All posts tagged: Sustainability Digital Issue

After Los Angles Fires, How Designers Are Helping Homeowners

After Los Angles Fires, How Designers Are Helping Homeowners

An Amazon package arrived at my door a few days after the Eaton and Palisades fires ignited. It contained a small air purifier, sent by friends who were worried about the city’s air quality. It underlined that, despite my Miracle Mile address, I was not impervious to the fire’s consequences. Even if I couldn’t see or smell them, microscopic particles were being blown across the state by robust winds that would enable the fires to burn through 38,000 acres, incinerating 16,000 structures alongside their contents — Hoka Bondis, Tesla car batteries, Magna tiles, Vitamix blenders, iPads, Stanley cups, High Sport pants — the stuff of life in the 21st century. That air purifier is still on, every filter change a reminder that nothing about the device, designed to keep me safe, is recyclable. It’s a microcosm of the dilemma facing homeowners as rebuilding slowly begins to take shape throughout the city. How do we weigh sustainability against personal safety, durability against the future of the planet, comfort against conscientiousness? As interior designer Oliver Furth wonders, …

Secret to Home Rebuilding After Los Angeles Fires

Secret to Home Rebuilding After Los Angeles Fires

The fires that destroyed his family’s Pacific Palisades home were still burning when Ross Greenberg and his wife made up their minds: They were going to rebuild. Yes, there were permitting challenges and headaches to soothe along the way, but quick decision-making and a year-plus-long hustle has placed them near the finish line on Iliff Street. “People are shocked when I tell them that we’re almost done,” the TV producer and co-founder of toy and board game IP company Perfect Game says on a recent afternoon over Zoom. “They can’t believe it. We’re getting a lot of, ‘What do you mean you’re almost done? How?’ We’ve worked really hard.” “Hard” being the operative word. The work — done in collaboration with Lannen Construction and architect Kevin Oreck — placed an emphasis on sustainability, particularly the notion of “home hardening.” It’s a strategy of retrofitting or building a home using fire-resistant materials and construction techniques designed to protect properties from embers, heat or direct flames. “I’m one of the first homeowners nearly complete, so we’ve been faced with …