Meanwhile, Black is hopeful that the increasing popularity of the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System, a consensus-based national rating system used to rank high-performance sustainable buildings, will lead to more energy-efficient buildings. "LEED is what's going to transform the building market by establishing a common standard of measurement," says Scottsdale Green Building Program manager Anthony Floyd. "It's built on well-founded scientific standards for sustainable site development and energy efficiency." He pauses dramatically. "There's nothing in there about curb appeal."
"There's a lot wrong with this whole glass box thing," Harvey says. "When we're not sensitive to our environment, when we use glass and metal indiscriminately in the building of houses because we think it looks pretty, we wind up with Japanese torture devices like those used in the old prison camps. This is what we're doing to our clients: locking them up in metal boxes to see how long they can tolerate the heat before becoming delirious."
Martha Strachan
The problem with modern architecture, according to Jack Black, is the lack of consistency.
Courtesy V2 World
v2: Our prefab future, in a box.
Mark Skalny
v2 founder Tim Russell: "We are on the cutting edge."
Hector Acuña
Ralph Haver's 1950s ranch homes were once considered "modern."
courtesy of Morningside 8
Coming soon: Morningside 8, more glass-trimmed boxes.
Martha Strachan
Scott Jarson and his wife/business partner, Debbie, at The Duke in Scottsdale.
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You'd be surprised how much noise a tiny sparrow makes when it splats against a glass house. "The first time it happened, I thought it was kids throwing a brick against the front door," Leesa Stuck says. She's kneeling on a plastic shopping bag in front of what she calls her "bird graveyard." There are no tiny gravestones or any indication that she's buried a dozen or more sparrows here, other than a slightly scraped look to the desert landscaping next to her outdoor gas grill.
"I don't want to move," Stuck says. "I feel bad about the birds, but whenever people come over, they're like, 'You live in such a cool place.'" Stuck catches herself and laughs. "Well, maybe it's not cool. But I know what they mean. It's really great to live in something that's very up-to-the-minute, like you'd see in a magazine. They don't know I can't do the laundry whenever I want to. Or about the birds."
Harvey Bryan isn't all that concerned about sparrows. He's worried that, with all the Will Bruders and Eddie Joneses out there paying tribute to Al Beadle's work, Phoenix will wind up a sea of uninhabitable glass boxes.
"The only way to stop the glass boxes from taking over," he says, laughing a little, "is if we force the people who are designing and building them to live in one for awhile. In the middle of summer, too. That ought to make them think twice about making another glass box and calling it a house."
