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During the previous building boom it was disheartening to see how much of the natural landscape was routinely destroyed to make way for “cookie-cutter” houses. Row upon row of sameness sprouted up in order to maximize the ROI per acre. Many would say that we didn’t know any better, but I disagree with that assessment. I think we have known better for a very long time but as is usually the case in our profit-driven world we chose to plead ignorance, or to minimize the value of certain natural landscapes, in the quest to make as much money as possible.

In our drive to maximize the number of buildings per acre we have created zones of buildings with postage stamp-sized exterior spaces filled with concrete, pavement, pavers, and a predictable parade of plants that can survive in unnatural surroundings.

But even when we build in expansive spaces there has often been a nonchalant attitude about what we did to the natural world. By the time buildings are finished the soils have been moved around, compacted, spilled upon and generally mistreated. Other parts of existing landscapes are also damaged by the wholesale removal of vegetation and changes in the way rainwater interacts with the site. The efforts to “fit” the building to the landscape have been glaringly sparse.

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has been so struck by the sustainability issues facing our communities that it has released a series of online resource guides related to sustainable design and planning. In the announcement ASLA wrote:

With expanding urbanization and increased competition for scarce resources, cities and local communities face immense challenges ranging from overburdened infrastructure to decreasing amounts of green space. Sustainable design practices can mitigate the effects of rising greenhouse gas emissions, aid in adaptation to climate change, clean air and water, reduce the urban heat island effect and increase the health and wellbeing of residents all while providing significant long-term savings through lower heating and cooling energy costs, higher property values and viable, livable communities.

It was heartening to hear in June 2008 that there was a movement afoot to qualify and quantify the value of the natural environment. This effort was, and still is, championed by the Sustainable Sites Initiative (Initiative). It has been characterized as LEED for landscapes.

The first effort was to devise guidelines for creating sustainable landscapes. To do that the Initiative brought together a range of experts in the disciplines of soils, hydrology, vegetation, materials and human health. Not only did the guidelines seek to cause sustainable landscapes during the design and building phases but it also offered to provide guidance on “regenerating ecological capacity where it has been lost.” This is an extremely comprehensive effort that outlines the guiding principles behind the guidelines, and those guiding principles were vetted through an expansive comment period that returned more than a thousand pages of comments and recommendations from more than 450 respondents.

Now, the Initiative is looking for projects that will “test the first national rating system for sustainable landscapes.” Applications are accepted from November 5 to February 15, 2010. There is a wide range of designed landscapes eligible to participate as long as they exceed 2,000 square feet. From 75 to 150 projects will test the rating system. It appears however the press release announcing this call for projects is premature since none of the involved entities have any information about it available on their sites. This is one you may need to check on again in a week or so.

Back when the Initiative announced its draft for sustainable landscape guidelines the effort was encouraged by the U.S. Green Building Council, and still is, as it plans to incorporate the performance benchmarks into its LEED green building rating system.

While truly sustainable building may be years away, its the efforts like these that keep the evolution going.

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