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This article originally appeared in the January 2007 issue of Architectural Digest. Space is everything to me," says Adrian Zecha, who believes he has found the ultimate house—"the most comfortable house I've ever lived in"—in Singapore. Zecha, the driving force and vision behind Amanresorts, hotels that are regarded as the last word in comfort and luxury, elaborates: "Space is one of the most important dimensions of the thing called luxury ," he says. "Comfort, too, but emotional comfort is only possible with space." This paragon of a supremely habitable house is known in Singapore and Malaysia as a black and white, a huge colonial bungalow . Single family houses of few but enormous rooms, they tended to be built in clusters in areas called parks —an early form of the gated community—for the use of expatriate civil servants , especially those on the higher rungs of the colonial ladder. In the days before air-conditioning, black and whites were...

As Houston plots a sustainable path forward, it’s leaving fenceline communities behind. By Raj Mankad August 15, 2017 This article originally appeared on Grist. Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in fifties West Texas . He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery. Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate . The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a city housing department , for a union, for a law clinic, and on a campaign that stopped a PVC factory from being built in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” For the last decade, he has served as executive director of Texas Enviro...