Sustainable

My least favorite word. The tip of the drumstick for the constant drumbeat driving our economy towards architectural devlopment favoring a very limited group of developers who have sussed out how to profit at the public's expense.

Allow me to quote a local architect speaking on the idea that we should tear down Portland's historic Memorial Colliseum in order to construct a new more "sustainable" baseball park for the Portland Beavers AAA baseball team:

"Falsetto said it’s usually not sustainable to tear down a good building."
“The idea is that the most sustainable building is the one that’s never built and the second-most sustainable building is the one that already exists,” he said."

I have yet to hear a spokesman for the "Sustainability" movement define in any rational way just what the meaning of the term is or demonstrate anything like of set of standards for evaluation (LEEDS notwithstanding).

There is certainly a reason that the vast majority of buildings constructed under the Sustainability banner are publicly funded. Based on market value and the ability to make a profit these buildings would not be sustainable. That is, at the high price per square foot they would not be marketable. This is not sustainable.