Bringing building science and beauty together doesn’t happen accidentally.

It’s very easy to go wrong. I think of my poor neighbor, who remuddled together some cliché ideas about luxury with efficiency upgrades, festooning his bright and airy apartment building with dark wood floors, crypt-like basement bedrooms, and over-the-top moldings and cabinetry, to end up with a colorless, gloomy space with the feng shui of a hotel lobby.