Green Cities – Getting there…

My wife is an environmental engineer – she is also one of them professionals who pride themselves on the green aspects of city buildings – its a fitting relationship to integrate civil engineering with environmental engineering to eek out the possibility of a cleaner output from static structures.  I didn’t pay too much mind to the aspects of what could make a building more green until I had met her, and she schooled me on the quality notes to look for in downtown architecture meets granola intentions.   I am very fortunate to work in a building that is considered one of the platinum green status buildings in downtown Chicago.  It sounds like a lot of hub flub but there are nuances as to what gives it the status and a ton of expensive yet thoughtful engineering concepts to benefit the city in the concrete footprint its placed.  Its biggest benefit to me has definitely been the indoor video surveilled bike room that 90% of its users don’t lock their bikes in.  It’s indoors, its warm, well guarded, and even better, its actually used by many of the employees in the building.  As the added bonus – the building services allow for free access to the shower and locker room (which includes steam room access) for cyclists use, 365 days a year.  It eliminates any pesky excuse to not ride into work – besides have you ridden the ‘el’ lately? Chicago has been considered in print as one of the top 10 architecturally most significant cities in the entire world – mostly due to its engineering efforts in its molding of the cityscape resources to have a double and mutual benefit to its dwellers. Peep this article –> Cogenerative Energy.   Peep the LEEDS standards –> Green Buildings. Peep the folks that encourage you to get your ass on a bike to commute –>  My Faithful Jerry.  Commute – not because its hoss – but because it makes a difference in ‘your’ life.