Committee on the Environment

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ALBION DISTRICT LIBRARY BY PERKINS + WILL IS A 2018 COTE TOP TEN RECIPIENT. IMAGE: DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY

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The Committee on the Environment (COTE®) is an AIA Knowledge Community working for architects, allied professionals, and the public to achieve climate action and climate justice through design. We believe that design excellence is the foundation of a healthy, sustainable, and equitable future. Our work promotes design strategies that empower all AIA members to realize the best social and environmental outcomes with the clients and the communities they serve.

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Founding sponsors: Building Green
Premier sponsors: Sherwin-Williams, Stantec
Sustaining sponsors: GAF Roofing, Milliken, Andersen Windows,
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The US Largest Estuary - A Complex Eco System Explained

  • 1.  The US Largest Estuary - A Complex Eco System Explained

    Posted 05-24-2024 10:48 AM

    The Chesapeake Bay - A Complex Eco-System Explained 

    From the Ice Age to sprawl

    First there was a huge meteor impact, then at the end of the ice age a giant glacier melting. Beavers damming streams and creating wetlands, a bounty of huge oysters, 100' schooners transporting the lumber that came from swampy woodlands being converted into tobacco farms, finally massive sprawly shoreline development and a huge load of sediment reshaping the waterway in many ways. 

    LandSat image of the Chesapeake Bay (full length)

    Few will consider any of this when they catch a glimpse of the Chesapeake while their plane is banking towards the BWI airport or when they traverse the Bay Bridge at the lofty height of 190' on their way to the Atlantic beaches. 

    Unfortunately the alternating doomsday and success messages about the state of the Bay have numbed many in the watershed to such an extent that they just tune out when it comes to the health of the Bay. Yet, the collapsed history of the Bay....

    READ FULL ARTICLE HERE



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    [Klaus] Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
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