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Low tech and high touch: Folk schools boom as people crave working with their hands

Nov 16, 2023
In an increasingly digital world, folk schools are sprouting in Minnesota and beyond, teaching traditional crafts and other lifelong skills.
Scott Uhl, a former timber framing student at North House Folk School, returned in October to help build a new welcome center for the school.
Derek Montgomery/MPR

Can supertall buildings help us build more sustainable cities?

Apr 11, 2022
The new book by urban designer Stefan Al explores what the history of skyscrapers can show us about the future.
Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images

How one construction company is navigating labor and materials shortages

Aug 4, 2021
The industry's challenges could lead to higher prices for consumers.
Maurice Rahming, who owns and operates O’Neill Construction Group in Portland, Oregon with his wife Ali O'Neill, says the industry's challenges could lead to higher prices for consumers.
Courtesy of O’Neill Construction Group

Construction workers needed as building industry booms

Jun 1, 2016
With construction surging, nine out of 10 contractors say they can't find workers.
About 2.3 million construction jobs were lost during the housing crash, Great Recession and early years of the recovery.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

How to future-proof America's buildings

Mar 3, 2016
Skanska USA's Chief Sustainability Officer on planning for the future of construction.
The Chrysler Building in the background as steam rises from a steam pipe on Lexington Avenue in New York March 4, 2015 as warming temperatures start to melt snow.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

'Poor doors' exit New York

Jul 2, 2015
The city has banned the separate entrances to mixed-income buildings.
New York City has banned “poor doors," separate entrances to mixed-income buildings.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

After Hurricane Sandy, a redesign of flood protection

May 15, 2015
Many east coast companies are investing in the AquaFence.

For public good, not for profit.

With home building up, will McMansions return?

Aug 22, 2012
Nationwide, home-building permits are at a four-year high. But coming off the Great Recession, is there a market for luxury homes?

Greenwashing is a gateway drug

Apr 5, 2008
In Amy Westervelt's recent Sustainable Industries interview with L. Hunter Lovins, Lovins makes the case that greenwashing is good. "Hypocrisy is...