Kira Gould
Arts + Culture, Residential Architecture

No Such Thing as Bad Publicity? Why Clickbait is Bad for Affordable Housing

The headlines covering Rural Studio’s 20K Project suggest the project is revolutionizing affordable housing for the masses, but ignore the vital differences between student work and building in the real world.
Kira Gould,

The headlines covering Rural Studio’s 20K Project suggest the project is revolutionizing affordable housing for the masses, but ignore the vital differences between student work and building in the real world.
Landscape, Sustainability

Remembering the Life and Work of Ecological Artist Jackie Brookner

Jackie Brookner was a pioneering ecological artist, designer, writer and educator. Here, she is remembered for her passionate work with ecologists, design professionals, and communities on water remediation/landscape restoration for parks and wetlands, among many other projects.
Kira Gould,

Jackie Brookner was a pioneering ecological artist, designer, writer and educator. Here, she is remembered for her passionate work with ecologists, design professionals, and communities on water remediation/landscape restoration for parks and wetlands, among many other projects.

Design

A Card for Keeps

KieranTimberlake sends out a holiday greeting card that is both informative and beautiful
Kira Gould,

KieranTimberlake sends out a holiday greeting card that is both informative and beautiful
Sustainability

Women in Green: Simran Sethi

Sethi challenges her audiences to listen to people who are not like you and then tell your stories in a way that they can hear.
Kira Gould,

I’ve written about Simran Sethi here before. She’s an inspiring, energetic green diva—a strategist, educator, and journalist. She’s had a worldwide career, yet somehow she landed in Lawrence, my hometown in Kansas, and taught for some time at the University of Kansas School of Journalism (my alma mater). Sethi has been doing some big thinking about the problems we have…
Sustainability

A Taste of the Bay Area’s Green Architecture

A USGBC-sponsored tour highlighted the best forward-looking buildings to be found in and around San Francisco.
Kira Gould,

Boucher Grygier Shipping Container House, Innovation and Transition tour Courtesy Jan Grygier From giant redwoods to adaptive reuse, San Francisco is chock full of memorable sights – green buildings and beyond. At USGBC’s annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, held in San Francisco this November, you can sample from two dozen tours of buildings (and much more), specially curated by San Fran…
Cities

Women in Green: Austin’s Chief Sustainability Officer Lucia Athens

We speak with landscape architect Lucia Athens, the chief sustainability officer for the City of Austin, Texas about SXSW Eco.
Kira Gould,

I first met Lucia Athens when I interviewed her while working on Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design with Lance Hosey. She has been a leader in the green movement for many years and is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the SXSW Eco (of which I am also a member). Athens is chief sustainability officer for…
Sustainability

Q&A: Jerry James Stone

Kira Gould,

I was recently asked to join the Advisory Board for SXSW Eco, an offshoot of the huge SXSW conference now in its second year and coming to Austin in early October. In my new role I have organized one panel discussion and reviewed many others. Now as a member of the diverse Advisory Board, I decided to tap into their…

Cultivating the Present

Kira Gould,

We talk, endlessly, it seems, about the impact of technology on our lives, our relationships, our work, and workspaces and we worry about what it’s doing to our physiologies. Now the inimitable writer, Diane Ackerman offers, in her blog in The New York Times, a characteristically elegant and pointed commentary on this topic; it’s been on my mind ever since…
Sustainability

Voices of Sustainability

Kira Gould,

Five years ago, Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design was published after Lance Hosey and I spent 18 months interviewing hundreds of people and trying to understand why it seemed like there was a preponderance of women doing “green” in many fields. Individual stories poured out and we assembled a suggestive but hardly conclusive collective story. We had the…
Sustainability

If we love it, will it last? Lance Hosey’s Inspirational Book on Green Design

Lance Hosey’s new book, Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design, asks how to make sustainability not just likeable but loveable.
Kira Gould,

If we love it, will it last? This is a question at the heart of architect Lance Hosey’s new book, Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design (Island Press, 2012). Because the book is just out I want to offer you a quick peek, as Hosey starts talking about it; his first talk since the book launched this week was…
Ideas

Applying the Occupy Model to Sustainability

A young architect has put forth a proposal for a Planetary Occupy Movement.
Kira Gould,

There’s something daunting about a speaking slot called “15 Minutes of Brilliance.” At the Living Future (un)conference, these speaking engagements took place before the keynotes each day, a nice way to give individual speakers a platform. But the “brilliance” and the (somewhat false) time limit give these sessions a sense that the person might spontaneously combust after she finishes. (Think…