What is a 'SUSTAINABLE' Landscape in the Middle East?

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