Working Harmoniously with the Environment

October 5, 2026 Taylor Moore

A lifetime of shaping the green building industry

In the late 1960s, I was one of the lucky few who returned home from Vietnam in one piece, but I was not the same person who had left. The experience gave me a deep sense that my life had been spared for a reason. I felt strongly that I should not waste it. I needed to find real meaning and purpose in what I chose to do next.

As a child, I was always building things; taking them apart, studying how they worked and imagining how they could be improved. That curiosity naturally led me to study industrial design and architecture in college. As I began my professional career, I came to believe that designing the built environment carries a profound responsibility, not only to serve people, but to do no harm.

One of my greatest influences was Buckminster Fuller, who taught me to see the Earth as a single, interconnected system, much like a spaceship with limited resources. That idea reshaped how I thought about buildings and communities. I began to ask myself an essential question: Is it possible to design homes and communities that provide all of humanity’s basic needs, energy, water, sanitation and food, entirely from the natural systems of the Earth?

I became convinced that it was not only possible, but necessary.

Throughout the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, I immersed myself in the research and development of energy-efficient building systems. I worked on passive and active solar technologies, indoor air quality and what we now call healthy homes. During that time, I contributed to the early development of building standards and programs, such as the Building Officials and Code Administrators and the American Society for Testing and Materials energy codes, the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification, the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR guidelines and the American Lung Association’s Health House standards.

As a senior architect at the National Association of Home Builders’ Research Center, I collaborated with industry leaders to develop high-performance building techniques, integrating efficient HVAC systems, passive solar design and thermal mass strategies. It was exciting, groundbreaking work, but over time I realized that even these advances were not enough.

Green building standards are a good starting point, but they focus primarily on the building itself. I began to see that we needed to think much more broadly. The real question is not just how we build structures, but how we support the lives of the people who live in them.

That realization shifted my focus from individual buildings to entire communities.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, I began working internationally to develop sustainable communities, particularly in developing regions. One of my earliest projects was helping to create a sustainable community in South Africa. From there, my work expanded across South America, the Caribbean and China.

Through all of this work, one idea has remained constant: Our current centralized infrastructure systems, based on fossil fuels, are fundamentally flawed. They pollute our air, contaminate our water and soil and create economic systems that are often unsustainable for communities.

In contrast, I have seen firsthand that decentralized, self-sufficient homes and communities can be more cost-effective, more resilient and more supportive of human well-being.

To me, a home should not be an isolated object; it should be an integral part of nature. It should work in harmony with natural systems, capturing energy from the sun, managing water responsibly and recycling waste into productive resources.

This philosophy is embodied in what I call earth homes, which I developed for use in developing regions. These homes incorporate composting toilets that transform waste into nutrient-rich compost for gardens, while greywater systems are used to irrigate crops. The home then becomes part of a closed-loop system that provides not only shelter, but also food and long-term sustainability.

In the United States, I am encouraged by the emergence of agrihoods, communities that integrate housing with local food production. These developments represent a shift toward thinking about sustainability in a more holistic way, encompassing not just energy efficiency, but also food security, community resilience and quality of life.

Ultimately, I believe we must rethink the purpose of housing altogether. Our goal should not simply be to build better buildings, but to create systems that support healthy lives, while living in harmony with the natural world.

The challenges we face today, such as climate change, resource depletion and growing populations, demand this kind of thinking.

The question is no longer whether we can design sustainable homes and communities; we can.

The real question is whether we will choose to.

By John Spears, Assoc. AIA, C.E.M, LEED AP, is the President and Founder of Sustainable Design Group and the President and CEO of the International Center for Sustainable Development. He can be reached at john@sustainabledesign.com.