Shorter reads on sustainable design and green building in the Washington, DC region — practical notes, explainers, and the occasional reflection. Everything here is evergreen; we favor ideas that stay useful.
Midsummer Green is a reference first and a publication second, so our journal collects the guides and essays that do not fit neatly into the main sections. Start with these:
Sustainability is not only about buildings. A practical guide to shrinking the footprint of any gathering — venue, waste, food, energy and travel — drawn from a community that has long practiced what it preaches at its own summer celebrations.
A plain-language tour of the core ideas — using less energy and water, choosing healthier materials, and designing for people and the long term — without the acronyms.
Why a building’s orientation, form and layout matter more than any gadget, and how passive design, daylighting and biophilia do the heavy lifting.
Envelope first, then efficient all-electric systems, then renewables. The order is the whole story — and it is why net-zero is now practical, not utopian.
A field guide to the kinds of landmark sustainable projects across the region — net-zero pioneers, deep-energy retrofits, healthy workplaces and green-infrastructure innovators.
We hold journal entries to a simple test: will this still be worth reading in five years? That rules out most news — announcements, event recaps, and the churn of who-did-what-this-season — and it favors durable explanations, useful frameworks, and the kind of practical detail that is hard to find in one place. When a topic is genuinely time-sensitive, we would rather link you to a primary source that keeps it current than pretend a static page can.
The result is a small library rather than a feed. We are comfortable with that. A reader who works through these entries and the main guide will understand green building in the National Capital Region better than most, and will know exactly where to go for the specifics we deliberately leave to the experts.
We add to the journal as ideas earn their place. For research updates from the wider field, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is a reliable source. Want to suggest a topic? Tell us.