Sustainable, Green Design

[Shannon Harker]

Hello all, Colorado State is beginning planning for LA Days in April… We invite professionals to come and speak/present on their work, influences, passions, career etc.

Does anyone have suggestions for an LA that is doing fantastic things in the green/sustainable industry?

[Kevin J. Gaughan]

Shannon, I think Kevin Perry from Portland is an excellent speaker on urban storm water management. He has spoke at the last two ASLA Annual meetings and I have heard only good things about his presentations.

[Shannon Harker]

Thanks Kevin!
I checked out his storm water project in Portland, and it looks his project is exactly what we had in mind to bring a little green slant to LA Days this year. We’re putting him on the list…Now to find someone working on green roofs/ vegitecture…

[Kevin J. Gaughan]

Ed Snodgrass is your guy if you want someone to talk about green roofs. He is also a great presenter and has written some awesome books.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Yeah Colorado State!! I’d like to hear about storm water management from Kevin Perry. Colorado is in desperate need of water rights reform. It’s absurd that one cannot use the water that falls on ones roof to water their landscape (ie no cisterns or rain barrels). Instead, it goes into the storm water system, back to the city so they can process it, so that you can buy it back to water your yard. It’s a tremendous waste of energy and a violation of all things logical and “sustainable”. But I digress… Good luck at this years LA Days!! It’s a great thing to be a part of…

[Les Ballard]

Not only is it a chagrin inducing policy, it isn’t abnormal, discourages grey water system establishment (and other green ideas) and flies in the face of the idea that, since our streets are often undermined anyway and subject to mains fracture by vibration from traffic, where are the futuristic ideas gone for saving all our rainwater with pierced paving, road medians and the like with underground cisterns free from topsoil heave and vibes? Too often, storm water management means coping with surplus water so that the main street doesn’t have cars floating along it and they are confined, along with baby buggies, dead dogs, etc. to backway watercourses. Storm water saving and purification is a better phrase, maybe, together with storm water delay; limiting the degree or percentage of property frontage that can be paved over for parking so that the sponge facility frontages that used to exist – even roads with verges and medians (and trees) – is regained or retained as far as is possible. Block paving companies need to understand they cannot pave the universe but, concrete strips and/or pierced paving/hardened areas with softer ground around that are better for the environment. They can then tell clients but won’t do it unless constrained to do so. Since Basiljet built the sewers under London, as a result of the Members of Parliament ceasing to be tolerant of the smell from the River Thames, there seems to have been no real advances and, indeed, London’s sewers – including it’s many undergound rivers – now need a new Mr. Basiljet as the old works are in a dilapidated state that no amount of readymix can remedy. Sorry, rant over – lol

Luv n Lite
Les Ballard

[Shannon Harker]

Hey Tom! If you’re not miles away you should stop by this year. LA Days will be the 1st through the 4th of April. We’re also excited to be having a drawing workshop with Francis Ching. And we’re sending four SCASLA members to LA Bash this year. Lots of great things going on… I’ve gotten some good suggestions for a “green” theme, and am hoping to make that the focus of next years LA Days, hopefully with Kevin Perry included…

[Kevin J. Gaughan]

Shannon, another suggestion for your “green theme” next year is Michael Furbish of Furbish Company Sustainable Building. Very knowledgeable about green roofs and green walls, especially on the construction and maintenance end of things.

Sounds like you have some great things planned for this year though, good work!

[Shannon Harker]

Thanks again, Kevin. Since my inquiry, I’ve been reading and doing some web-research and have become intrigued by all of the great developments (new and old) in design and responsible water use. If only I could read German, I could find out so much more!

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