Bridgette Meinhold is an American artist and author of “Urgent Architecture: 40 Sustainable Housing Solutions for a Changing World.”[1]
Meinhold is also the Architecture Editor for Inhabitat.com, and a contributing writer for Inhabitots.com and Ecouterre.com. She has written extensively about sustainable design innovation, eco architecture, green building.[2]
Bridgette Meinhold is originally from Oklahoma.[3] In 2003, Meinhold earned a BS in mechanical engineering from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA. In 2007, she earned a Master of Science in Civil and environmental engineering with a focus on sustainability at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.[4][5][6]
Following college, Meinhold lived and worked in Germany and spent time in New York City.[7]
In 2013, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., published Meinhold’s book, “Urgent Architecture: 40 Sustainable Housing Solutions for a Changing World.”[1] The book features 40 emergency and long-term housing projects and was written in response to natural disasters, climate change, population growth, urbanization and poverty.[1][8] It is organized in five categories — rapid shelters, transitional shelters, affordable housing, prefab housing, and adaptable housing — and includes examples from Bangladesh and Haiti to Malibu, CA and Milan, Italy.[9]
All of the projects focus on green building, sustainable design, eco-friendly materials, affordability, material reuse, and humanitarian relief. Project construction methods and materials include repurposed shipping containers, straw bale construction, sandbag homes, and floating homes.[10]
Since, 2008, Meinhold has served as Architecture Editor for Inhabitat.com, “devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.”[11]
Meinhold is also a contributing writer for Inhabitots.com, which focuses on “sustainable design for the next generation.”[4] Since 2009, Meinhold has been a contributing writer Ecouterre.com, for which she writes about sustainable fashion design.[12]
Meinhold uses encaustic, milk paint, pencil, oil and watercolor to depict clouds, mountains, trees, the atmosphere, and inclement weather.[13] Meinhold’s paintings are exhibited at Gallery MAR in Park City, UT,[14] Diane West in Durango, CO, the Vickers Collection in Aspen, CO, and Vail Village Arts in Vail, CO.[15]
Of her atmospheric paintings, Meinhold commented:
[My work] tends to be on that moody, sort of melancholy side, because the atmospheres that tend to create the most interest for me are not the blue days. Everybody can take a picture of a blue day, but fog to me is very interesting.[5]
Meinhold resides in an A-frame cabin in Park City, Utah with her husband, a firefighter/paramedic[7] who built an art studio for Meinhold out of an old 40-foot shipping container.[16]