In April 2006, the actor Brad Pitt and the nonprofit organization Global Green USA launched a sustainable design competition in hopes of spurring the redevelopment of New Orleans, post-Katrina. It certainly isn’t shocking that a Hollywood star, albeit one with a home in New Orleans, would want to raise awareness about the devastated city, but perhaps it is surprising that a celebrity could so meaningfully engage the sustainable design community with such a gesture. Pitt, it seems—like Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore—has become a sort of sustainability guru for the larger public, even narrating the on-going sustainable design television series design: e2, for PBS.
And it turns out that the small, interconnected world of sustainable architecture has its own emerging brand of gurus. Ten years ago, Kirsten Ritchie’s job did not exist. As Gensler’s new director of sustainable design, she joined the firm in November 2006 to help guide the more than 2,400 of her fellow employees through the rapidly expanding—and confusing—world of sustainability.
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