Landscape Architects Giving Feedback

A recent project brings a developer through the door with 240 acres [parenthetically, some developers here in Florida see that they need product in 12-18 months and have begun to stir]. The project was previously designed for multi-family, but nowadays in Florida SF is king. She says to me she needs X units.

How on earth do I add the accouterments needed to even approach sustainability?

Sure, we have detention, and retention. But that is about it. And I am serious. Where do I find direction on how to bring a ‘modern’ subdivision into some–any– congruence with sustainability, no matter what the term might mean? do we add a wind farm? do we mandate solar panels? outlaw pool heaters? deny the ability to plant grass in the front yards? Require electric vehicles? demand vegetable gardens?

The irony here, on this particular site, is the adjacent presence of a major slough connecting two very large preserve/habitats, and the need to accommodate the water flow through our site.

1. Is it possible to design a sustainable site?
Clearly it depends on how we define sustainable. You have raised a good point that we have not specifically defined “sustainability” yet (other than via the definition from the Brundtland report). I would assume that a site that provides the same or more ecosystem services after the installation of the design, is sustainable. But what if there is a loss of 10% of the ecosystem services? 25%? 50%? An even more difficult question will be when a project improves the performance of some ecosystem services but degrades others. What then? What if the ones it improves are perceived to be of regionally greater importance than those that it degrades. Does that make a difference? Great question and we would welcome ideas on how to address this.

2. Who should be responsible for saying a site is sustainable?
The intent of the rating system is to provide some proportional assessment of sustainability. The more credits you achieve, the more sustainable you are, at least theoretically. If you look at the last pages of the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks Draft 2009 (or go to the Sustainable Sites website at http://www.sustainablesites.org/participants/) you will see a list of the 35+ individuals and organizations from around the country with a wide disciplinary background who have helped to develop these credits. If you buy into the assumption that the more credits you get, the more sustainable you are, then this group is in a way responsible for saying that the site is sustainable. Additionally, the reason that we have public comment periods is to continue to improve this approach, so hopefully, we are all saying, in the end, that these projects are sustainable. The intention is that, in the end, we will have a 3rd party certification system in place to verify the claims of the designer/owner.
This also brings up the potential importance of a weighting system for the various credits (perhaps regionally based) if we assume that not all of the credits are of equal value to becoming sustainable. The Initiative will be looking at this after the report is published in 2009, but we would definitely take any input anyone has at this time.

3. What are the credentials and knowledge needed to say a site is sustainable?
I don’t believe that any one individual or discipline is well suited to making the claim that a site is sustainable. This is why there is a prerequisite for an integrated design team. That said, the disciplines needed on any specific project will vary based on the project and goals. Thus, in developing the credits we have had landscape architects, ecologists, civil engineers, community health professionals, soil scientists, government regulators, materials experts, botanists, and a host of other disciplines all working together to develop the report that is out for public review.

4. If a designer uses the lens of sustainability to see the world and make value judgments about landscape architecture, is this person a more “progressive” designer than some who uses some other lens?
Well I would suggest that we should not have to choose between sustainable and other value systems, but perhaps this is a cop out. I see sustainability as equivalent to safety. Undoubtedly being required to design spaces that are safe could adversely affect the artistic nature of the design, but in most cases, isn’t this a fair trade off? I would say the same is true of sustainability. As we learn more, I don’t see any reason why we cannot have highly artistic landscapes which are sustainable. Wouldn’t we want to do both? Is there a reason why anyone would want to create a clearly unsustainable landscape for its own sake?