in books. Because architects of the era were much less likely to travel than their modern counterparts, engravings ended up being their usual reference. more...

More architects designing homes with sun in mind

By Arrol Gellner, Sunday, July 6, 2008.

Passive solar design is nothing new -- vernacular builders have known its principles for millennia. From the Middle East to China, both rich and poor alike have traditionally used the sun's free energy for comfort. more...

Green credits would help recycling efforts

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, June 19, 2008.

(This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Read Part 1, "Salvaged fixtures often conflict with city codes.")

Last time we looked at a number of modern building-code requirements that make it either economically impractical or else flat-out illegal for green builders to use recycled building materials, even though the cities enforcing these codes officially encourage such reuse. more...

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