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 Building Advisor •

Federal Housing Finance Agency Could Soon Adopt Model Energy Codes

Here’s an interesting thought exercise: imagine if upwards of 70% of all newly constructed housing, both single- and multi-family, comprising the entire stock of federally backed mortgages for new homes in any given year, were now required to be built to the latest model energy codes. A portion of that estimated 70% already reflects that reality, in the form of new federal housing developed by HUD and the USDA, and soon the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which as of last May have adopted t...
Green Building Advisor •

Rochester, Minnesota: A Model for Making Geothermal Energy Work in a City Context - GreenBuildingAdvisor

Rochester, Minnesota, is a growth market. It’s the state’s third-largest municipality, behind only the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and home to the Mayo Clinic, a name synonymous with world-class healthcare and instrumental in forging the city’s nickname of Med City. Rochester has also never experienced a population dip since railroad tracks were first laid and residents and businesses began settling in the 1860s. The city’s population, according to the latest census, sits north of 1...
Green Building Advisor •

Material Transparency and Supply Chain Mapping

When the Francis Scott Key Bridge was struck by an errant container ship last March and collapsed into the Patapsco River, many worried—apart from the obviously tragic loss of human life—how this catastrophe might impact supply chains throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond. After all, Baltimore is an important trade hub and one of the country’s 20 largest ports, handling 37 million tons of trade goods annually, including about a quarter of all U.S. automobile imports. (For reference, Hous
Green Building Advisor •

NAHB Against Federal Funds for Advanced Energy Codes

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is not prone to mincing words. In a recent statement issued by the lobbying group, the NAHB and its current chairman, Carl Harris, decried the fact that two federal agencies, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), are now required—effective May 28 of this year—to build new housing stock to the latest model energy codes. “This senseless nationwide codes mandate will significantly raise housin
ENTER: The magazine of AIA Minnesota •

Applying Interdisciplinary Research in Design

Images 1–5: A new surgical and critical care tower at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis will knit three existing care centers together into one cohesive destination. DIG conducted interviews, focus groups, and surveys to identify design drivers for the experience sought by patients and their loved ones. Renderings by HGA. Last year, Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis’s Midtown Phillips neighborhood broke ground on a new 10-story, 550,000-square-foot surgical and critical care
Metropolis Magazine •

Grace Farms Foundation Holds Third Annual Design for Freedom Summit

The summit’s opening keynote was delivered by humanitarian photographer Lisa Kristine, who has documented human rights abuses across the globe, including in brick kilns, stone quarries, gold mines, and fishing villages, where in many instances generations of laborers are indentured over small debts. Kristine’s sobering address and accompanying photos elicited more than a few tears from the audience. From there, the summit’s scope expanded to feature various panels and an afternoon of breakouts
Metropolis Magazine •

Shepley Bulfinch Celebrates Its 150th Anniversary with Boston Exhibition

Few design firms in operation today can claim lineage to those distinguished figures who gave shape and soul to the modern American building form, dating back well over a century. Wright, Sullivan, and Richardson, the so-called trinity of American architecture, are among those hallowed names. A notable exception is Shepley Bulfinch, which is now commemorating its 150 year with an exhibition at Boston Architectural College’s McCormick Gallery, on view through May 7. The firm’s founder, Henry Hobs
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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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