Greening Ground Zero
It’s About Not Being At War With The Natural Environment
    by Abrahm Lustgarten

Neil Chambers sees green. He looks at urban rooftops and sees green. Same with the sidewalks, and the massive glass enveloping modern new skyscrapers throughout Manhattan. They’re all green, just look at the blueprints. That’s what he told the 100 or so visitors attending an exhibit of Green Ground Zero’s sustainable design competition last week at the Municipal Arts Society’s Urban Center Gallery in midtown.

Chambers, 29, is the executive director of the environmental design and advocacy group Green Ground Zero , a non-profit coalition of architects, designers and engineers dedicated to buoying green design and sustainability in the downtown re-building process.

“It’s about not being at war with the natural environment. You can cut your costs and improve efficiency,” he says, emphasizing the financial over the political. “I try to get away from the tree-hugging, pot-smoking, environmentalist kind of associations.”

Today green design has the serious attention of builders and architects – especially downtown. Battery Park City's Tony Solaire residential building has just been touted as the country’s first green sky rise – and Chambers hopes Green Ground Zero will escort “green” over the threshold of acceptability and into mainstream building practices.