Sam Fox School to host live web-cast on global warming Feb. 20

With so much attention given to transportation, many people are surprised to learn that buildings are the single largest contributor to global warming. Yet in the United States, buildings are responsible for almost half (48%) of all greenhouse gas emissions. Globally the percentage is even greater.

On Tuesday, Feb. 20, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will host a free screening of The 2010 Imperative: A Global Emergency Teach-In. The live web-cast is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of architecture students, faculty, deans and practicing professionals from more than 40 countries and all 50 states.

The 2010 Imperative runs from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in The Gargoyle, located on the lower level of the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. The screening is free and open to all Washington University students, faculty and staff. For more information, visit www.2010Imperative.org.

Broadcast from the New York Academy of Sciences, The 2010 Imperative is produced by Architecture 2030 — a not-for-profit Web site that offers a variety of resources to help architects, builders and government officials plan and design for a carbon-neutral future — in partnership with AmericaSpeaks. Presentations will explore the relationship between ecology and design and investigate how the academic community can take steps to place environmental questions at the heart of contemporary design curricula.

Panelists will include Edward Mazria, AIA, founder of Architecture 2030; James E. Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and arguably the world’s leading scientist on global warming; Chris Luebkeman, AIA, director of the Global Foresight and Innovation Initiative for Arup; and Susan Szenasy, editor-in-chief of Metropolis magazine.

Immediately following the screening, the Sam Fox School will host a roundtable discussion with four local experts on sustainable design: Bruce Lindsey, AIA, dean of Architecture in the Sam Fox School; Mary Ann Lazarus, AIA, LEED, co-author of The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design; Dan Hellmuth, AIA, LEED AP, principal and co-founder of Hellmuth & Bicknese Architects, L.L.C.; and John Guenther, AIA, a principal at Mackey Mitchell Associates.

Local sponsors for The 2010 Imperative include the Sam Fox School’s College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, as well as the U.S. Green Buildings Council—St. Louis Chapter. Additional national sponsors include The American Institute of Architects; The Home Depot Foundation; the U.S. Green Building Council; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; and the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers.