Melting cities: What record-breaking heat means for the places we live and work.

The New Climate Reality Traditional building designs are increasingly turning our homes and offices into literal heat traps, pushing air conditioning systems to the brink and driving up carbon emissions. As global temperatures soar and extreme heat waves arrive earlier and last longer, our built environment must evolve beyond energy-intensive cooling. This dangerous reality is further compounded by the urban …

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The Urban Sponge: Designing Buildings That Drink Up Floods

We spent centuries treating our cities like umbrellas—paving over every square inch to repel water as fast as possible. With extreme storms and urban flooding on the rise, that strategy is failing. The new standard isn’t fighting the water; it’s drinking it. Enter Sponge Architecture Designing buildings and sites that absorb, store, and naturally filter stormwater right where it falls. …

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THE GREEN CHOICE Why Renovating an Old Building is the Ultimate Act of Environmental Responsibility

You want to build sustainably. You care about your carbon footprint, resource conservation, and the future of our planet. When faced with the choice between constructing a sleek, modern, net-zero building from scratch or taking on a flawed, aging structure, the temptation to start with a blank slate is high. However, true environmental stewardship often means embracing the messy, complicated …

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The Invisible Interior : Wellness & Air

Letter from the Editor: The Luxury of the Invisible Dear Readers, When we think of a “hotel stay,” our minds immediately go to the visible: the sweep of a marble lobby, the curated art on the walls, or the way the sunlight hits a mid-century velvet armchair. We’ve spent decades perfecting the aesthetic of the interior. But lately, I’ve been …

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In search of Carbon Neutral Cities

At one of our office Lunch & Learn seminars, we were reviewing Masdar Project in Abu Dhabi and all the technologies involved into making this “city laboratory” a carbon neutral city. The question of the day was;  “Given the prohibitive costs of all these technologies used in making this project carbon neutral, how can developing countries aspire to developing green …

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Glass Pt. 3: The Endless Choice

When it comes to glass, its characteristics allow it to be modified for so many uses. The design and constuction industry has been using glass for so long, yet it’s so impressive how much progress and innovation is made.  We can find glass being used all around us; even for floors! Looking at a simple drinking glass, you can wonder …

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Glass Pt.2: Vaguely Opaque!

From simple particles of silica, glass has become one of the most used materials in the construction industry. It’s many valuable characteristics contribute to its value of being one of the most sustainable and wellness promoting products commercially available. Glass allows for: Light transmission Visibility Durability Safety Recyclability many many more…. Today, I want to highlight a specific type of …

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Glass Pt. 1: Let’s Get Cracking

GLASS: It can be clear, it can be frosted, it can be curved, it can be recycled, it is unstoppable.  Before we get to far, let’s first start with the initial question. What is it really made of? The over-simplified answer is: Sand!  Have you ever wondered why sand glistens and is rough in large pieces? This is because the …

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Bangkok’s lost heritage

Driving last week end through Bangkok old China town roads, I couldn’t  help wonder like so many other times, why is nothing being done to preserve the old traditional buildings in this area? It’s heart breaking, some real gems are left to complete disrepair and neglect! I understand that restoration and preservation of traditional buildings can be a very expensive …

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