What is a sustainable landscape?When asked I generally attack this questions from a slightly different angle,
“ Is a ‘sustainably designed’ landscape that no one uses, sustainable?”. For clarity, with reference to ‘sustainable designed’ I mean a landscape that has a high sustainability rating, meets LEED, BREAM or Estidama criteria, features sustainable technology, uses renewable energy, very little water or power etc. I guess I’m trying to distinguish between sustainable elements (technology) and sustainable design. Any truly sustainable design will use sustainable products and materials, there is new technology being developed on a daily basis. How these elements are integrated into the design is of critical importance to ensure they are utilised in the most efficient manner. By way of example; “Is a park that uses 50,000lts of water a day that is used by 500 people, twice as sustainable as a park with the same water use that only attracts 250 people a day?” The point I always try to covey to our Clients is that, "a truly sustainable design is a design that meets a direct and immediate need of the users. " Coming back to the original questions, “is a ‘sustainably designed’ landscape that know one uses, sustainable?” in my opinion, no. Not in the true sense of the word. A truly sustainable landscape must achieve multiple goals (most definitely not just for aesthetic purposes) these can include environmental, habitat creation, localized climate improvement, increase bio diversity, public amenity, passive and active recreation, transportations etc. Our Studio’s approach to this looks to maximize the opportunity for amenity within the spaces we design. Working closing with our Clients, undertaking desktop and site based research and an iterative, incremental approach to the design process we work to ‘squeeze’ the optimum design solutions for our projects. In this way we believe we are creating highly activated, functional and ultimately sustainable spaces. Sustainable design is at the forefront of everything the Studio does, we are always looking for new design techniques, materials and technologies. Rather than ‘decorating’ our designs with ‘Tech’ our approach. Image: Al Fayah Park - Heatherwicks Studio
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Private Garden Ecosystems“Private Gardens are continuously becoming a larger % of our planets ‘Planted Green Space’. This inevitably makes these spaces increasing more important to the functionality of the broader global ecosystem.”
In some parts of the world this is hold more ‘weight’ than in others. This really became something I started to think about in 2004, when Australia (where I was living and working at the time), in the midst of a drought introduced strict water restrictions. These restrictions where introduced periodically in stages as a response to the growing water shortage. As storages reduced across the country, restriction became increasing more server. Restrictions started with the banning of washing of driveways & hardstand areas (good practice anyway) and continued to no washing of vehicles, specific irrigation applications timing (morning & evening), then moved onto alternating days which one was allowed to irrigate (based on your street number), ultimately this lead to a complete ban on irrigation of private gardens. "Inevitably, this lead to the 'death' of many private gardens." Inevitably, this lead to the ‘death’ of many private gardens, for one this highlights the need for a more sustainable approach to the design of these spaces, but it also draws attention to the fact that as our development footprint increase and we occupy natural landscapes for the purposes of residential development, the importance of these ‘gardens’ in our ecosystem is only going to increase. For clarity I’m not against the restrictions, at the time there was only a finite amount of this precious resources and having something to drink was of paramount importance! Ultimately the challenge moving forward will be balancing these resources against the growing demand on them and our constant occupation of additional natural environments. "Water is the most valuable resource on earth" Originating from Australia, which has been in a drought for the last 10 years, water consumption and the sustainable use and management of water resources is something that I personally, have grown up with. Not only was the scarcity of water a ‘day to day’ reality, with household restrictions on use. As a Landscape Architect, in many ways my lively hood depended on its availability! Much of the first few post graduate years of my career where spent working on residential master plan developments in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. This area, in particular received a very low annual rainfall, as such the viability of many of these developments was cantered around a sustainable design approach, balanced against the provision of public open space amenity and ultimately cost. This commercial viability is a key driving factor in the implementation of the sustainable design elements within these projects. Firstly, in order to provide tangible open spaces within these developments, they must be sustainable to construct, operate and maintain. Furthermore, the ‘weight of public opinion’ and the additional marketability this ‘sustainable’ approach brings, has seen this type of development thrive!
"These developments integrate some quite simple sustainable landscape and engineering principles." These key principles include: · Take advantage of local environmental condition; · Replicate the localized natural environment (work with, not against); · Maximise the efficient and distribution use of energy and resources; · Recycling programs; · Maximise capture, storage and re use of water (storm water, grey water, irrigation etc.); and · Maximise the amenity provided by the open space. Within these principles there are a number of design and engineering solutions to achieve a sustainable outcome. Without going into great detail, detailed site analysis, environmental studies, renewable energy use, targeted operational strategies, storm water catchment, bio retention, irrigation hydro zoning and efficient design all contribute. The vast majority of these sustainable design strategies have little to no negative commercial impact on the development. Often when considering the on going maintenance an operation of these assets, commercially they really make sense! When it comes to water use, re use and treatment a good example of one such project is the Tenderfield Residential Estate. (www.tenterfeild.com.au ) The development includes over 30% public open space, takes full advantage of a small existing creek which meanders down the main spine of the development and most impressively captures 100% of storm water and grey water run off through a series of rain gardens, bio retention trenches and swales and re introduces the treated water into the natural ecosystem through a series of constructed wetlands. "Now, in the Middle East, I find myself discussing these water use, re use and treatment strategies against the, ‘it never rains in the Middle East’ argument. Yes, it rains infrequently, but it does rain! " To focus specifically on water catchment, storage and re use, through rain gardens and bio retention swales, other than rainfall we also have other factors such as irrigation over application or over spray, air conditioning condensate, period of heavy fog and dew. Now along with the annual rainfall does this represent a 5% or 10% improvement / reduction in irrigation demand? Maybe, maybe not? The point is that it does have an impact, it is an improvement that has been proven in developments throughout the world in the last 10 years. In my mind it is worth doing…… and we are constantly trying to educate and inform our Clients to integrate these strategies into their projects. I found this image a year or so ago when working on a design competition entry, in fact I found a whole lot of images of a similar nature. Elements of technology ‘plugged’ into urban environments. In principle, I think the idea is fantastic, public realm environments which people can learn from.
However and it’s a big HOWEVER, in many ways I feel this is probably the easy way out. This is not to say that integrating technology into these environments is a bad idea, more that it’s possibly the easy way out. This kind of technology and the amazing amount of information it provides us is available to us, every day, everywhere on our phone, tablets and computers. Even fridges have the internet…….
Design time is an interesting subject, especially when working for a large multinational company.
‘Time is money’, ‘cash is king’, ‘finish this one and move onto the next’, I assume everyone has heard these requests at some point in their career. I certainly have! Now this is not a behaviour is not solely driven by companies trying to maximize profit, it is also a result of clients driving down fees and ‘crunching’ project programs. |
AuthorLUKE MAIDEN Archives
September 2015
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