Advancing from ‘urbanists’ to ‘green urbanists’

New Urban News Article with images, 1/1/2008

Torti Gallas tells how it incorporated sustainability traits into its projects.

“Is New Urbanism inherently sustainable? Only partly,” says Tom Gallas, partner and chief business strategist at Torti Gallas and Partners. That’s why the Silver Spring, Maryland, planning and design firm has tried for the past several years to supplement its new urbanist orientation by adding specifically “green” techniques.

During the Green Architecture and Urbanism Council in Alexandria, Virginia, Gallas explained that his firm, which switched more than a decade ago from conventional development to New Urbanism, has recently been trying to incorporate green methods into its practice.

“A US citizen uses 30 to 40 times the resources that an average person in the rest of the world uses,” Gallas said. “We must accelerate the greening of our buildings and our communities.”