News
May 24, 2023 _ news
GBBN Imagines What’s Possible at Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit
Cincinnati’s regional sustainability organization, Green Umbrella, recently held its annual Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit. With the prompt, “Imagine What’s Possible,” the conference asked participants to envision collective action to address climate change while creating a more inclusive, livable world.
GBBN Associate, Mary Jo Minerich, and Director of Sustainability & Resilience, Tiffany Broyles Yost, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Fitwel Amb were both on hand to share ideas.
Tiffany gave a 5-minute, inspirational pitch, called, “Pre-Fabulous! Reimagining Vacant Lots as High Performing Affordable Housing.” In it, she explored the possibility of leveraging prefabrication and passive house design to create high performing, affordable housing that would be sized to slip into vacant lots typical of the Midwest’s urban cores.
For more on the ideas Tiffany explored, see this study.
Mary Jo organized a panel with representatives from Cincinnati Metro/SORTA, NEST (Northsiders Engaged in Sustainable Transformation), and MoBo Bicycle Co-op. Titled, “Missed Connections: A Love Letter to Transit Oriented Development,” the panel explored the value of thinking big—and in terms of time, available resources, and possible partnerships—when approaching development.
“We drew on the Craigslist genre of potential love letters (missed connections) as a way of encouraging people to recognize opportunities for big, life-changing events,” Mary Jo explains. “How do you bring the experiences of falling in love, connecting, and changing the world to development opportunities?”
You can view the slide deck from “Missed Connections” here.
Read more about sustainability and resilience at GBBN by viewing our Sustainability Action Plan, reading about our Passive House experience (here and here), or learning more about our approach to affordable housing.
Learn more about Tiffany or Mary Jo.
