Barbara Boissevain's photographs have been compared to the work of American painter Mark Rothko, for their blocks of deep reds, oranges, pinks and greens. But these shades are not mixed on a palette, they are unfiltered snapshots of San Francisco Bay's salt ponds.
Taken over more than a decade, the images document the restoration of the area, from a center for commercial salt extraction back to its natural state of tidal marsh, mudflats and other wetland habitats.
The rich, unnatural colors in Boissevain's early photos are a result of the water's salinity. She remembers visiting the salt ponds for the first time during a science class in third grade. It was only years later, in 2010, when she was flying over them in a helicopter on the way to another photo project that she saw how they looked from above.
Her recent book, "Salt of the Earth: A Visual Odyssey of a Transforming Landscape," compiles all these different perspectives, allowing the viewer to see the extent of the damage to the landscape, and the beginnings of its transformation.
Read more at the link in @cnnstyle’s bio.
📸: Barbara Boissevain
The UK’s £300 million fund for offshore wind and grid networks targets the persistent supply‑chain blockages that slow renewable infrastructure. By increasing port capacity and component manufacturing, it may strengthen the circular economy in construction and reduce the embodied carbon in materials used across major infrastructure projects. A parallel reform of inflation‑linked support payments creates uncertainty for investors, highlighting the tension between financing stability and the drive to decarbonise the built environment.
Real estate and infrastructure developers now face sharper scrutiny under sustainable construction criteria, with whole life carbon assessment and lifecycle assessment becoming standard tools for optimising environmental sustainability in construction.
The EU’s decision to dilute its corporate due‑diligence directive by removing mandatory climate transition plans erodes a vital mechanism for ensuring environmental product declarations (EPDs) and low embodied carbon materials remain central to supply‑chain accountability. Without this framework, the carbon footprint of construction will rely more heavily on voluntary whole life carbon reporting and investor pressure to advance sustainable building practices and low carbon construction materials.
China’s reported fall in emissions signals a structural turn toward energy‑efficient buildings and low carbon building materials, improving the embodied carbon profile of global imports. Such trends point to an emerging market preference for net zero whole life carbon and carbon neutral construction, accelerating eco‑design for buildings and resource efficiency in construction.
The intensifying climate risk case reinforces the business imperative for resilient, green infrastructure. As attribution science links extreme weather to global warming, sustainable building design must merge low carbon design with life cycle cost optimisation and adaptive engineering. Procurement and investment decisions increasingly favour contractors with proven expertise in sustainable material specification, circular construction strategies, and end‑of‑life reuse in construction. The sector’s transition to net zero carbon buildings and truly sustainable urban development will depend on life cycle thinking in construction and commitment to long‑term decarbonising the built environment.
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