Light/Air/Water

Written by Paul Freeland, LEED AP

Connecting people to nature is paramount for sustainable excellence.

Many sustainable approaches to site design are based, rightly so, on the tangible efforts of conserving and protecting resources.  Restoring native habitats and preserving existing ecosystems are fundamental foundations designed to ensure man’s touch on the land is as light as possible.  This approach can generally be easily documented for a client, often minimizing a designers influence over site planning to a simple matter of going through the motions to achieve a quantifiable end.  However, perhaps it’s only fitting within the discussion of a sustainable landscape that we reflect on the spiritual and intrinsic values of air, water, and light, and their place not only within the architecture, but in their expression within the fabric of the surrounding site.

 

SUSTAINABLE ELEMENTS

These often ephemeral elements are valuable notions that should be reinforced in our pursuit of a sustainable framework, based on principles and a vision greater than meeting the minimum standards of a simple matrix of green building design.  The breathtaking vista of pure blue sky and the soft glow of the morning air, the comforting chorus of falling water and the relaxing calm of a gentle breeze; truly masterful, thoughtful architecture and site design can begin with the basic question: “How can our design sustainably and affordably connect those who experience our site to air, water, and light in a way that transcends the basic framework of sustainable building model?”  Making these connections intentional, accessible, and perhaps, educational, allows us to formulate a sustainable ethic and sense of architectural purpose that speaks to the very soul of our clients.  

With a long standing private practice built upon the very foundation of connecting his clients directly to natural patterns and cycles using the basic elements of light, water, and sky, Dallas architect Max Levy’s philosophy offers an ideal starting point.  “The most elementary act of landscape architecture is the editing of a natural setting so as to heighten human appreciation of nature,” says Levy. “The most elementary act of architecture is the framing of a view.  In my opinion, that view need not depend on a magnificent site.  That view can focus on the sky (that other half of the landscape), or on sunlight (the passage of shadows), or breezes (their movements), or rain (runoff channeled in expressive ways).”

SUSTAINABLE CONNECTIONS

The challenge, of course, in pursuing a deeper sustainable design ethic that makes these natural connections, lies in the ability to avoid a boilerplate approach.  As design teams across the country begin to transition from LEED 2.2 to LEED 2009, the focus will be on building structures that further meet the goals and ideals of this established framework.  However, a sustainable ethic does not simply end with emitting less VOC’s, specifying low flow toilets, or calculating foot candle levels.  As green design becomes further immersed in our cultural vernacular, our solutions must also keep our connections to the rhythms of nature a core component of our designs.  The human health and well-being benefits of these components are well documented, and the aesthetic, social, cultural, even acoustical role that air, water and light should play in our approach can offer tremendous benefits to our clients.

SUSTAINABLE EXPRESSIONS

The newly established National Academy of Environmental Design (NAED) held regional symposiums throughout the country early this year to begin a dialogue among designers, academia, scientists, and engineers to further discussion regarding ways to define the sustainable expressions of the natural environment and its context within our communities.  Held at the LadyBird Wildflower Center in Austin, the symposium focused primarily on the SITES Initiative, an interdisciplinary partnership led by the American Society of Landscape Architects, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the United States Botanic Garden.  “Through the creation and implementation of clear and rigorous design, construction, operations, and maintenance criteria, the Initiative aims to supplement existing green building and landscape guidelines as well as to become a stand-alone tool for site sustainability.” Though still in development, this creative new metric has a framework that mirrors LEED’s established format, and offers specific benchmarks based on “ecosystem services, designed to preserve or restore a site’s sustainability, the idea that healthy ecosystems provide goods and services of benefit to humans and other organisms.”  

SUSTAINABLE VALUES

The SITES Initiative also specifically targets points that focus on the values of air, water, and light in ways that further benefit their importance regarding human health and well-being.  One credit is based solely on providing views to the natural environment to building occupants, its rational based on “research that has shown that interaction with or views of nearby nature can improve cognitive functioning, and that physiological functions, that core processes of the human body, are positively affected by experiences with nature (Credit 4.4)”  

Another credit (4.9), requires storm water management features be designed as a landscape amenity, with an intent to “integrate multifunctional storm water management features into site design to improve both water quality and aesthetics, and to provide a landscape amenity that is both physically and visually accessible to users.”  The benefits of the point are clear:  “Studies of landscape preference conducted over several decades show consistent patterns of favorable responses to view of water features across culture, landscape types, and viewer age.  Storm water management features can provide calming views, spaces for restoration, and even opportunities for play and interaction with water.”

Still another credit, (7.2), seeks to minimize exposure to localized air pollutants by restricting maintenance operations that release air pollutants, and that no equipment with gasoline or diesel powered engines are used for maintenance.”

SUSTAINABLE PHILOSOPHY

While SITES and LEED have both attempted to establish viable, measurable benchmarks, local landscape architect, Howard Garrett, known regionally as The Dirt Doctor, believes a more sustainable landscape philosophy would go far beyond the benchmarks as they exist today.  “The most important ‘environmental’ improvement to landscape projects is the organic management program, which LEED does not give enough credit to,” says Garrett.  “Very few designers have any knowledge or interest in the approach.  The organic fertility and pest management system saves resources, improves soil quality, protects ground water, uses less irrigation and saves water in general.”

The problem, says Garrett, is even regional universities “…don’t recommend the concepts and techniques because they don’t understand them.  Under organic management plants look better and have fewer pest problems, beds and turf areas never have to be taken out and rebuilt due to ‘salting in’ caused by synthetic fertilizers.  Fertilizer applications and sprayings have to be done less often and the irrigation savings is usually in the range of 40-50%.”

When clients don’t follow through with their commitments to sustainability, says Garrett, problems can arise.  One property abandoned Garrett’s recommendations and program guidelines he set forth, and the results have been apparent.

Reflecting upon the results he states, “The original design used the management surface and underground drainage that benefited the site and downstream properties. The surface lakes, the preservation wild native areas and the organic program had a dramatically positive on the site and area in general. Now, the site has been altered, and because of the removal trees and understory growth, bare soil exists and erosion has become common place.  The original design concept I created and have helped mature into something very special has been destroyed…Bare soil and erosion has been created by removing understory plantings and native plants. The lakes are dirtier and wildlife habitat is virtually gone now.”

SUSTAINABLE COMMITMENT

Establishing commitments to our clients that we will design with sustainability as a goal requires far less convincing as it might have once required even a decade ago. However, this reconnection of our clients to nature, to air, and water, and light, and following through on our commitments for the duration of the projects lifetime, is the true challenge.  Establishing rating systems, which in turn establish baselines, through a sustainable metric appears, at least to Levy, to be moving in the right direction.  But, he advises, the essence of sustainable design lies just as strongly in the connections to nature using the most basic natural elements.

“Ever since Thoreau built his cabin in the woods America has been troubled by certain aspects of physics and poetics.  Physics involves our conduct with respect to resources, and poetics concerns itself with the innate human need to connect somehow with nature, yet we tend to focus more on the former because it is quantifiable. The latter is more vague so we tend to shy away from it,” says Levy.  “But its pull is so strong our yearning to connect with nature shows up in other ways.......as recreation for instance:  hiking, gardening, water skiing, golf.  The challenge for the designer is to help satisfy that yearning to connect with nature in our daily routines instead of as a separate activity that we have to ‘go to…I think it's a wonderful new day that we are concerned about the sustainability of our resources.  I think it would be an even better new day if in addition we could be as concerned about our spirits.”
As we begin to assimilate LEED Version 3 into the workplace and educate ourselves and our clients on the next generation of sustainable design, there is good news on the sunlit horizon.

With this latest version of LEED, there is a renewed focus on the weighting of each credit and its impacts on human health.   USGBC states, “With revised credit weightings, LEED now awards more points for strategies that will have greater positive impacts on what matters most – energy efficiency and CO2 reductions. Each credit was evaluated against a list of 13 environmental impact categories, including climate change, indoor environmental quality, resource depletion and water intake, among many others...The result revealed each credit’s portion of the big picture, giving the most value to credits that have the highest potential for making the biggest change.”  

This recommitment by USGBC to tangible, measureable aspects of climate change, air quality, water use, daylighting controls, and emissions standards, among others, will continue to keep these elements and their impacts at the forefront of our growing sustainable ethic.  It’s our responsibility, however, as architects and landscape architects, to keep the intangible, ethereal, soulful aspects of these same elements as part of the design fabric of a deepening connection to the natural world around us.