JUSTIN R. WOLF




My writing


Architecture | Green Design | Energy Efficiency 

In addition to my content strategy practice, I work as a freelance journalist covering green building trends, regenerative design, and energy policy for a variety of media outlets, including Green Building Advisor, Fine Homebuilding, Metropolis, Architectural Record, ENTER magazine (AIA Minnesota), and others publications. 

Green & Healthy Maine HOMES •

Stay warm this winter: Backup power & space heating

Considerations for efficiency, economy and comfortANOTHER WINTER approaches, as it’s wont to do. Even with a warming climate and the 2023-24 winter season being one of the mildest on record for the Pine Tree State, the possibility of getting a string of subzero nights, multiple Nor’easters, and several multi-day power outages is increasing. Whether you’re inland or coastal, in the mountains or in the County, needs will vary but one thing is a constant: you may want some backup.Backup power and h...
Metropolis Magazine •

Antje Steinmuller Wants to Get the Housing Question Right

Justin R. Wolf: First off, congratulations on this latest appointment. Coming from the Bay Area, where you’ve been for most of your career to date, I’m curious how the move went. Are you fully settled? Antje Steinmuller: Yes. It took a while though. I was waiting for my apartment to become available, so I was spending time in Airbnb’s in Detroit and Ann Arbor. It was very good to be in Detroit for months and get to know the city and its potential, in order to understand how our programs relat...
Metropolis Magazine •

How the Furniture Industry is Stepping Up on Circularity

TO UNDERSTAND the holistic carbon impacts of our buildings, we need to look inside them. Specifically, we must direct our attention to interior renovations of commercial spaces, the frequency at which they occur, and what happens to all the discarded task chairs, ceiling tiles, floor coverings, casework, and more once these items are deemed obsolete. In a 2022 study conducted by MSR Design, the firm highlights an EPA estimate that some 8.5 million tons of office assets end up in U.S. landfills a...
Metropolis Magazine •

The Net Zero Conference Highlights the Importance of Collective Action

The annual Net Zero Conference, now in its eleventh year, has become a go-to event where efficiency experts and design visionaries the world over gather by the hundreds to share solutions. Such topics range from prioritizing carbon-positive building materials and designing connected energy communities to the critical role green banks can play in financing these endeavors. Indeed, the climate crisis needs optimists. Shula is one of them. He envisions a utopian “100 percent net-zero future” def...
Green & Healthy Maine HOMES •

Making the shift to whole-home heat pumps

Air-source heat pumps are efficient because they transfer thermal energy from outside air rather than generate heat through fuel combustion. And while heat pumps do result in a higher monthly electric bill, that difference can be more than offset by the savings of switching from fossil fuels. According to research group Carbon Switch, the average U.S. household can save more than $925 annually using heat pumps compared to a fuel oil furnace or boiler. More than 67% of Maine’s power generation mi...
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Art Criticism | Art History

Gallery Crawl •

“Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures” at the Rubin Museum of Art

Memento Mori is the Latin-Christian maxim translated as “Remember that you will die.” It is altogether sobering and, in some perverted sense, comforting; it’s an epitaph for the masses—commoners and kings alike. It is also the subject of the ’s latest offering, of the same name, and although said offering is a modest one, this exhibition is, quite literally, breath-taking.
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