Picture New York, 2040: Buses replace the subway at night, but when they’re open, subways are quieter, wheelchair-accessible, and clean. Everyone’s ditched tiny apartments for cozy mother-in-law units, built into single- family suburban homes. Working in the Bronx and living in Brooklyn isn’t a two-hour slog anymore, because there is rail service from Co-op City to Sunset Park. Craving fresh air? The national park in the New Jersey Meadowlands is a one-train ride from Queens, or there’s a long-haul hike from the Catskills to the Pinelands. This is a sliver of the tristate future envisioned by the Regional Plan Association (RPA), a nonpartisan, nonprofit Manhattan-based organization that periodically analyzes the region from exurbs to downtowns to generate recommendations for a thriving future. When all 782 towns and cities in the tri-state area do their own planning and zoning, true regional planning seems daunting. The almost 400-page doorstopper of a plan, the RPA’s fourth since 1922, contains recommendations on a range of issues, from closing health disparities to fairer school redistricting and property tax reform, to making it easier to reverse-commute or travel from suburb to suburb without a car. The New York-New Jersey–Connecticut area is home to 23 million people, and only a third of them live in New York City proper. With that distribution in mind, the RPA identified four top priorities that affect everyone’s life. The group believes that, for the next 25 years, a thriving region depends on fixing the MTA, constructing more affordable housing to prevent displacement, building equity in one of the most unequal regions in the area, and adapting to rising sea levels. “Our plans carry zero weight of law, but they are very influential,” RPA President Tom Wright told reporters at a November briefing. It’s not possible to analyze all of the plan’s 61 prescriptions here, but there are key takeaways for architects, planners, and policymakers who live and practice in the region. The idea that the subway needs a total overhaul is a no-brainer to anyone who has been late due to massive train delays. To improve the system, the group wants to reconsider around-the-clock subway service. Surface transit would replace trains between 12:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. on weeknights, as only 1.5 percent of daily riders use the service during these four and a half hours, almost 20 percent of the day. Ending 24/7 service, the RPA argues, would allow the beleaguered MTA to make needed repairs faster, now that there are more riders than ever. New Yorkers didn’t take kindly to the idea. Commuters took to Twitter to denounce “the worst idea ever,” and even Mayor Bill de Blasio weighed in, calling full service a “birthright.” If current trends continue, the city’s growth rate from 2015– 2040 will be half of its 1990–2015 rate, but NYC officials say the city doesn’t have enough infrastructure to support more than nine million residents, even though the RPA believes the region (including NYC) could accommodate four million more people and add two million jobs. The organization argues that more and better transit options— and more affordable housing— will prevent the region from turning into California’s Bay Area and make it easier to grow inclusively. Packed trains and sky-high rents reflect many people’s desire to live in the New York City area, but unchecked housing costs could put a damper on growth. Adding more units—two million more— would alleviate the real estate crunch over 25 years. To meet demand, the RPA estimates that changing zoning near train stations could allow 250,000 homes to be created just on surface parking near rail lines while maintaining the neighborhood balance of schools and social spaces. Reforming zoning restrictions could also encourage homeowners to create accessory dwellings units (mother-in-law apartments) within the existing building envelope, while NYC’s 12 FAR cap could be lifted to build up density. Value capture from real estate development, especially those that benefit from big-ticket projects, could fund affordable housing near transit. All housing construction will be in vain, however, if the region doesn’t step up to address the immediate and terrifying effects of climate change. The RPA wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions via a California-style cap-and-trade plan, and convene a regional commission to help local governments adapt to extreme weather and rising seas. But, according to the RPA, the carbon pricing system we have isn’t comprehensive enough; the region should switch to California’s model, which does more to reduce emissions by covering those from buildings, transportation, power production, and industry. One million people from Connecticut to New Jersey live in areas likely to flood, and municipalities are gearing up to fight Hurricane Sandy-like storm surges. There is less emphasis, though, on the everyday flooding that’s likely to result from sea-level rise in the near future; the RPA says areas that can’t be protected should be gradually transitioned to higher ground. A tristate regional coastal commission would help communities plan for sea-level rise, and a small surcharge on property insurance would be used to fund resiliency measures like buyouts and coastal hardening. The retreat from vulnerable areas is painful for people who have built lives there, but there are opportunities in the changes. A national park in the marshy, industrial Meadowlands would provide recreation space and educate visitors on climate change mitigation. Denser Meadowlands towns like Secaucus, New Jersey, would be protected from sea-level rise, while the Teterboro Airport and surrounding communities would retreat, and nature would take over. To illustrate these recommendations more richly, the RPA applies its thinking to nine sites, imagining what they could be in 2040. In that year, Jamaica, Queens, has capitalized on its rich transit connections and proximity to JFK Airport to become a destination in its own right, while retaining its income and ethnic diversity. Further east, Long Island’s central Nassau County is a “model suburb” thanks to regionally integrated schools and a new North Shore–South Shore rail link that’s made it easier to access job centers in Hempstead and Garden City. “Nothing is off the table,” Wright said.

Recognizing how vulnerable southern Florida is in the face of climate change, the Van Alen Institute has launched Keeping Current: A Sea-Level Rise Challenge for Greater Miami. Targeting the Greater Miami Area, Keeping Current is a multi-disciplinary design challenge that is not only looking for answers about how to build a more resilient coastal city, but also offers sites ready to turn the winning plans into reality, with an $850,000 budget to implement them. Hurricane Irma’s near-miss this past summer only served to underscore just how vulnerable Miami really is, in a city already under threat from rising sea levels, where saltwater bubbles up through the porous limestone bedrock below. Recognizing the problem’s urgency, Van Alen has teamed up with the Greater Miami Area municipalities’ resilience, procurement, and budget teams to evaluate resilient infrastructure projects that both adapt to climate change as well as safeguard the investment that local municipalities will put into the project. The contest itself is spread out over three challenges across two sites, scheduled for the winter, spring and fall of 2018. Working with local elected officials, stakeholders, academics and business leaders, design teams will propose resilient solutions for a variety of sites facing different climate change-related problems. Winning entries will focus on addressing “economy, ecology and equity” or balancing budget concerns with community input, and will be given a total of $850,000 to realize their designs in real life. Ultimately, the goal is that the winning designs be scalable and replicable across all of Florida. Keeping Current is about more than safeguarding existing infrastructure. What Van Alen and the municipalities want from this contest is to turn Miami into a leader in urban coastal resilience, while encouraging growth in an area that would be devastated by only a three-foot rise in sea levels. With everything from drinking water, to agriculture, to billions of dollars’ worth of residential and commercial buildings at risk, interdisciplanary solutions are needed now more than ever. Keeping Current is sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, The Miami Foundation, and Target. The full design and community engagement guides will be made available by the Van Alen Institute in February of 2018.

Right now, engineers, scientists, and officials from one country in the South Pacific are hashing out a seastead. The movement is an ambitious experiment in aquatic living that’s shaped by libertarian dreams, a pragmatic response to climate change, and a novel architectural experiment.

“Seasteaders want voluntary societies based on choice, not force,” said Joe Quirk, Seasteading Institute communications director and author, in a YouTube video on the subject. The San Francisco-based organization is on the front lines of the seasteading movement, a Libertarian-influenced crusade that borrows from the language of the American frontier to frame its freewheeling settlement at sea. Decentralized dwelling, the thinking goes, permits members to join or leave the autonomous association at will by simply detaching their dwellings and floating off, literally voting with their sea legs to leave. If this sounds far-fetched, well, the first seasteaders may hit the water in just a few years.

The community could be afloat soon—like, 2020 soon. The Floating Islands Project, as it is officially known, will be built with emerging floating-construction technology and is meant to attract investment to French Polynesia. Its sheer novelty has already garnered extensive media coverage. But will it work?

Although seasteaders can theoretically float anywhere, the Institute found a partner in French Polynesia, an island country in the South Pacific. This January, French Polynesia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Seasteading Institute in San Francisco to build a floating island prototype. The project, off the coast of Tahiti, has to demonstrate it won’t adversely impact the environment, and show what it will contribute to the island’s economy, and then the nation will establish an offshore economic zone for the seasteaders.

Although seasteading’s libertarian ideals perhaps make French Polynesia—well, any nation—an unlikely partner, the government views seasteading technology as a potential Hail Mary in the anthropocene. Many of the country’s thousands of islands are flat and narrow, a topographic combination that is particularly susceptible to climate change. Floating islands could be a vital survival strategy if (but really, when) the seas rise. In turn, the area’s shallow water and ocean conditions that don’t include high waves make the current technology—which has been pioneered on flat water—more adaptable to ocean conditions.

By the end of this year, the Institute, which was founded in 2008 by libertarian activist Patri Friedman, is working with French Polynesian officials to pass a seazone act. If the rules pass, the group will head to Tahiti to develop a pilot program. So who are the architects of the seastead?

This is certainly not the first architecture at sea, nor the first time the island-platform technology’s been used. In 2011, a series of floating islands opened in the Han River in Seoul, South Korea, while French architect Jacques Rougerie has designed a floating, partially submerged city shaped like a manta ray. As far back as 700 AD, people have been living for long periods of time on the ocean.

For the seasteaders, Dutch firm DeltaSync has built a prototype on a lake in Rotterdam. The Floating Pavilion Research suggests that buildings up to 164 feet (15 stories) tall can be built on the seas and are able to withstand storms and choppy waters. Four years ago, DeltaSync debuted a preliminary plan which estimated that a series of platforms for 20 to 30 people would cost around $15 million. With one-fifth of the space reserved for open greenery, the firm estimates living space would cost about $500 per square foot, which is just over half as much as the average price per square foot in New York City (and less than a third of the price of Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side). (Neither the Seasteading Institute nor marine engineering firm Blue 21, an offshoot of DeltaSync that’s working on the Tahiti project, could be reached for comment on these latest plans.)

It’s no surprise that the project has—or had—high-profile fans in Silicon Valley. Gawker shutter-downer and Trump supporter Peter Thiel funneled a cool 1.7 million dollars into the initiative, but has since dismissed the concept as “not quite feasible.”

But despite its ostensible freedom at sea, the project can’t escape from social concerns. By comparing themselves to American frontiersmen, seasteaders (a term derived from “homesteaders”) invoke the same tabula rasa colonialism that Europeans used to justify the wholesale genocide of indigenous people in the Americas and elsewhere. Is libertarianism, in this case, an aegis for clueless Silicon Valley tech-bro optimism?

Quirk and others at the Institute have a new company, Blue Frontiers, whose mission is to develop and build the floating seabeds, so it’s only a matter of time before these questions are answered. 

Instead of the traditional call for projects, the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) has released a call for practices for its 2018 and 2020 editions, which will share a common mission and focus on the environment. The biennials, collectively called The Missing Link, tackle the role of design in confronting climate change. The curators want participants generate actionable responses to some of the UN’s sustainable development goals, which were released after the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. IABR curators are asking designers and others to engage renewable energy systems, water management, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, and resource management within cities to provide research and design rubrics that encourage positive change in these fields. The Missing Link will proceed in three stages. The 2018 edition is framed as a "work biennale,” while the years between the 2018 and 2020 biennials will be devoted to research on shifting these ideas into practical use, and the results will be shared with the world in the 2020 program. IABR hopes that the three year process will establish a "community of practice" that results in a shared biennial to be presented in both the Netherlands and Belgium. The curatorial team includes Floris Alkemade, Leo van Broeck, and Joachim Declerck. The trio of Belgian and Dutch curators will work on both biennials. The base of operations for the entire project will be the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta in the Netherlands, a site the curators chose for its connection to cities and the natural environment. At the confluence of three major rivers, the delta links together a series of major ports including Rotterdam, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Vlissingen, and Ghent. IABR 2018 will debut on May 31 and run through July 8, 2018, and IABR is scheduled for spring 2020. Applications for IABR 2018 and 2020 are open until November 22, 2017.

This morning, Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration released the 1.5ºC plan – a far-reaching new plan intended to align New York City with the principles established during the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement. "In the Trump era, cities have to lead the way when it comes to fighting climate change," Mayor de Blasio stated in the plan's announcement. The 1.5ºC plan – a name drawn from the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to a 1.5º Celsius increase – is focused on six areas of action: recycling, waste, buildings, energy, transportation, and carbon neutrality. The plan marks the latest development in a series of commitments made by the city to reduce emissions. Last fall, the administration released the 80 X 50 Roadmap, which outlined a commitment to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Earlier this summer, Mayor de Blasio signed an executive order opposing President Trump's intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and outlining the City's commitment to upholding it. At the beginning of September, the de Blasio administration released a plan to update the aging infrastructure of existing buildings over 25,000 square feet by 2030, with strict penalties enacted afterward for those who don't comply. As the 1.5ºC plan states, the administration will apply emissions requirements to new construction and renovations across the five boroughs, and "adopt 'stretch' versions of the energy code in 2019 and 2022." "Stretch" here refers to leniency toward the developers' approaches – the City will reportedly provide metrics on energy efficiency but not stipulate how developers should meet those targets. As with earlier plans, the city will use Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing programs adapted for commercial and residential buildings, allowing utility upgrades to be paid off through property bills rather than out-of-pocket. Enacting 100 percent renewable energy in city government operations and buildings is another key aspect of the plan. The emissions of city agencies alone account for eight percent of the city's total greenhouse gas emissions from electric appliances, and 1.5ºC aims to replace all energy infrastructure used by the city with renewable alternatives. Their timeline for this? "As soon as sufficient supply can be brought online." In the near future, the City has stated their intention to commence 50 new solar projects on public buildings sometime this fall, which would bring it a quarter of the way towards its goal. With regard to the transportation sector, the plan reiterates a proposal Mayor de Blasio made in early August to create a tax on millionaires generating up to $800 million in funds to upgrade the NYC subway system. It also includes a proposal to expand infrastructure for bicycles (including protected lanes) and electric vehicles (including charging stations). Notably, the plan also outlines a goal of establishing a carbon neutrality protocol in partnership with other cities around the world including C40 – a network of 90 international cities already committed to climate leadership – meant to establish common definitions for the reduction of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. In a public statement about the plan, New York Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg stated that with New Yorkers' heavy use of mass transit, bicycles, and walking, "New York City produces the fewest greenhouse gas emissions per capita of any U.S. city." A statistic like this should be used as a baseline rather than a benchmark. As the 1.5ºC plan evolves, hopefully the administration will release more specifics on the methodology they intend to apply to new developments to modernize energy use citywide, and clarify whether any penalties will be applied for those who don't comply. This morning's announcement has probably piqued the ears of a number of developers who may be wondering the same.

Resilient by Design | Bay Area has chosen 10 multi-disciplinary teams to partake in the next phase of a design challenge focused on future-proofing California’s San Francisco Bay Area against the destructive effects of climate change and sea level rise. The 10 teams will partner with community members and organizations over the next nine months to develop innovative approaches for the region. The teams include several notable architecture and landscape architecture firms, including BIG, MVRDV,  and James Corner Field Operations. Each of the selected teams contains at least one community member and several of the teams are entirely Bay Area–based. Resilient by Design is modeled on Rebuild by Design, a federally-funded New York City re-visioning competition held after 2012's Hurricane Sandy. The 10 selected design teams include:

BIG + ONE + SHERWOOD Bionic Team Common Ground HASSELL+ Permaculture + Social Equity Public Sediment The All Bay Collective The Field Operations Team The Home Team Team UPLIFT

The teams were each awarded $250,000 to engage in research over the next three months and to work with community members to analyze chosen sites with the eventual goal of crafting an adaptation strategy for a specific project location by May. “Resilient by Design is creating a blueprint for the world, bring together community members and experts to show how we can collectively tackle climate change,” Amanda Brown-Stevens, managing director of Resilient by Design | Bay Area Challenge, told The Architect’s Newspaper. “We know that it is time for something different, a new approach that matches our new reality but draws on who we are and what we have always been able to do: think differently, innovate, come together, and adapt.” Formal announcements for team and site pairings will be timed to coincide with California Governor Jerry Brown’s scheduled Global Climate Action Summit in December. The most recent announcement comes after the Bay Area Challenge was awarded a $4.6 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation earlier this year.

As flood waters begin to recede in Texas and daylight illuminates the destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey, many architects are wondering what the next steps will be as recovery plans begin to take shape. The short-term work will be to assess the damage and make the built environment safe for families to return; however, the long-term planning may take months or likely years of advocacy and design to fully implement. The Houston chapter of the AIA, the Texas Society of Architects, and FEMA will begin this week to train architects and engineers as part of the AIA’s Safety Assessment Program (SAP). This program helps to ensure the safety of the public as thousands of families return to their storm-battered houses and business in the coming weeks. Architects can help save millions of dollars for cities along the coast by volunteering to evaluate the habitability of these structures, freeing up funds for life safety and other emergency services. These volunteers will also help to compile data that will be used to develop new response strategies and better inform residents about how to manage the reconstruction of their houses. The last major hurricane to hit Houston was Ike back in 2008 in which the flooding conditions were not as severe, though many consider it an early warning of what was to come. According to Rusty Bienvenue, the executive director of AIA Houston, there are a variety of opinions about why the flooding was so extensive, but ultimately, “no city in America is prepared for 35 inches of rain all at once.” Bienvenue cautioned against blaming the extensive flooding wholly on Houston's zoning codes, or rather lack of code, arguing that approach is a narrow analysis of the complex environmental conditions. “We need to look at codes and strengthen them in some cases, but I get grumpy when some blame everything on supposedly bad design in Houston,” he said. Bienvenue indicated that poor regional planning and overbuilding around the reservoirs may have had detrimental effects on Houston's ability to drain its floodwaters during the worst of Hurricane Harvey. He also pointed towards a more pernicious problem, which is the likelihood that the severity of this storm was the result of global climate change. Resiliency planning and design has been a topic of great debate among Texas’ academic institutions, particularly at Rice University’s SSPEED Center in Houston, Texas and Texas A&M’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center in College Station, Texas. These and other issues will be at the forefront of the discourse as designers look for solutions to safeguard American coastal cities.

President Donald Trump is all for building mega-infrastructure projects—that was one of his campaign’s trademark promises. He wants to build big and fast. But Trump's latest rescission of an Obama-era executive order, which stipulated all government-funded projects follow strict building standards to reduce exposure to flooding, may end up costing taxpayers a lot more.

Trump will revoke the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard with the goal of streamlining the environmental review of infrastructure projects, as first reported by Reuters. This move is part of his new executive order that aims to establish "discipline and accountability in the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects," according to a statement the White House released yesterday.

The current standard for these government projects requires that designers factor in projections for climate change and flooding as a consequence of rising sea levels and increasingly intense downpours. In effect, it meant that buildings would be built to a higher vertical elevation to address all flood risks and ensure taxpayer dollars would be preserved for as long as possible. This standard, introduced by former president Barack Obama as one his many measures tackling climate change, was required for all infrastructure projects, from public housing to highways.

But speaking today at Trump Tower, Trump denounced the current permitting process as "over regulated" and "a disgrace." He claimed that instead of taking twenty years to build a highway, under his new executive order a highway will be built in under two years. "We’re going to get infrastructure built quickly and inexpensively,” he said. 

Demonstrating a similar lack of concern for climate change when he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords, Trump has already rolled back many of Obama’s regulations on climate change. The elimination of this requirement could ultimately do more harm in the long run—even with a faster timeline, without flood-safety measures, taxpayers could end up paying up to billions over time, flood policy expert Eli Lehrer told Reuters. And it’s not a matter of if it floods, but when. 

The U.S. has already suffered an estimated $260 billion in flood related damages between 1980 and 2013.

Trump’s decision is undoing “the most significant action taken in a generation” to safeguard infrastructure, Rafael Lemaitre, former director of public affairs at FEMA, said to Reuters. “We can either build smarter now, or put taxpayers on the hook to pay exponentially more when it floods,” he said. “And it will.”

What does climate change sound like? Working with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Chicago-based architectural installation artists Luftwerk hope to answer this question for pedestrians along the Chicago River. White Wanderer will be a large scale visual and audio installation that will bring the sounds of Antartica's melting and moving ice to 2 N. Riverside Plaza in the West Loop. The 17,000-square-foot Larsen C ice shelf has been watched by scientists for the past 20 years as warming seas threatened to break it apart. This past July, 2,300 square miles of the ice shelf broke off Antarctica and floated into the Wendell Sea. It is this new massive iceberg that is the inspiration of White Wanderer. The installation will include sounds rarely heard by humans. An eerie soundtrack of melting and shifting glaciers will fill the plaza. On the front of the historic 1929 Holabird & Root–designed Riverside Plaza building, the artists will install a graphic of the 120-mile rift formed by the ice drifting away from Antarctica. “White Wanderer allows people to hear and see how climate change is impacting our world right now, and contemplate how the consequences of climate change—like flooding and sea level rise—will dramatically change the way our lives will be lived in the not-too-distant future,” said Rob Moore, senior water policy expert at the NRDC, in a press release. To realize the project, the team has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $17,000. Rewards include downloads of the icy soundtrack, renderings of the rift, and a limited edition vinyl album. If funding goals are reached, the installation will be on show from September 7 through October 1, 2017. The show will also be seen on Navy Pier as part of EXPO Chicago and the Chicago Architecture Biennial from September 13 through September 17, 2017. Petra Bachmaier of Luftwerk said in a press release, “By bringing this remote Antarctic place to an urban center like Chicago, we hope to instill a sense of wonder of the natural world to inspire people to take action to protect these extraordinary places.”

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pledged 15 million dollars to the United Nations (UN) to combat climate change, filling the gap left by President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. The funds will support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretariat, "including its work to help countries implement their commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change," Bloomberg Philanthropies said in a statement. "Americans are not walking away from the Paris Climate Agreement; just the opposite—we are forging ahead," Michael Bloomberg said. Bloomberg’s sentiment is echoed by The United States Conference of Mayors, who have vowed to continue their fight at the local level despite the shenanigans in Washington. “The U.S. Conference of Mayors is a strong proponent of the need to address climate change and we support the Paris agreement, which positions the world's nations, including the United States, to be energy independent, self-reliant, and resilient,” stated Phoenix, Arizona Mayor Greg Stanton who is also Chair of the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) Environment Committee. “A thriving economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are compatible by focusing on new technology, investing in renewable fuel sources, and increasing our energy efficiency,” the group said in a statement. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued the following:  “President Trump can turn his back on the world, but the world cannot ignore the very real threat of climate change. This decision is an immoral assault on the public health, safety and security of everyone on this planet. New Yorkers are already experiencing hotter summers, more powerful storms and rising seas, which disproportionately affect already vulnerable communities. On behalf of the people of New York City, and alongside mayors across the country, I am committing to honor the goals of the Paris agreement with an Executive Order in the coming days, so our city can remain a home for generations to come.” USCM Energy Chair New Bedford (MA) Mayor Jon Mitchell added: "The solutions to climate change present economic opportunities in clean energy, efficient technology, and low-carbon products and services, all of which can create jobs in the United States. U.S. mayors have committed their cities to address climate change and will continue to do so."

In response to the Trump administration's announcement to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), as well as members of the design community, are releasing comments and statements in opposition to the decision. Architects Advocate also penned an open letter urging members of the House of Representatives to join the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. We will continuously update this story as statements are submitted to The Architect’s Newspaper. Thomas Vonier, FAIA, AIA President:

The United States must remain a leader in the battle to cease harmful and needless practices that damage the planet and its climate, acting out of both environmental concerns and national economic interests. Instead of helping our economy, as the Administration contends, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement will put us behind our major global competitors. The AIA will not retreat from its long-established efforts to conserve energy and to deploy renewable resources in buildings. We will continue to lead in efforts to curb the use of fuels and technologies that needlessly pollute our atmosphere and harm our environment. This makes good sense economically, and it is in the best interests of those we serve: our clients and the public. We will also urge our members throughout the United States and the world to assist cities, states, organizations and citizen groups in meeting the aims of the climate accord. By adhering to our values as a profession that is concerned with human habitat and the health of our environment, we will help to mitigate the harm this decision will do to our economy and to America's stature across the globe.

Mahesh Ramanujam, president & CEO, U.S. Green Buildings Council (USGBC) and Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI):

As many know the Paris Agreement, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), establishes voluntary actions to address greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change mitigation and adaptation—and 194 countries around the world are signatories. The United States government has an opportunity to lead on this and, in so doing, strengthen global partnerships, yet has chosen to walk away. We are deeply disappointed to learn of the Administration’s decision to withdraw from the historic Paris Agreement today. We are facing an important crossroads and America must keep building. We need to keep building bridges and bonds and breaking barriers in the push for a sustainable future for all. While the pullout of the U.S. government from the Paris Agreement will be felt across the world, the surge of climate commitments and actions by the private sector, NGO’s, governments, cities and states, will only serve to strengthen the green building movement and keep pushing us forward. For 24 years, USGBC has led the green building movement with a strong vision – that buildings, communities, and cities will regenerate and sustain the health and vitality of all life within this generation. Today, our efforts continue unabated and with stronger than ever commitment and hope. Yes, hope. We are hopeful for the future because we know that our movement is a community of 13 million strong and growing. We are encouraged by their continued commitment to build a sustainable future for all. U.S. companies, including many USGBC members, are already working to address business risks from climate change and to adapt their businesses to domestic and global opportunities created around climate mitigation needs. Businesses and local governments are wisely seeking and investing in low-carbon fuels and technologies to stay on the cutting edge of the global economy. And with platforms like Arc, more and more companies and government entities are tracking their carbon emissions, committing to reduction targets, and taking action. Right now, business as usual is no longer an option. With the work of our organization, our members, our volunteers and many others, we have reached the point where the transition to a low-carbon economy is inevitable; but remains urgent. And all around us, we see that there are new leaders who are ready to rise, inspired by the promise of a brighter future for our children and for generations to come. They are the big corporations and small business owners, educators and innovators, scientists and activists, non-profit employees and policy makers, advocates and so many more who are working every day to change our world, definitively, for the better. To these leaders, green building is the key solution to pushing our built environment to be supportive and restorative of all life.

James Miner, AICP, Managing Principal, Sasaki:

It appears that the president has decided to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. We gathered as a firm just yesterday to discuss the importance of moving from intent to action. We also talked about the need to take a stand together at times when our collective values are being called into question. Now is one of those times. As a community of designers that aspire to bring positive change to the world through the power of place, I would like to make clear that our position on climate change remains strong. As we all understand and appreciate, the topic of climate change is one that will far outlast the current political cycle. We cannot and will not change our stance towards responsible stewardship of our planet. Read the full statement from Sasaki here.

Van Alen Institute

This past December, in response to the divisions revealed by the presidential election, we launched Crossroads Conversations on the Red Steps in Times Square. The program, which has since become a multipart series, invited people from all walks of life and political convictions to engage in a ten-minute conversation with a stranger. One participant, a young firefighter from New Orleans, introduced himself with, “I’m a Trump guy.” When the topic of climate change arose, his response was, “It’s undeniable. When you walk outside in Louisiana, you know this isn’t right.” He continued to rattle off statistics about the escalating global temperature, emphasizing the need to address climate change on an international level. Though only a brief moment at the “Crossroads of the World,” the conversation highlighted how the broader national belief in the reality of climate change and faith in science, particularly among younger generations, can overcome last week’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords amid ongoing partisan divide. We can envision a future in which climate change is no longer a politicized issue, in the same way the issue doesn’t divide populations in other countries, where scientific research is the foundation of collective goals. Van Alen Institute’s work in the young firefighter’s home state of Louisiana has renewed our commitment to developing projects that address climate change issues in communities around the world. In that particular region, we served as a key partner with the Environmental Defense Fund and BuroHappold Engineering on Changing Course, a design competition that launched in 2011 to envision a more sustainable Lower Mississippi River Delta; the competition’s findings are now informing regional master plans. Of course, our approach to climate change goes far beyond the Gulf Coast. Back in our own region, we served as a lead partner on Rebuild by Design, an initiative of President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address the structural and environmental vulnerabilities that Hurricane Sandy exposed in communities throughout the region, and develop fundable solutions to better protect residents from future climate events. We invite you to browse all of our climate-related work here.

[Statement from the Van Alen Institute continues on vanalen.org]  

Coinciding with President Trump's announcement pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, Architects Advocate has released an open letter to the members of the House of Representatives. The letter acknowledges the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus and encourages other members of the House to join. The letter also offers the expertise of the members of Architects Advocate in guiding sustainable community development.

Dear Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: As members of the American design and construction industry, we are dedicated to tackling the challenging issues that threaten our planet by creating healthy, productive, and safe communities for all, today and in the future. We are on the front lines addressing climate change in a meaningful and impactful way, facing current issues such as energy efficiency, water conservation, sustainable land use, resiliency, and adaptive reuse. More can be and must be done. We strongly support the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus and thank the following 40 representatives for their courage in working across party lines to find solutions to this urgent real-world challenge: Nevada: Mark Amodei, R, 2nd New York: John Faso, R, 19th Peter King, R, 2nd Tom Reed, R, 23rd Elise Stefanik, R, 21st Thomas Suozzi, D, 3rd Claudia Tenney, R, 22nd Lee Zeldin, R, 1st Oregon: Earl Blumenauer, D, 3rd Suzanne Bonamici, D, 1st Pennsylvania: Brendan Boyle, D, 13th Ryan Costello, R, 6th Brian Fitzpatrick, R, 8th Patrick Meehan, R, 7th Utah: Mia Love, R, 4th Virginia: Don Beyer, D, 8th

Vermont: Peter Welch, D, at large Washington: Dave Reichert, R, 8th Wisconsin: Mike Gallagher, R, 8th California: Salud Carbajal, D, 24th Eshoo, D, 18th Darrell Issa, R, 49th Alan Lowenthal, D, 47th Jerry McNerney, D, 9th Scott Peters, D, 52nd Mike Thompson, D, 5th Juan Vargas, D, 51st Colorado: Mike Coffman, R, 6th Connecticut: Jim Himes, D, 4th Florida: Charlie Crist, D, 13th Carlos Curbelo, R, 26th Ted Deutch, D, 22nd Brian Mast, R, 18th Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R, 27th Illinois: Rodney Davis, R, 13th Daniel Lipinski, D, 3rd Massachusetts: Seth Moulton, D, 6th Maryland: John Delaney, D, 6th Nebraska: Don Bacon, R, 2nd New Hampshire: Annie Kuster, D, 2nd We are reaching out to encourage the remaining 395 House members from across all 50 states to join the Caucus as well to help face this unprecedented common challenge. We are finding that the rule requiring new Caucus members to join in pairs of one Republican and one Democrat is welcomed in an overwhelmingly positive way by the American people. Of course, we would be pleased to join you and lend our expertise as needed to help move our communities forward in a healthy and prosperous way. Thank you and sincerely, Architects Advocate

Within hours of publishing the letter Architects Advocate have received hundreds of signatures from architects endorsing the letter. Those interested in signing the letter can do so here.