The Green Ethic

Consider How far we've come.

Just a few short years ago, people who used words like 'green, organic, natural' to describe a better way of life were marginalized and dismissed by most of society, big business, the press, and politicians as if they were a hopeless cult of idealists who "just didn't get it." Conspicuous consumption was pitched as the highest moral paradigm, and Americans bought in - literally. While a few dedicated individuals in the green movement worked tirelessly in the trenches over the 70's, 80's, and 90's, people-turned-consumers were consumed by consumerism.

Now, green is the latest national craze.

"Time to jump on the bandwagon - don't be the last person on your block to go green!" "Look at me, I'm greeeeeeeeeen!!!"

What happened?

Well, to be truthful, gluttonous consumerism caught up with us.

Americans bought big gas-guzzling vehicles, trumped up the price of housing (using the home equity loan like an ATM), and maxed out credit cards to buy things we really could do without. We outsourced everything - even the kitchen sink - under the banner of "globalism." Sprawl was crowned king and McMansions became as ubiquitous as Big Macs.

Now as gas prices head towards $4 a gallon, driving that SUV 60 miles to and from work while your spouse chauffeurs kids through traffic jams from this centralized county school to that far-away soccer field just doesn't look like utopia any more.

For the majority of Americans, its now hitting home (especially the one way out in suburbia or even farther out in exurbia). The financial and cultural strain brought about by a consumption-driven ethic has reached a tipping point. Its not just theory any more; our collective blind eye to the idea of sustainability is affecting people's lives in profoundly negative ways. The cost has been exacted in time, money, and culture. In 2008, the consequences of hyper-consumption are painfully obvious to everybody except the ostriches among us.

(Here's where some of you reading this post can mutter a cathartic "I told you so").

With this realization that "green is good," the business community is taking note.

Automobile companies, who for decades fought against raising gas mileage standards, are now trumpeting hybrid vehicles, even though you can't buy them yet. Developers talk up New Urbanist communities as a green living alternative, although most people can't afford to live in one. Oil and chemical companies are even spinning the PR that the only reason they have ever been in the business is to save the planet. All the while their carbon footprints increase.

Has big business now all of a sudden seen the light? Or is this just a new form of consumerism? Is all the clamor a real sea change, or just "greenwashing" - a term defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as 'the dissemination of misleading information by an organization to conceal its abuse of the environment in order to present a positive public image'?

So what's a nascent green enthusiast to believe? How do we define "green"? How can we know which sustainable options enhance our personal well-being and improve the health of the planet, and which choices are just hype?

I submit to you, the "green ethic."

Over the next few days, we will be discussing the meaning of green. Let's dig deeper than "checklists" and PR campaigns - and hopefully we'll cut through the organic bull droppings. Please feel free to join in on the discussion.

Conservation Neighborhoods by Randall Arendt

One concept jumps out at me when I study Randall Arendt’s ideas for neighborhood design – balance.

Amid a bulls-rush of conventional thinking by real estate developers telling us that every square inch of raw land must be actively developed and sold off to support the “economic viability” of a project, Arendt has tirelessly advocated leaving significant swaths of common natural space as part of the overall development.

Here’s the idea.

Start by taking the conventionally zoned density of a proposed neighborhood - let’s say it happens to be one acre per home site. Instead of carving out a series of one-acre plots stacked boundary to boundary, consolidate the building site to some percentage of that one acre. For the sake of this discussion, each home site becomes a half acre.

A couple of dynamics result.

By downsizing the individual lots, a cluster rather than a linear pattern takes form resulting in less required infrastructure (roads, walks, water, sewer, site grading, etc.) thereby reducing the cost and effort involved in infrastructure development.

And instead of each homeowner having his one acre, half the land in the development is open for all to enjoy. So in a 100 acre development, each homeowner now has access to 50 acres of natural open space instead of just one acre minus the building footprint and drives.

Arendt brilliantly refers to conventionally designed lots as “too big to mow, to small to plow.” But in a conservation neighborhood, “enough” land is allocated to accommodate a reasonable dwelling, and large contiguous areas of the natural landscape are preserved as a community asset. What manifests is the same building density with lower costs to the developer (translated to the homeowner) along with a more sensitive treatment of the natural environment.

This design approach has been called “twice green.” Simultaneously, conservation neighborhoods save money and preserve large areas of the natural environment.

How do you choose the land that should be conserved?

Identify the unbuildable acreage (wetlands and natural drainage areas), woodlands, and unique and beautiful natural amenities presented by the site.

Wetlands and lowlands, for eons, controlled the storm water runoff naturally and free of charge. Filling them in, as many developers are inclined to want to do, brings about new expensive problems handling the storm water and dramatically increases the cost of site preparation. And, the development process generally bogs down with the jurisdiction’s Department of Environmental Quality which frowns (for good reason) on filling in wetlands.

Preserved woodlands help mitigate carbon produced by development and should always be part of an urban clean air strategy.

And have you ever noticed that many developments are named after the natural amenity the developer just destroyed to build the neighborhood, as in Turtle Creek (that only now exists underground in a pipe!)?

Why not keep the wonderful natural beauty that already exists? Designers, no matter how talented, are hard pressed to match the beauty Mother Nature gives us for free.

Back to the concept of “balance.” Conservation neighborhoods create intrinsic balance between developed areas and the natural landscape. Arendt, over the years, has codified the monetary benefit (for the sake of accountants), but the true balance is recognized by the human spirit. Conservation neighborhoods, by experience, prove that beauty is important for the soul.

Here’s a brief clip of Randall Arendt talking about the economic benefits of conservation neighborhoods.

http://www.landchoices.org/docfilm/arendt_clip1.htm

And read more about conservation neighborhoods in one of Randall Arendt’s many books including “Growing Greener” and “Conservation Design for Subdivisions: A Practical Guide to Creating Open Space Networks”.

http://www.greenerprospects.com/products.html


A note to readers: I'll be away from blogging for a little while to catch up on some things. Viruses and the flu seem to be swirling around excessively as of late and I have not been perfectly immune, if you know what I mean, so I've got lots of stacked up design work before me. Keep checking in; be back soon.

Pringle Creek Community, Salem Oregon

A holistically planned sustainable development is taking shape in Salem, Oregon – the Pringle Creek Community.

This community features a walkable design, dedicated green space, community gardens, a village commercial center, super-green construction, and environmentally friendly paving on 32 acres of natural woodland.

True to the spirit of sustainable design, the Pringle Creek Community is expressly non-stylistic, instead making design decisions based on a set of over-riding principles.

1. Build efficiencies by building green
2. Celebrate the natural environment
3. Encourage social diversity
4. Activate the local economy
5. Conserve and reuse natural materials
6. Smart transportation and movement

As an extension of these principles, Pringle Creek has established a set of 35 sustainable design goals further articulating and codifying the design ethic. From the community’s website:

http://www.pringlecreek.com/35sustainablegoals.htm

Comprehensive sustainability plans like this do not happen by accident. Sustainable Development Inc., headed by Don Myers, has been engaged in a conscious effort to build green since buying the 32 acres in 2004. The developer brought in Opsis Architecture, a Portland firm specializing in green design, to articulate the vision.

A couple of high points.

Roads in the community, all flanked by 5 foot sidewalks, are constructed of “porous” or “pervious” paving, a technology designed to allow the passage of water through the paving and back into the soil. Almost all paving used today is impervious to water, thus creating stormwater run-off problems typically managed by expensive, intrusive (and always un-natural) engineering efforts. This, according to the developer, is the largest residential project in the US to utilize porous paving.

Recently, a model home was constructed embodying the neighborhood’s design goals. This home, amazingly, graded out as the highest rated LEED Platinum home in the United States. The home incorporates solar energy, geothermal heating and cooling, as well as a comprehensive array of passive environmental elements.

The rub? A $432,000 price tag for this 1460 square foot home - that's almost $300 per square foot. Not exactly what I would call "affordable" but give credit for the herculean effort.

For more on the community, visit their website at:

http://www.pringlecreekcommunity.com/

This Week: Green Communities

The NAV blog highlights new communities in the United States that incorporate green building ethics into the overall planning and design.