Buildings and the construction industry consume enormous amounts of the earth's resources each and every day. Structural engineers and architects are beginning to develop design methods to alleviate the detrimental effect of constructed facilities upon the environment. Many of these efforts have, unfortunately, been focused on small scale structures such as low rise office buildings.
David Gissen, in this lecture based on the book "Big and Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century," describes the efforts of a select group of architects to design environmentally sustainable skyscrapers. Architects discussed include William McDonough, Kenneth Yeang, Norman Foster, and Richard Rogers, among others. The buildings presented attempt to address environmental effects through passive ventilation, heating and cooling, use of low impact materials, structural form, day lighting, and integral energy generation. These buildings, which appear strikingly different from a typical skyscraper to the naked eye, may be a preview of the future of the skyscraper building.

David Gissen is the author and curator of the book “BIG AND GREEN: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century” based on a recent exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The focus of this book is an exploration into an emerging group of architects and engineers who use sustainable technologies--wind mills, solar panels and passive ventilation systems--to re-imagine skyscrapers, mega-malls and other large structures. In addition to writing on architecture, urbanism, environmental and cultural subjects, he teaches design theory at the Pennsylvania State University School of Architecture, and was a former instructor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and American University. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania and in Baltimore, Maryland.