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This Green House

when did you get involved with dwell? what did you do in your previous professional incarnations that seasoned you for an influential role at such a trendsetting magazine? (no pressure, of course.)i was editor of the house & home section of the new york times for nearly seven years where we covered a lot of broad cultural trends that involved design. basically, we tried to shine an unwavering light on how we live now, and how that might be changing. so i view design through a journalistic lens. i'm a newshound and a reporter at heart, and i've tried to bring a lot of that to dwell.com.would you say that curating green design has also had an impact on greening your lifestyle and can you give examples?i live in a new york apartment, which is, ironically enough, probably the greenest dwelling of all. i don't own a car. i walk to the grocery store and use only public transportation. so in a funny way i have the most old-fashioned lifestyle, which is also the greenest. my kids don't even know what a minivan is.how did dwell get started and what makes it different from other architecture and interior design publications?interesting story: dwell magazine was started seven years ago by a woman named lara hedberg deam after she found that she could not adequately communicate with the architect designing her home in mill valley, california. lara smartly discerned that this kind of disconnect was quite common for young clients who favor a low-key, unassuming modernism. unlike so many other home design magazines, which still read from the old script, dwell is founded on the idea that design is for all of us. the design within reach generation!when did green design start popping up on your radar? what were some of the early interesting eco-design stories?green design is as old as the oldest hippie. as i recall, the original whole earth catalog published in 1968 was full of gnarly domes and other green dwellings. it was always regarded as a worthy but unlovely form of design—the architecture equivalent of brown rice casserole. the big shift occurred a few years ago, as far as i can tell, when green design flowered into a genre that made no concession to high design. it has integrated itself so completely into the best architectural practices that green design is ceasing to exist as its own category. of course there's still a long way to go, but nearly all architecture created by notable practitioners now contains some green elements.there is a belief that green design (sustainable building, eco-friendly furniture and furnishings, etc.) is really just elegant design in terms of creating a beautiful aesthetic by avoiding excess. how do you feel about that idea for both eco-friendly design and good design in general?as you may know, the milan furniture fair is the most influential design event of the year. when i was there last year, i was staggered by the glaring, conspicuous absence of green. i literally did not hear the words "green" or "sustainable" spoken all week. when i mentioned this to a french designer, he made the case that his own furniture qualified because it was entirely streamlined; he created it without any superfluous elements. i suppose super-efficient design is green, as he would argue. on the other hand, how do you call something green if the materials and manufacturing and post-consumer life are not considered?dwell.com had a fantastic green gift guide for the holiday season. does the impetus for initiatives and stories like that come from your readership or the editors? what was the response to that particular piece and other similar green-focused articles?i wish we received more suggestions from readers. i'd welcome them, if anyone wants to drop me a line (mcannell@dwell.com). the gift guide was initiated here with the editors, and it was probably one of the more popular things we've posted. it hogged the top of our 'most popular' list for months.you travel the world to the best trade, design, and industry shows ranging from furniture to electronics, and must get bombarded daily with many new designers and companies. how do you sift through it all and what does it take for a product, and particularly a green product, to really jump out at you?let me start by pointing out that the 'product of the day' feature on our homepage is handled by my excellent colleague christopher bright, who has unerring sense of these things. by god, we are bombarded with products, but it's not that hard to figure out which ones are newsworthy in some way. when a new idea comes along, it jumps right out.let's say i want to decorate my home in a stylish green way. which fundamental eco-friendly furnishings should i invest in first, will the price points be similar to my non-green options, and where would you recommend i go to find them?it's hard for me to give any kind of comprehensive answer, because there are so many options. i happen to like the pano chair by a french firm called studio lo, which is water-jet cut from a single sheet of plywood and assembles without screws blots or glue. i also recommend the children's furniture by a young brooklyn firm called argington made without the use of fiberboard, particleboard or other composites. they use only sustainable wood sealed with a non-toxic finish. i also like the work of the brooklyn firm 4-pli.sustainable design is undeniably evolving with an influx of green product options and also consumer interest. right now, which are the best schools for green design, where are the most promising sustainable designers coming from, and where do you see this whole thing going?the designs schools have been amazingly slow to fold sustainability into their curriculums, probably because it requires a faculty cooperation and teamwork between departments—both hard to come by. the yale architecture school is ahead of the pack. it now offers a joint four-year degree on sustainable design offered in conjunction with its forestry school. there are some good small programs around the country, like the ecosa institute in prescott, arizona, which offers short immersion programs in sustainable design. over the long run, the schools will have to offer these kinds of programs, because the students will demand it.people often talk about "greenwashing" or presenting products as more eco-friendly than they are. do you think that green is a trend that will go out of style in the design community, or are we merely in the infancy phase in sustainable style and design?ah, the $10,000 question! my guess is that there will be some kind of green backlash. there's a fashion element to green, and every fashion elicits a counter-fashion. though i do think green has an inevitability about it. what was considered a green design feature two years ago is already taken for granted as a normal, responsible practice. hopefully these elements, like green roofs and solar panels, will be become de rigueur, and we'll no longer even talk about them.what is the coolest hotel, private home, and office space that you have ever been to, from a design perspective and why?not long ago, i visited the 10-story manhattan office tower that frank gehry designed for iac, barry diller's media company, on the far west side of manhattan. it really is breathtaking, like a sweeping iceberg parked on the west side highway. the undulating glass curtain wall has special coatings and patterned frits to improve energy efficiency. you can take a look at it here.is there anything absurd that you do that's green? (we all get a little ocd at times….)i hate to throw things out. i'm somewhat obsessive about taking things to goodwill so somebody else can use them.what's your most dangerous idea?i guess this qualifies as a dangerous idea: i don't think people should live in freestanding homes. the classic suburban home is the worst thing we can do for a planet. that's a dangerous idea indeed if you work for a media company founded on publishing freestanding homes.