Study Guide for Sustainable Landscape Construction, 3rd Ed.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

Study Guide for

Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors

by J. William Thompson & Kim Sorvig for use with Editions 3 (2018) or 2 (2007) Island Press (Washington DC)

Using this Guide: The purpose of this guide is to help students using SLC2 as a textbook, practitioners reviewing for certification, and teachers planning class sequences. The guide offers short overviews of each of the Principles around which the book is organized, lists of core competence and knowledge, discussion questions, and potential assignments. Teachers may wish to use the implied sequence of this guide to structure class schedules, or rearrange the order of lectures and discussions; the sequence in this guide follows that of the text itself.  

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The core lists are intended as a guide to concepts that anyone reading the book should take away, whether for a test or as professional understanding.

Discussion questions will help strengthen understanding of key issues, and thus also are important as part of class or exam preparation. Professionals need to develop judgment and informed opinion, not just technical knowledge, about their field.

The assignment lists may help teachers structure classes based on this book. Practitioners or self-educating individuals may want to choose a project for themselves as a method of testing their ability to apply what they have learned. Thinking through how you would respond to an assignment, without actually doing it, may also have value: use the assignment as an extension or refresher of in-class learning.

Each Principle is different; as a result, one may have more emphasis on core knowledge, while another has more discussion questions; not all will have the same type or number of assignment possibilities.

Semester-long project assignments (based on Sorvig’s course at UNM) are listed at the end of the guide.

This guide will not summarize the details of the text for you. The chapter overviews summarize what is covered and major issues discussed for each chapter. The core lists, discussion questions, and assignment lists will mostly be phrased either as questions (“Can sustainability be achieved permanently? Give arguments for and against.”) or as you-should-know statements (“Be able to distinguish between detention, retention, and infiltration as stormwater management approaches.”)

Because the book itself contains Resource lists for each chapter, this guide does not contain more references. Be sure to check the Resource lists as an indication of where to find further details. Look up those details online or at a library if you have a special interest in one of the subjects, or are unclear about it. (For those preparing for certification, knowing where to find detail resources is a major professional skill. Therefore, online exam questions may be based on information in the Resource lists – not on what you find in specific resources, but whether you are aware of the resources that exist.)

This Study Guide is copyrighted: Š2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

Introduction: Sustainability in Context PLUS Jared Diamond, Guns Germs and Steel, Preface, Chapters 8-10, and Epilogue (This Pulitzer Prize winning book is very readable; read the whole thing if at all possible.)

Overview: Sustainability is a goal toward which people aspire and work. It is a value. Definitions of the term vary, and there are those who doubt that it can be achieved, or only in a limited sense. It is critical to understand both the hopes that we place on sustainability, and the concerns that people have about the concept. Landscape professionals need a clear idea of what roles they can and should play in trying to achieve sustainability. It is also essential to understand that landscapes (both wild and built) have always shaped human societies, and continue to provide “environmental services” without which sustainability is impossible. Yet landscape issues are often completely ignored in discussing sustainability.

The Introduction discusses three important “contexts” for sustainability: definitions, including philosophical and political views, and social issues affecting efforts toward sustainability; landscape sustainability in relationship to the global environment, and to climate change in particular; and the relationship(s) between sustainability and aesthetic design.

The second text, Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns Germs and Steel, argues that the relative wealth and power of modern nations can be traced most directly to environmental advantages and disadvantages of the regions in which those cultures developed. The “landscape,” then, is far more than a passive backdrop or decorative stage-set for human history. Landscape professionals who wish to work sustainably must grasp this broader view of the environment as supporting and creating human cultures, and must be able to judge their own efforts within this context.

Without awareness of and serious thought about these contextual issues, designers may find their best intentions either fail to create sustainable results, or even become self-defeating.

Core knowledge:  Understand which standard land-use and landscape practices have negative effects on the larger regional environment, and why.  Know the common definitions of sustainability, and be prepared to speak clearly (to clients, in public meetings) about what can realistically be achieved, what pitfalls there may be, and the social and economic barriers to sustainable work.  Recognize the pitfalls of describing any place or product as “natural,” and the equal pitfalls of ascribing everything about a place to “culture.” (See Discussion Questions)  Distinguish carefully among the terms conventional, traditional, and innovative as they relate to sustainable design and construction.  Recognize the types of “green certification” programs for construction, their benefits and limitations, and how they relate to landscapes differently than to buildings.  Understand the importance of site-focused teams in design and construction, know how to form such a team, and how to establish sustainable goals from the beginning of each project.  Recognize the existence of environmental injustice – that poor and ethnic minority people tend to live and work in more-polluted landscapes while healthy and beautiful places are increasingly privatized. Be able to anticipate when issues of environmental justice are likely to influence a project. Know when to get specialist help to communicate clearly and fairly across economic and cultural divides, and to do community-based planning.  Be aware of changes in how much time people spend outdoors and in wild or natural settings, and of how changing attitudes about the outdoors affect landuse and landscape practices.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Know about Architecture 2030’s initiatives to make all buildings carbon-neutral by that year.

Understand how land clearance contributes to greenhouse gases and global warming, and that this contribution is roughly equal to the total effects of burning fossil fuels.  Think carefully about the relationships between sustainability and style – how form follows function in landscapes, both wild and constructed, and how construction changes ecological functions.  Know the definition of fractal geometry, how fractals typify bio-geological landscapes, and how constructed shapes contrast with or fit into fractal forms.  Some built environments have significant ecological function and contribute measurably to sustainability. Other built environments (including some but not all that look naturalistic) claim to be sustainable, but actual performance is poor, absent, and often disguised. Consider the differences and distinguishing traits of landscapes in each category.  Be aware of landscape types that offer special opportunities for sustainability efforts today, and consider whether these opportunities are likely to continue, or to shift to other landscape types in the future.

Discussion questions:  What does sustainable mean to you? Does it apply differently to lifestyles and consumer issues than to buildings and landscapes? Do others use the word to mean different things than you do?  Discuss the ways in which Jared Diamond explains the influence of regional landscapes, ecosystems, and non-human species on the development of human culture and technology.

How does his understanding of the environment differ from the way ‘environment’ is viewed by people you know? Diamond offers an environmentally-based explanation for the wide variations in development between countries or peoples; what are other common explanations, and what are the advantages of Diamond’s approach?  As a group define the word “natural.” Then think of ways to shoot holes in that definition, and suggest another. Keep going. What’s left?  Read the article “Nature/Culture/Words/Landscapes,” Landscape Journal 21, no. 2 (2002) pages 1-14. Discuss examples you have experienced when “nature” and “culture” have been used sloppily, to win arguments by dividing opinion or to mislead people about a project, proposal, or objection to a project. Discuss examples from your own experience when these two key terms have been used clearly and have helped to solve problems rather than create them.  Has commercial adoption of “green” and “sustainable” as selling points done more good, or more harm? Is this different in effects on the built environment than, for example, in marketing cars or food products? How do green building programs fit into this discussion?  Imagine that you are an American recently immigrated from another culture. How does the fact that you have just arrived affect your access to and attitudes about the built environment? Pick a specific foreign culture that you know a little about: how would you expect cultural attitudes about the environment to be different than “mainstream American”? Do you think seniors, women (single or with children), or children themselves have different access to and experiences of “the environment” or “the landscape” than men? Pick one of these groups and consider how a public landscape design or construction project might change if that group was the main client for your services.  Discuss what motivates people to deny that global climate change is occurring and/or that it is accelerated by human activities. How do (or could) such arguments impact projects of the type

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

you expect to work on (or actually work on now)? Why do fossil fuels get so much more attention than land clearance as sources of greenhouse gases?  Imagine a future in which all the landscapes you live and work in are sustainable. What would they look like? Will they be beautiful? Whimsical? Visually startling?  Can sustainability exist in one country if other countries do not also achieve it?

Suggested assignments:  Write an essay (or make a verbal presentation, with or without graphics) addressing the following questions: How do today’s landscape professions (design, construction, maintenance, and suppliers of plants and hardscape materials) relate to sustainability? Are these professions setting and achieving significant goals toward sustainability? How is sustainability defined by practicing professionals and by teachers and writers in these professions? What large-scale sustainability issues facing society at large are having an impact on the professions – and which ones need to? [Architects, urbanists, engineers, and other related professionals can substitute their own industry; be sure to include “white- and blue- collar” aspects, maintenance/operations, and suppliers; planners should adapt the question, including professional planners, political decision-makers, agency staff, and public participants.]  Pick a historical culture, a religious group, an artistic ‘movement’ or school, and a specific architect, landscape architect, or urban designer. For each one, describe briefly what their relationship to the ‘wild’ environment (or ‘nature’) was, and how it influenced their behavior, their work, or their history. (This can be a major research assignment to be written up in footnoted form, or a brief presentation of images and impressions. For practitioners, it can be a way to re-invigorate your thinking about your own work when burnout threatens.)  For any of the groups listed in the above assignment, or those mentioned in Discussion Questions, sketch and describe a garden, park, or other landscape designed in a way they would appreciated. Try to consider both the functions such a group would expect, and what the tangible results would look like. Then evaluate each design in terms of its effects, positive and negative, on the non-human aspects of the environment.

Principle 1: Keep Healthy Sites Healthy Overview: Except for bedrock geology, almost every aspect of a landscape or ecosystem can be analyzed and described in terms of health. Human health interacts with and depends on the health of surrounding environments, both because healthy sites provide “environmental services” such as air and water purification, and because some types of unhealthy sites may encourage the spread of human disease. As population, development, and resource consumption pressures intensify, it becomes increasingly important to be able to recognize good and bad health in sites, protecting healthy ones and restoring less-healthy ones. It is also critical to improve the landscape profession’s ability to monitor and document changes in site health and performance resulting from development. Monitoring and performance analysis is essential if we are to avoid repeating damaging practices, and to substantiate claims of sustainable work.

This chapter discusses practices, from pre-development through construction operations, that can prevent damage to existing healthy sites.

Core knowledge:  Understand that “health” is not a simple condition to define or diagnose, in sites just as in people. Know who to call, and what types of data and knowledge will be needed to determine how healthy a site is, and what factors are important in keeping it that way.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Recognize and take action against the common practice of “pre-clearing” sites. Understand how this practice contributes completely unnecessarily to greenhouse gas releases.  Site selection for development is often based on purely economic grounds, and legalistic zoning codes. Understand how this frequently conflicts with protection of site health. Know how and when to form a team that can do better at integrating development with a healthy site and region.  Be aware of new and conventional published sources of data, the value of local on-the-ground experience, and the importance of good visualization tools in anticipating the effects of development and construction.  Make use of on-site survey methods that minimize site damage while maximizing relevant information.  Understand the different space requirements of utility infrastructure (and related transportation, see Principle 5), and develop methods of creatively minimizing the negative impacts of infrastructure corridors and installations.  Understand how flexible grading plans and field-adjustment of grade can save existing site features and improve post-construction site performance.  Recognize the crucial importance of physical barriers to separate the ‘construction envelope’ from site areas requiring protection. Understand the need to limit construction activities, including temporary traffic, that can compact or contaminate soil or damage vegetation. Know how to plan for, communicate, and enforce the placement of site protection fences, staging areas, and other physical devices.  Recognize the special limitations of construction around and under trees.  Comprehend the importance in site work of light-weight and fuel-efficient machines.

Understand why heavier-is-better has become a common attitude about machinery – and why this is a problem for sustainable construction. Know the traditional and innovative alternatives to mechanized methods.  Understand the value of community stewardship organizations, covenants, conservation easements, and similar legal and planning tools for site protection. Understand how to specify site protection in design, construction, and maintenance contracts.

Discussion questions:  American law tends to favor developing (or “improving”) every piece of land to its most profitable use, which is often called “highest and best use.” How can this conflict with the value of undeveloped or conserved sites? What non-financial values does healthy land offer? Can these be quantified, and if so, can those quantities be converted into monetary terms? How? If these values were accounted for, what would “highest and best use” become?  How do the costs of protecting land compare to the benefits derived by the landowner? Is this different if the owner lives on the land, has business premises there, or is a developer?  When is complete hands-off protection of a site or region ethically justified? To what extent should an owner of land or resources be allowed to develop, change, or exploit that property if so doing will injure neighbors? If it damages adjacent land or resources? If it damages irreplaceable resources, even though these are entirely on the owner’s property? Assuming hands-off protection is ethically justified, to what extent does the legal system support this? To what extent is there conflict between legal and ethical considerations?

Suggested assignments:  For a site in your region, determine whether the site is healthy. Research what would have grown there and lived there historically. Was it probably managed by native people, using fire

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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or selective clearance for example, prior to modern development? What is the history of modern land-use? Based on the above research, is the site currently supporting a healthy ecosystem and biodiversity? Is it “sick” with contaminants or organisms that cause problems?

Are any site conditions unusually dangerous to people? Could the site support the health of people who lived or worked on it, or would time spent on the site tend to threaten or diminish those people’s health?

For a site in your region, establish a description of the site in excellent health (this may be its actual condition, or a hypothetical condition past or future). Describe what on-site and off-site conditions, inputs, outputs, and resources are essential to establishing and maintaining the site in good health. Consider how and whether the site could be kept in good health if those off-site conditions changed. Consider what size a site of this type would have to be in order to be completely protected from major negative impacts that originate off-site.

Make a catalog, with illustrations, of site protection equipment; ways of documenting physical site protection; and low- to moderate-impact site tools and machinery. Start with equipment and methods applicable in your region; note which are in common use and which are less known; if desired, expand the catalog to include other regions.

Research the history of legal and regulatory attempts to protect healthy sites. These vary from country to country, and even state to state. This assignment could take various forms. Compile a list of successful and legally-enforceable methods of ensuring site health by limiting or even preventing development (either specific types of development, or all development, i.e. conservation). Contrast two countries’ or jurisdictions’ laws concerning site protection, and how those laws balance with private or public use of land. Compare the laws and practices used to protect historic buildings or landmarks, and those applicable to protection of ecosystems and living landscapes. Compare and contrast the rights accorded to living landscapes and the human and non-human creatures living there, with the rights claimed by owners of subsurface mineral rights, or water rights; how does protection of ecosystems rate in comparison to extractive industry uses?

Principle 2: Heal Injured Sites Overview: In a consumer culture, land is a commodity, traded, used, and often discarded. Changing this destructive paradigm is a critical part of future sustainability, but in the meantime, thousands of “damaged” sites need repair. These are most often the result of extractive industries (mining, oil and gas, timber, and some types of livestock production), or manufacturing, all of which have a disastrous track record of abandoning land when it is no longer profitable. Transportation and utility infrastructure can also leave scars in the landscape, and most current methods of waste disposal create large areas of land that are difficult to use for anything else.

Restoring landscape ecosystems to health – and for some purposes, restoring places to specific historical conditions – is a specialized area of practice. Much of the work is given to environmental engineers; their methods are usually heavily technological and thus energy-costly, and sometimes border on brutal; the standard for judging a landscape to be restored frequently extends no further than minimal soil-stabilizing vegetation. Landscape architectural methods focus on biological solutions, using plants to clean soil and water and, once soil health is restored, helping a biodiverse vegetative community to re-establish itself. Many landscapefocused restorations create productive landscapes, such as community gardens.

This chapter discusses types of sites requiring restoration, and how to evaluate whether restoration is feasible and what combinations of landscape-based and engineering approaches are most

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

appropriate. It covers soil restoration and vegetative methods, with sections on forest restoration as a critical part of wildfire defense and as one of the necessary steps in slowing global climate change.

Core knowledge:  Know the differences among derelict sites, brownfields, and toxic waste sites, and the general levels of expertise and resources required for successful restoration of each of these main types of injured sites.  Develop judgment about when site restoration is feasible and appropriate, and when it is not.

Understand the criteria on which such decisions need to be made.  Recognize how and why a community will support site restoration, and the resources that local residents bring to the process. Also recognize the dark side of this equation: when and why communities may oppose restoration or refuse to maintain a restored site.  Understand the differences between “barn-raising,” community garden, and garden festival approaches to site restoration. Each gets money, resources, labor, and public approval in different ways. Consider which method(s) would work best on which types of sites.  Be aware of the potential for reclaiming landfills for secondary uses, and of the special methods required for revegetation and water management on such sites.  Become familiar with large-scale “reforestation” methods used for site restoration outside urban areas. Consider where and under what community circumstances such methods might be applied in rural, suburban, or urban settings.  Understand the severe problems caused by large uniformly sloped grading. Recognize that the engineering profession’s insistence on this type of grading is outdated and misguided, and learn the advantages of alternative methods well enough to advocate for them. Know the financial and environmental benefits of landform grading, stepped-slope grading, subsoil shaping, and balanced cut and fill.  Restoration of soil and vegetation overlaps with protection or restoration of hydrological patterns, especially local and regional infiltration and drainage. Understand these overlaps.

(Bio-engineering with plants is covered in Principle 3; water issues in Principle 4.)  Know when structures are important sources of damage to sites. Ask whether it may be appropriate to remove excessive or obsolete paving, drainage structures, or dams, and whether structures still in use can be modified with greenroofs and greenwalls.  Prioritize the value of topsoil. Understand why topsoil should almost never be imported from other sites, and how to protect it on-site by proper stockpiling methods.  Understand the chemical and microbial basis for soil fertility, how to obtain soil analysis that covers both these key aspects, and why “amending” soil can be excessive if not carefully matched to local conditions.  Know the basics of recycling vegetation via greenwaste, green manure crops, compost, and compost teas.  Be familiar with biosolids (composted sewage), and the potential benefits in non-agricultural soil fertilization. Know the established safety standards, testing, and labeling requirements for biosolids. Recognize that fear and controversy have impeded its acceptance for landscape use, and understand when there might be actual health concerns, as opposed to knee-jerk reaction against any use of human waste to restore soil.  Be able to define “manufactured soil” and understand the concept, as well as where and why such soils are appropriate.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Understand what differentiates invasive plants from other human-introduced species; the amount of economic and ecological damage caused by invasive plants; and the practical and political difficulties in invasive plant management.  Recognize the differences between cultivating individual specimen plants and restoring vegetation communities and plant-succession processes. Also recognize that regional plant communities grow in spatial patterns that are critical to their survival and their value as wildlife habitat.  Know the difference between phytoremediation and bioremediation, and the situations in which these techniques are most effective.  Understand the vicious circle relationship between vegetation clearance and drought, and how drought increases the intensity, unpredictability, and frequency of wildfire. Recognize the political pressures that lead to adopting vegetation removal as the main or only action against wildfire, despite many other much more effective strategies. Understand how genuine forest restoration can reverse the cycle of drought and wildfire, and how these issues relate to global climate change.

Discussion questions:  What is “site health” and how can it be recognized or tested? How is it similar to and different from the health of humans, animals, or individual plants? What does it mean to restore health to people, and is this the same as restoring a landscape to health?  What are the differences between restoring a landscape for ecological health, and restoring a period landscape to its original condition? What similarities exist between these types of restoration? What are the practical results of these similarities and differences?  What are some of the reasons why people sometimes oppose landscape restoration? Are those reasons primarily economic, cultural, or psychological? Which of the reasons appear valid, and which are poorly justified? Are people more likely to be attached to certain types of landscapes than others? If so, how do these attachments conflict with or support the goal of bringing sites back to productive health as regionally-adapted vegetation?  When is a community justified, economically, in saying that site restoration is not feasible?

Consider direct and indirect costs, benefits, and the likelihood of longterm success.  Are public parks and sports facilities the best use for landfill restoration sites? If not, what would you suggest as better uses? Will landfills ever be eliminated entirely?  In addition to biological and structural advantages, landform grading is much more visually acceptable to most people. What are the possible reasons for this? (It is not a sufficient answer simply to say landform grading “looks natural” – what does that mean, and why would it make such forms more acceptable to people?)  How long to landscape structures generally last before failing, becoming obsolete, or being abandoned or replaced? Does this vary regionally? What problems do deterioration or loss of such structures cause, related to sustainability? What is the economic cost? How many landscape structures can truly be called necessary, and how many could be eliminated or replaced without major social or ecological disruption?  What is a healthy soil? How does this concept differ between agriculture and other land-uses?

How does it vary regionally, and over time?  Can manufactured soils replace the quantities of soil that have historically been lost or damaged due to construction?  Is the term “invasive plant” one that you consider legitimate? Explain your position, and consider opposing arguments.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Soil organisms and plants have broken down and recycled human and animal wastes since our first ancestors. What is different about sewage from modern technological facilities that could disrupt this process or make sewage dangerous to the environment or to people using the environment? Considering the amount of animal wastes in the soil today, how great is the increase in risk if biosolids are added? Support your arguments with facts, nor prejudices.  If because of climate change, it were decided that vegetation removal on residential land was illegal, what would be the best remaining strategies for preventing wildfire from damaging structures?

Suggested assignments:  Pick a site in your region, outside any urban area. Use the US Natural Resource Conservation Service’s published Soil Survey in printed form to determine the soil types on the site. For each soil type, determine what timber production would be possible (if any); which agricultural crops or grazing would be suitable; and what limits the soil would place on construction. Repeat this exercise using the NRCS on-line publications, and compare what information is available in these two formats. Determine how your site has been used historically, and for each land-use, list likely on-site activities that may have impacted the soils.  Using published resources (on-line and print), determine which bioregion you spend most of your time in. List the major soil families or groupings found in the bioregion, and how they vary in fertility and structural stability (there should usually be only a few major soil types; do not confuse these with specific named soils found at site-specific levels of detail). List the major vegetation communities (again, not individual species, but types of forest, grassland, etc), and under what conditions these communities are usually found. Finally, see if you can locate one or more lists of invasive plant species that cause problems in your chosen bioregion – do not use generalized national lists, and consider whether state-wide lists fit the bioregion or not.  Locate a site in your region that has suffered some form of chemical pollution. Using on-line and print resources, try to locate a method of phytoremediation that would remove the specific pollutants from your site. List the plant species used for this purpose, and find out what is required to cultivate them. Note any bioremediation methods available for the pollutants you identified.  Research and identify any fire-adapted plant communities and species that grow in your bioregion (or smaller area if appropriate). Similarly, identify species and communities that require periodic flooding to reproduce, spread, or survive. Map the natural (pre-development) distribution of these fire- and flood-adapted communities in your region. Use a current landuse map to determine what major types of development have occurred in these areas; list how such development might conflict with fire or flood, and whether development has adapted to fire and flood (or could do so).

Principle 3: Favor Living, Flexible Materials Overview: Plants are the only truly productive creatures on this planet – every other organism (with extremely rare exceptions) lives off the photosynthetic production of plants, directly or indirectly. Yet plants are widely treated as dispensable or interchangeable. Whole urban regions lack them; agriculture replaces them; forestry simplifies forests, while mining and development mining obliterate them.

Plants have financially quantifiable value for the environmental services they provide; for the crops and other materials they produce; and for their desirability as assets in real estate. They also have

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

documented but less-tangible value in improving human health, both physical and mental, by their presence in an environment.

In addition to these general values, plants are the basis of many of ‘green building’ techniques. Those covered in this section include soil stabilization, erosion control, and stormwater management with bioengineering, greenwalls and greenroofs. Biofiltration and constructed wetlands (Principle 4), phytoremediation of pollutants (Principle 2), and moderating the heat-island effect (Principle 5) are also dependent on plant life.

Because of their unparalleled financial and environmental importance, construction for and with plants demands the best knowledge, most current practices, and highest quality work. Landscape professionals are often in an excellent position to provide the needed skills, but some firms still treat planting as a careless afterthought using their least-skilled workers.

This section covers bioengineering, greenwalls and greenroofs; the valuation of landscape trees; design of structures and soil mixes for street trees and planters; selection, handling, and care of planting materials; and the value of plants native to the region.

Core knowledge:  Know the meaning of bioengineering in the construction context (not confused with biological engineering of humans and other species). Understand how and why bioengineering combines living plants with structural elements to produce a hybrid that can outperform either parent.  Recognize the main types of bioengineered structures, particularly live-stakes, fascines, brushlayers, and the uses of geogrid.  Understand the special need to make all bioengineering projects (including green roofs and walls) site-specific and regionally-adapted, and to evaluate, monitor, and fine-tune them for a period of several years after installation.  Be prepared to educate clients, engineers, and regulatory agencies about the long-term costeffectiveness of bioengineering, and to overcome preconceptions about “soft” approaches to soil and water issues.  Know the main types of greenwall system, where they would be most appropriate, and the purposes they serve. Be prepared to justify these approaches, when they are appropriate, on both cost and environmental grounds.  Understand the differences between greenroofs and conventional roof gardens in terms of structural designs, lifecycle resource cost/benefits, and public vs. private benefits.  Know and be prepared to present the environmental performance benefits of greenroofs, as well as their capacities to protect and extend the life of the underlying roof structure.  Be aware of the rate of loss of urban forests in the US and elsewhere, both in absolute numbers of trees, and in monetary losses. Recognize what a large percentage of these losses are due to conventional and careless practices in the construction, development, and site-management industries. Understand the variety of ways that tree plantings can be appraised and valued.  Be familiar with current root-zone volume recommendations for planted trees and shrubs, as well as drainage and freeboard requirements.  Know the main structural innovations available for improving the life of trees in paved areas, including structural soils, specialized trench and pit designs, and the related use of porous pavement (Principle 5).  Take a reasoned view of the concept of native plants. Understand the definition of “native” and recognize that it cannot be hard and fast. Know the difference between native and invasive species (Principle 1). Understand the resource benefits of preserving and planting native

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

vegetation communities, as well as the risk of that regional vegetation differences will be lost to horticultural homogeneity.  Know – and be able to specify and achieve – the best professional practices in plant selection, handling, transportation, storage, installation, establishment, and maintenance.  Recognize the negative effects of excessive areas of turf, whether artificial or real. Be prepared to evaluate critically, for a given situation where carefully limited turf is appropriate, whether living turfgrass, artificial turf, or alternative groundcover or meadow plantings have the fewest environmental costs and the most sustainable benefits.

Discussion questions:  Plants are arguably the most important living things on earth, because every other life form depends on them. List the products and services in modern life that derive from plants directly or indirectly. Discuss the possible reasons why modern society often fails to recognize the critical importance of plants. How much of the focus of the popular environmental movement is on plants, as opposed to protection of wildlife and of scenic places?  Should urban areas produce their own food within the city boundaries? What are the advantages, disadvantages, and potential risks of such an approach?  Most European countries have “plant protection orders” that prevent landowners from removing significant specimen trees or large areas of vegetation without planning permission.

Should the US adopt a similar policy?  What are the problems when native vegetation is replaced, over large areas cumulatively, with horticultural species imported from other regions? Do these risks and problems justify a policy of requiring native plants in landscape designs? If so, should the policy be strict, or require that a percentage (of areas planted or preserved, or of numbers of plantings) be native? Would such a policy work better or be more important in some regions than in others? How would such a policy relate to the issue of invasive species?  What is the philosophy or mind-set that makes some engineers adamantly opposed to bioengineering and related approaches to land stabilization and stormwater management?

What practical benefit do they (and developers, political agencies, and contractors) believe they derive from conventional methods? How do these pragmatic beliefs relate to a broader worldview about dealing with natural systems?

Suggested assignments:  Using the resources listed in the text, locate one or more bioengineering, greenroof, or greenwall projects within your region. Visit them if possible. Analyze the design, including the reasons why specific methods were chosen and the goals of the project. If possible, locate projects very near the bioengineered ones that used hard methods of soil and water management; compare the results. Consider whether these reports can be made publically available.  Check with municipal, county, state, and academic sources to determine whether list(s) of native species exist for your region; also check for lists of officially-accepted urban tree species, and for official (often state-level) noxious weed or invasive plant lists. Compare these lists. How many of the natives are on the acceptable planting list? How many of the noxious weeds are horticultural imports, and how many are native or from nearby bioregions? List the landscape plant nurseries in your region (including mass-market sources like Home Depot’s garden department). Of these, how many advertise native species? Obtain catalogs from as many regional nurseries as possible, and compare them against the native, accepted, and weed lists.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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For a thesis project or as part of professional education, locate several comparable-sized projects near one another and in relatively similar conditions in your region that differ in use of native plants vs. conventional horticulture, or plant-based erosion and stormwater techniques vs. pave-and-pipe methods. Document before and after conditions, and performance (planting survival rates, runoff quantity, sediment and pollution content of runoff, rate of soil loss, etc.) If possible, compare to a similar area of established native plant community. If possible, compare life-cycle costs of each project.

List the main types of hard/mechanical erosion control and stormwater management products, using professional magazines as a guide. Note the purposes for which these products are advertised. For each type, analyze what bioengineering techniques would serve some or all of the advertised functions. Note whether a hard product could be completely replaced, or only partly replaced, by bioengineering; and note any product that has no bioengineering alternative.

Analyze and write or present conclusions about potential synergies and conflicts among techniques in Principles 3 and 4 (vegetative and water-focused, respectively). If there are conflicts, how could these be resolved? How could synergies be maximized? How much do synergies or conflicts depend on site-specific conditions, and to what extent could a set of “best practices” be developed that would guide the use of these techniques for any site (at least within a region)?

 Principle 4: Respect the Waters of Life Overview: Water is both a widespread global material, and a very scarce resource. To say that water is life is a cliché, but an unavoidably valid one. The value of fresh water to human, animal, and plant life is so great that it may soon topple even the demand for energy as our number one priority. A very large number of sustainability strategies and techniques are focused on conserving, protecting, and re-purifying water. Some of these techniques are specific to buildings and utility infrastructure, but a surprising number of them are landscape-specific.

In the landscape, water shapes landforms and moistens soil; differences in these water-driven conditions are major influences on geographic distribution of species and communities.

Patterns of natural water movement, although constantly changing, are in dynamic equilibrium in most regions, enough so to support biodiversity. These patterns must be understood as the baseline for human land-use of any sustainable sort.

Both by redirecting water for urban, industrial, and agricultural supply, and through development that creates surfaces through which water cannot infiltrate, human settlements change water patterns in ways ranging from subtle to brutal. Most landscape activities can – and must – be evaluated in terms of their effects on regional water.

Methods of protecting water bodies, and of restoring them, are sufficiently different from land protection and restoration that they are covered separately, although clearly interrelated.

These include the protection and restoration (and brokering or re-creation) of wetlands, mandated by law.

Conserving water involves a variety of techniques from rainwater harvesting to increasingly efficient irrigation products, “double use” of greywater, and similar methods.

Soil organisms, plants, and wetlands have been the main agents of water purification since the world began; modern biofiltration methods seem like innovations, but are actually far older and better-tested than most mechanical methods of cleansing water.

Core knowledge:

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Know where to find information about regional and site hydrological patterns, and why it is critical to respect and incorporate these in all planning and design.  Understand that not all regions have equal water availability, and be prepared for increasing limitations on landscape design and construction that attempts to use water to override local conditions.  Make a mantra of the concept of “dealing with things close to their source.” This is a guiding principle not only for stormwater management, but for many other sustainable strategies.

Understand why conventional engineers violate this basic principle so often, and develop the ability to argue persuasively against out-of-sight, out-of-mind treatment of water.  Be familiar with the legal definition of and regulations on wetlands. Recognize the limitations of these definitions, and the fact that sustainability may well require going beyond the letter of the law. Understand the problems with “re-creating” wetlands in ways that actually meet the ecological functions of the systems the “replace,” and the related questions about the validity of “brokering” and “banking” wetlands. Recognize that wetlands restoration is almost always a team effort, and requires specialist help.  Know the main techniques of low-impact construction that can protect existing wetlands during work, and that can provide public access to wetlands with minimum disruption.  Get a general understanding of stream restoration practices, including that they overlap with wetland practices and require similar team expertise.  Learn how precipitation can be harvested from roofs, paving, and planted surfaces. Recognize that some state laws limit the ability to store harvested water, but generally at least allow it to be infiltrated. Consider the variety of ways in which precipitation can be channeled from collectors to storage or infiltration, and the opportunities to use this process as an educational, interpretive, and celebratory device, as well as for practical irrigation purposes.  Understand why irrigation efficiency must always be evaluated against a baseline of an unirrigated, precipitation-only landscape.  Be aware of recent improvements in irrigation performance, especially in controllers, sensors, and leak-preventing valves. Be familiar with the Irrigation Association’s Best Management Practices for design, installation, and operation. Recognize that landscape irrigation may be reaching peak efficiency, and that many municipal policies treat irrigation as the first sacrifice in any drought.  Know the energy and materials costs of irrigation systems.  Understand the definition of greywater, the structural and maintenance changes required in irrigating with it, and the variations in legal acceptance of this water-conserving practice.  Understand the power of wetlands (and related bioswales and vegetative filters, Principle 5) to purify water cost-effectively while providing landscape amenities. Be familiar with the basic types of constructed wetland, and recognize that designing such features usually involves special expertise, but can be incorporated in many types of landscape.

Discussion questions:  Which commodity currently costs more per gallon, gasoline or bottled water? Which causes the greatest problems of availability and quality throughout the world, water or oil? Mineral production, especially oil and gas, increasingly conflict with water supply; how do you think these conflicts will ultimately play out or be resolved?  Try making a specific list of all the roles water plays in life on this planet. Which of these are potentially or actually impacted by human activities?

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Consider the concept of “brokering” or “banking” – is it legitimate? Is it more or less so when used for wetlands destroyed by development, than when applied to pollutant releases, carbon offsets, or “transfer of development rights”? What are the local and global benefits of each, and where does each potentially cross the line into excusing continued unsustainable behavior?  Under what circumstances would you approve of “restoring” a stream in a way that did not restore all its ecological functions? Is there a cut-off point in terms of minimum functionality, below which the costs of restoration are not justified? If so, how would you decide where to draw that line?  Give examples why “close-to-source” and “close-to-point-of-use” solutions work better, are more sustainable, and save resources, compared to long-distance, centralized solutions.

Consider not only landscape structures like stormwater infiltration devices, but also social solutions, such as different modes of transportation or manufacturing. The ancient Chinese Taoist, Lao Tzu, similarly recommended “Deal with problems while they are small.” What is the relationship between “small” and “close”?  Is it legitimate to cut off landscape irrigation first, and in some cases without other water conservation measures, when a community is threatened by drought? What are arguments pro and con? What would justify limits on other water uses in order to preserve some reduced level of irrigation? What changes in landscape design and technology do these issues imply?

Suggested assignments:  In a hydrology or geomorphology text, learn the major types of surface drainage patterns and their relationships to underlying geology and groundwater recharge zones. Then identify and map the types of drainage patterns found in your region. Identify watershed boundaries and stream orders within the region, and locate major aquifer recharge areas.  Locate and visit one or more constructed stormwater or wastewater treatment wetlands in your region. Analyze and document the design; record your own experience of the place. If possible, interview both professional and public individuals who are familiar with the design and performance of the facility. Consider whether your results can be made public.  Do a comprehensive search for irrigation controllers (which will locate agricultural ones as well as landscape equipment). Compare and contrast the basic methods by which each controller determines when water is necessary; how it controls the valves and heads; and at what distances it can be connected to a system of valves. If possible, compare brands and prices, and note whether the designs are compatible with any valve model, or only certain brands or models.  Research local and regional regulations and incentives for water conservation. What do they add up to, in terms of greywater, water harvesting, irrigation design and equipment, and requirements for water-conserving design, such as Xeriscape? Are they based primarily on requirements or incentives? Are they primarily about equipment, or about planning and design? What has been the public reaction to such government policies?  Locate and map all sources of supply for water used in your city or region. Differentiate between groundwater and surface water sources, and between municipal and private sources if applicable. See if you can find estimates of existing supplies and reserves, rates of use (by sector or industry, if possible), and rates of water-table decline per year. If possible, map this information into a GIS system.

Principle 5: Pave Less Overview:

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

There is, on-line, a Pave The Planet Society. Fortunately, it is satirical. Unfortunately, its goal is no joke.

Increasingly extensive areas of the earth’s surface are paved as development continues. The problems caused by paving – loss of fertile soil and habitat, preventing precipitation from infiltrating and thus dramatically increasing runoff volume and force, heat retention, and impoverishment of the visual environment – are well known, but the pressure to widen roads and expand parking lots seems never-ending.

Much of this pavement is truly unnecessary, especially where parking space is dictated by law and based on peak use that occurs once a year. Some paving, such as road widening, is necessitated by systems which are themselves unsustainable, such as the American refusal to invest in public transportation. Finally, much of the pavement that exists or is installed yearly is overbuilt and unnecessarily impervious.

The total area of pavement needs to be minimized and in some places actively reduced by design and planning methods, and where possible, all remaining pavement should be designed to minimize its environmental impacts, particularly on stormwater runoff. This includes porous designs of pavement itself, and design of adjacent areas to infiltrate pavement runoff close to the source.

Core knowledge:  Understand the enormous investment of resources and labor represented by pavement.

Recognize that constantly growing volumes of traffic can only result in two situations: expanded pavement areas, or major traffic congestion.  Be familiar with initiatives that improve the quality of life by reducing dependence on cars and pavement. These include Walkable Communities, New Urbanism, light-rail and other public transit investments, sprawl reduction and growth area boundaries, and other policies.

Understand how each affects the design of open space, public landscapes, and private residential landscapes.  Understand why maintaining existing pavement (and other infrastructure) should take priority over building new roads – and why Federal funding ignores this concept.  Be familiar with the way in which parking quotas and street widths are set in conventional building codes, and why these usually create large underused paved areas.  Understand the trend toward “Context Sensitive” road design, which gives the cultural and natural environment greater weight in roadway design that engineers have conventionally been willing to do. Understand how this relates to “traffic calming” and to the claim, by traffic engineers, that wider, straighter, and flatter roads are safer.  Be able to define “road ecology” and what it says about wildlife and highways. Recognize the potential for sustainable design to reclaim right-of-way and create various types of structural wildlife crossings.  Know the alternatives to conventional paving: gravel parking and roads, planted systems that can support traffic, and porous paving. Understand the several types of porous pavement, and where each is most appropriate.  Understand why and how gutters and curbs can be made permeable, how to design noncontiguous impervious surface systems, and how to create bioswales and ‘green streets’ that handle their own runoff directly.  Be familiar with the concepts of scattered parking and “separation of traffic” (vehicular, bicycle, and pedestrian, as Olmsted did in Central Park, NYC), and understand how these can minimize grading and site disturbance as well as increase safety.  Understand the urban “heat island effect” and the role played in it by paving. Know the several methods available for reducing heat retention by paving.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

Discussion questions:  Paved roads appear to be considered a “universal good” by many people – something of which more is always better. What other constructed systems or structures seem to be similarly treated by society? For each such system, how would “less is more” apply, or would it?  The Americans with Disabilities Act requires flat solid access to all buildings and most public outdoor places. This has greatly increased the amount of impervious pavement, limited other options, increased the number of parking spaces required to be paved, and required the retrofitting of extensive ramps. A former architecture school dean once suggested that it would be more cost-effective for the government to buy a stair-climbing wheelchair (which does exist) for every person who needed one, than to undertake all the ADA-compliant construction. What is your reaction to this proposal, and to the environmental impacts of ADA?  Public meetings about road expansion projects usually boil down to residents objecting to the destruction of roadside features (built and natural) and highway engineers overriding these objections on the grounds of “safety.” It is clear that the engineering concept of safety is that people must be allowed to drive as fast as they choose, and still prevented from accidents.

Traffic calming studies, however, show that speed is the main danger, increasing the likelihood and severity of accidents no matter what the roadway design. How can these two positions be reconciled, and what would it imply for community design if they were?  Do humans have an ethical responsibility to protect wildlife from traffic, as we have with livestock and human pedestrians? How far should this responsibility extend? Would it warrant shutting down certain highways where roadkill rates are particularly high?  Asphalt and concrete pavement (even when porous) rely on materials whose production and use is energy-intensive, polluting, and directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions. Assuming for discussion that global climate change is a reality requiring serious action, should these forms of paving be minimized, banned, or replaced with other materials or other systems? What might the substitutes be?

Suggested assignments:  Locate and visit several porous pavement installations in your region (see lists in Ferguson’s book as a starting point). Document these installations, their current condition and appearance.

Dump a liter of water on a typical part of the surface, and time how long it takes until all the water infiltrates; then roughly measure the wetted surface area. Compare these performance measures for the different installations.  Obtain a map of traffic accidents on you region’s roads (police departments and insurance companies may have such maps, or you may need to make them from police statistics). If possible, mark accidents where injuries occurred, and ones resulting in fatalities, with different colors than non-injury accidents. Try to determine where the most accidents occur, and whether this correlates to road width, speed limit, or condition. Does this correlation change if you only consider injury and fatality accidents?  Locate a site with existing commercial or multi-unit residential buildings and associated parking.

Determine the soil type at the site and its infiltration rate. For the 20-year storm, calculate the total volume of runoff generated by building roofs and pavement. Determine the reservoir volume needed to store this amount of runoff, assuming a 40% void space, and decide how to fit this volume under the parking (which would be changed to porous materials). Then calculate how long after the storm event all the runoff will have infiltrated into the soil beneath the reservoir. If this is longer than 12 hours, increase the reservoir footprint (and decrease the

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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depth to keep volume constant) until infiltration takes less than 12 hours. Can the reservoir still fit under the existing parking area?

Find out what parking quotas local zoning and development regulations require for various types of buildings and uses. Pick an area that includes a variety of uses, especially commercial and multi-unit residential, and determine (from air photos or maps) how many spaces actually exist, and how many should exist according to code. Assume that you have been required, because of cost, global warming, stormwater concerns, or other reasons, to reduce the total number of required spaces within your selected area by 50%. How would you change the regulations so that this reduction would have the least effect on each type of use, and be as fair as possible among users? (Do not propose a parking garage – this reduces the footprint, but not the number of spaces. This exercise is about reducing total numbers of spaces. Try to find aspects of the regulations that require more parking than is actually needed, and modify these first.)

Principle 6: Consider Origin and Fate of Materials Overview: Construction uses a wide variety of materials: bulk substances like sand or cement, structural timber or metal or stone, specialized fasteners and glues, and many others. Landscape construction uses a different range of materials than building and interior work.

All these materials come from somewhere, and many are further handled for refining, manufacturing, or assembly. The source of supply of almost all new construction materials is one of the extractive industries (mining, forestry, and to a lesser extent agriculture). Resource extraction from any region alters and often destroys that place, and many extractive industries not only remove the desired product, but pollute the environment in so doing. Thus, construction projects not only impact the site of the project, but may have an even greater impact somewhere else – somewhere that is often invisible to us as site users or builders.

In addition to direct impacts, the distances that construction materials travel from source to site can be extreme, and energy used in transportation is significant. This embodied energy is detailed in Principle 7, but has important implications for the geographic sources chosen when buying construction materials.

Finally, many modern building products are toxic, have toxic components during manufacturing, or can give off toxins once they enter the “waste stream” at the end of their useful lifecycles.

Designers and contractors concerned with sustainability must become familiar with these issues, learn to recognize problematic materials in the field, and take the initiative to find close-to-source opportunities for interesting and substantial materials in their region.

Core knowledge:  Know the general guidelines that help make complex material decisions more sustainable.

Although there are variations on this list, it is usually a short one, and remembering it can simplify many decisions. Basic concepts are local, less-processed, recycled, renewable, durable, and non-toxic. Regional conditions may make some of these more important than they might be elsewhere, but most apply to all regions.  Be aware of official “environmentally preferred purchasing” policies, which many agencies are happy to share. These offer guidelines and in many cases specific product recommendations based on testing to help in specifying materials. Be sure that the EPP criteria fit your situation and agree with your best judgment; not all are created equal.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Clearly understand that the slogan “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle” is a list of prioritized options.

Think carefully about why each item in this list is preferable and more sustainable than the item that follows it.  Understand how extreme the site impacts of mining, timbering, and construction can be.

Conventional construction has improved its environmental impacts far less than most other industries to date.  Be aware of the potential to find and use building materials on-site. Pay attention to projects that have done this well, not only those published in SLC2, but also in other print and on-line sources, and realworld projects in your own region.  Similarly, be aware of ways in which whole sites or buildings can be “recycled” by what is called adaptive re-use. Many of the most beloved structures and neighborhoods in the world are old buildings that have been re-purposed; America has a sad history of destroying instead of rehabilitating old structures, but some of its favorite cities and much of Europe and Asia have retained both the investment and the character that re-used places represent.  Recognize the long tradition of earthen construction, not only for buildings, but also for landscape walls in many garden traditions. Understand what soil types are best for adobe, rammed earth, and soil cement, and how careful soil analysis ensures long-lasting earth structures.  Be aware of available salvaged and recycled or remanufactured materials. SLC2 provides an overview, but availability and usefulness of such materials varies for each region, and new products are constantly developed.  Understand the properties of recycled plastic for landscape uses, including plastic lumber and the plastics commonly used for garden furniture. Recognize the potential danger of using landscapes as places where otherwise unusable plastics can be disposed of at a profit.  Understand the special difficulties of certifying sustainably-harvested wood products, and the wide differences in standards and definitions between reputable certification programs and those biased toward conventional industry preferences.  Be aware that many communities encourage or require job-site recycling of construction wastes.  Learn how to evaluate toxicity hazards of all materials you specify or install; how to properly handle those toxic materials that cannot be avoided; and how to anticipate and avoid on-site hazards left by previous land-uses.  Be aware of toxicity issues that extend beyond the job-site, including clients with chemical sensitivities as well as hazards to workers during manufacturing, transportation, and disposal of construction products. Use this awareness to guide design and construction decisions.  Recognize the environmental initiatives to ban PVC and to decrease the toxicity of wood preservatives. If using any such products, carefully consider alternatives and understand the tradeoffs involved in using them.  Be aware of the irresponsible repackaging of toxic wastes as “fertilizer” and of the need for clear labeling and quality-control regulation of substances which can harm both landscape workers and clients.  Understand the use of Life Cycle Analysis and Life Cycle Costing as part of materials selection, and as a way to persuade clients that upfront costs of sustainable practices are a good long-term investment that ultimately save money as well as resources.

Discussion questions:

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Modern chemical manufacturers, like BASF, are beginning to use self-contained facilities in which waste from one process is raw material for another, and almost no material is released into the environment beyond the manufacturing loop. How can this concept be applied to the production of construction materials? Are there materials where such a concept cannot be applied, or is not needed? Can the same idea be applied to on-site construction practices?

What would change if the closed-loop concept was integrated into construction?  Many science-fiction writers have envisioned futures in which some or all materials are scarce or completely used up. In some of these stories, these shortages directly shape the environment and what people build. Based on these films and stories, or on your own creativity, imagine how shortages of specific materials would likely affect landscape construction. What materials, if unavailable or horded for other purposes, would most change the creation of gardens and landscapes? Is there any single material that would completely eliminate the making of landscapes? What materials currently in use could future landscape professionals do without most easily? Don’t forget that some materials are used only indirectly in construction, and that in landscapes, some of the materials are living.

Suggested assignments:  Pick a common landscape material (or several) and track it from cradle to grave (or cradle to cradle, if it is re-cyclable at present). If possible, find out not only what “ingredients” and processes go into producing the material, but where it comes from specifically, and where any processing occurs. Calculate the approximate total mileage that the product and its components have travelled before reaching a site in your region. To take it a step further, calculate the weight or volume of each component, and based on that, how much fuel or energy was used in transportation to produce a unit of the finished product.  Pick several common construction materials (exclude materials that are obviously non-toxic, such as stone or raw timber). Identify the ingredients and other materials used in processing each material. For each of these, obtain a Materials Safety Data Sheet that details the risks associated with the material. Compare not only the differences in possible hazards among materials, but also the relative ease or difficulty in finding out whether a material or its components might be hazardous. If possible, explain why these differences occur.  Identify as many suppliers of remanufactured, recycled, or reused products as possible in your region. For those offering basic or unusual materials, interview the supplier about what their products have been used for. If possible, get a list of clients who are willing to show the results of using these recycled products. Compare the total number of recycled products with the number that relate specifically to construction and/or landscapes.  Locate a derelict site that is safe and permissible to enter. Make an on-site inventory of potential building materials that exist on this site, including dimensions and quantities, and if there are unique items, document their actual shapes as a basis for re-using them. Remember that existing plants are potential materials, either as living plants or in some cases as lumber.

Develop a list of uses for the site that could be constructed using ONLY the on-site materials; you are allowed to bring fasteners and adhesives (including mortar and enough dry cement to make soil-cement) to the site, but no other new materials; you may also bring welding equipment, and other re-manufacturing tools. Try to develop a range of “programs” for the site, from a functional new building to a public art space. Pick the program or new use that you find most interesting, create a design, and produce construction drawings that are sufficient to communicate to a contractor how to build your design from the recycled on-site resources.

Once you have finished the documentation, write a short essay on the difficulties you

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

encountered, and whether there would have been any practical alternatives that would have made it easier to get quality construction from re-used materials.

Principle 7: Know the Costs of Energy over Time Overview: The construction and development industry use about half of ALL energy consumed on the planet.

Rising energy costs are forcing changes in construction – both in the practice of design and building, and in the resulting structures and their geographic location – that probably should have happened at least in the 1970s if not earlier. It is critical for landscape professionals to contribute to these changes, and to recognize how these changes are affecting the practice of landscape-making.

Energy use in landscape construction, and in the ‘operation’ of landscapes, is significantly different than the ways energy is used for making and maintaining structures. This means that the guidelines for saving energy in landscape work are different than those for architecture.

Landscape professionals concerned with sustainability must understand key energy terms, as well as the pluses and minuses of alternative energy sources. Both designers and contractors, including maintenance contractors, must develop strategies to conserve fuel and energy, or they will be driven out of business. Tools such as embodied energy and life-cycle costing are increasingly important not just in reducing environmental impact, but in staying economically viable.

Core knowledge:  Understand the difference between operating energy and embodied energy, and how the two overlap. Also understand what fuel energy (or inherent or specific energy) means, and how it relates to both operating and embodied energy.  Recognize the differences between landscapes and buildings in the ways energy is consumed. In particular, understand that the proportion or ratio of operating energy to embodied energy is very different in landscapes that in buildings.  Know how to make rough estimates of energy use by landscape construction machinery.

Understand the difference between rough planning estimates and machine-specific engineering calculations of fuel usage rates.  Recognize the many variables that are involved in choosing the least-impact machinery or method for a given construction task.  Be aware of available statistics on the average embodied energy of various construction materials, and how this can be used to reduce the impacts and costs of construction.  Develop a basic understanding of life cycle costing, enough to be able to use a spreadsheet or paper form to estimate LCC for a specific product or design. Understand the difference between monetary LCC and energy LCC. Recognize the limits of LCC, and the potential for more advanced methods of estimating long-term cost-benefit and performance.

Discussion questions:  In the 1970s, an “oil crisis” led to abrupt increases in gasoline prices, long lines at gas stations, even fistfights, as well as less direct troubles with energy sources to homes, businesses, and factories. What should the US have done in response to this crisis, and why didn’t we do it?  How does petroleum production cost energy? If you are not familiar with the term “energy return on investment” or eROI, Google it. This key indicator of the true cost of conventional energy has been falling (less energy return for energy invested) for many years. How does this compare to the widely reported fact that energy corporations, particularly petroleum

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

companies, have been making record profits during this same period? Define and discuss the concept of “Peak Oil.” What effects will peak oil have on the construction industry in specific?  Do you believe, as oil companies assert, that Peak Oil is a myth, created by environmental extremists who want to take power by enforced rationing? As much as possible, justify your position with facts. Are there other plausible motives for researchers to conclude that Peak Oil is real? What are the plausible motives for asserting that Peak Oil is a myth or conspiracy?

Which motives are stronger, and which seem to you to be better justified?  Read the Natural Resource Defense Council’s 2007 report, “Drilling Down,” available on-line.

What are the risks involved in conventional energy production today? How do these risks potentially affect those whose livelihoods depend on safe and healthy landscapes? Are these risks acceptable to society? If not, should energy producers be held accountable, or should taxpayers bear the burden for pollution and other problems caused by energy production?

Support your opinions with facts.  How does the general guideline to “deal with things near their source or near the point of use” apply to public utilities such as powerplants and the distribution grid? How does it apply to energy used for transportation? What about water and natural gas distribution, and sewage collection for centralized treatment? If current utility systems go against this general guideline, how could alternative technology and alternative spatial design of energy systems improve the efficiency of energy generation, distribution, and use?  Do you think that energy and water shortages will someday make it completely unaffordable to build landscapes? Will this mean that there is no market for professionals to build landscapes, or that even landowners do nothing to design and personalize their sites? Imagine and discuss different scenarios, and consider not only what effect each one would have on human living conditions, but also what effects the elimination or reduction of constructed landscapes would have on the larger environment? What would the cost/benefit be?

Suggested assignments:  Read one or more of the following books, and write an essay on energy resources as they affect(ed) the scenarios described in each book. These books are not primarily about energy, so you will need to think critically about how energy resources are obtained, used, or abused in each case. 1) The World Without Us, Alan Weisman (2007, Thomas Dunne Books/ St Martin’s Press); 2) The New Nature: Winners and Losers in Wild Australia, Tim Low (2003, Penguin); 3) World Made By Hand, James Howard Kunstler (2008, Atlantic Monthly Press); Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond (2005, Viking Press). You may also choose other books by these authors, or any other book that addresses the history or future of the environment in relatively concrete terms.  Do a complete monetary life-cycle costing for the purchase, operation, and maintenance of a major system (irrigation, heating) or appliance in your home, or for a vehicle that you own.

Then find two alternatives – either very different models of the same technology (a new washerdryer vs. your existing), or completely different methods of accomplishing the same result (riding a scooter instead of driving your hybrid). Try to find alternatives that are as different from the existing as possible. Complete an LCC analysis of each of these, and compare the results. In addition to comparing the overall costs, make a graph with total cost on the vertical axis and year (when the cost occurs) on the horizontal. Graph all three systems on the same axes. Calculate the LCC fuel cost as a percentage of the total LCC for each system.  Research a particular alternative energy generation method, being sure to make specific note of where the technology can or must be used, whether it is centralized or distributed, and whether

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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it requires auxiliary systems such as battery storage. Using energy LCC, make your best estimate of the total energy cost of the system, cradle to cradle. (Credit energy saved in recycling against energy used.) Calculate the amount of usable energy derived from the system over its working life, and express this as a percentage of the LCC energy used to produce and operate the system.

Do NOT expect the ratio to be greater than 1:1; in fact, expect it to be a fraction, due to basic laws of physics. What matters is the relative efficiency. (If you are really interested, look up eROI, above, and do an LCC on the production of energy using gasoline, starting from exploratory drilling, through refining, distribution of the fuel, and burning it. Compare this against the alternative you analyzed, keeping in mind that fossil fuels once burned are gone, so that all the e-LCC costs apply to a very short life-cycle.) Note the difficulties you encounter in getting quantitative information about energy inputs for the technology.

Search on-line and other sources to find out what progress has been made with CAD and GIS/mapping software that can estimate embodied energy, transportation fuel use, and other energy-related aspects of design.

Principle 8: Celebrate Light, Respect Darkness Overview: Although outdoor lighting can produce wonderful experiences, there is growing concern that too much night lighting poses serious problems. Initially, these concerns focused on the aesthetics of the night sky, and on losses of visibility for scientific astronomy. More recently, it has become clear that light outdoors at night has quantifiable impact on human, animal, and plant health, and cumulatively on ecosystem health as well.

Excess light outdoors comes from several main sources: landscape lighting including security lighting and outdoor advertising; spillover from interior lighting; and remote lighting from distant cities, for example, that affects wild areas where no local lighting has been installed. Much of this light is wasted, either brighter than needed, or kept on at times when it serves no real purpose. In addition to the direct effects of over-lighting, significant energy is wasted.

Landscape designers and maintenance workers can make significant contributions to minimizing light pollution and waste. This requires knowing some key lighting concepts, recognizing the fact that more is not usually better, and knowing the variety of designs that can reduce spillover or avoid impact on non-human species.

Core knowledge:  Learn the language of lighting professionals, in particular the difference between radiance and luminance, the units in which light energy is measured, and the professional terms for the parts of lighting equipment.  Be able to define astronomical light pollution, ecological light pollution, and light trespass, and understand the differences in techniques to prevent each. Be familiar with the trend toward ordinances that regulate how much and what types of artificial outdoor light are allowed in different land-use-based zones.  Be aware of the varied ways in which artificial night lighting affects different species, including humans. Understand how measuring these effects may require special equipment that even experienced lighting professionals do not yet routinely use. Recognize the need for specialist help on your team, particularly when evaluating the impact of night light on non-human species.  Know the differences between full cutoff, cutoff, and semi-cutoff luminaire designs, and why these designations only provide a partial indicator of total upward light output. Understand the difference between direct and indirect uplighting.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Recognize the importance of designing for the lowest level of lighting that will serve the purpose. Understand why some engineering standards recommend excess lighting, and why commercial clients in particular often demand truly extreme illumination. Know how physical design of structures and planting interacts with the need for higher or lower levels of lighting.  Be familiar with the current wealth of lighting alternatives: low-voltage, LED, fiber-optic, solarpowered, as well as lamp types with much higher energy efficiency than conventional incandescent bulbs.  Recognize the energy-saving potential of sensors, timers, and controllers that turn lights on only when needed.

Discussion questions:  Have you ever noticed differences in the growth or health of street trees and other plantings, depending on where they were located relative to street lights or other outdoor lighting? What were the effects on the plants? Do you have an explanation how artificial light might cause those specific effects?  Try to define “excessive lighting” experientially – what does it feel and look like, and what effects does it have on your mood, clarity of thought, or behavior? What about lighting that is “just right”? Do these experiential levels vary with the color of the light, the direction it comes from, whether or not the source is visible? How does “too much” or “just right” artificial light compare, experientially, with sunlight during the day? How would this comparison change if the measurement was quantitative (using a light meter) rather than based on experiential quality?  At what point, ethically, does the risk to animal and plant species require humans to limit their use of lighting? What are the ethical arguments for protecting wild places from remote light pollution? When, if ever, would artificial lighting be justified if it caused severe disruption to other species, or even their extinction?  Should commercial use of lighting be regulated differently than residential or public-space lighting? Support your arguments.  Marilyn Vos Savant, a columnist who claims the world’s highest IQ, once ridiculed the idea of a solar-powered flashlight. Was she right, or is this an ignorant argument? Support your position.

Relate the concept of solar power “saved” for night use to other ways in which humans manipulate energy for our benefit.

Suggested assignments:  Locate an existing landscape that does NOT have night lighting, and is not lit by streetlights.

Preferably, use a site you are personally familiar with. Define three lighting goals, functionally: a minimum (for example, enough to follow the path without getting lost), a moderate level, and a maximum. Use a catalog of actual lighting products (many are on-line) to design lighting that meets each of these three goals. Calculate the energy usage and cost to operate each design for one midsummer night and one midwinter night. Based on observation, as well as any calculation or modeling you can do, estimate how far light from each design would be visible from surroundings, and to what extent it would be objectionable to neighbors. Reconsider each design to determine how you could reduce the energy use and light pollution it causes.

Consider whether changes in behavior by users could make some excess lighting avoidable.  Find out what light-pollution or dark-sky ordinances apply in your region, if any. Compare those that you find to the International Dark Sky Association’s model ordinance. What do the differences mean in practical terms, and in the effectiveness of the ordinance(s)?  Pick a species and research the known and suspected effects of artificial night lighting. Try to specify what wavelengths (colors) and intensities have impact, as well as times of night or

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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season when that species is most vulnerable to extra light exposure. List as many human landuses as you can think of that generate light of the type and at the time(s) that cause problems.

Considering the natural habitat and range of the species, make a list of planning and design guidelines that would best protect the species. If you are deeply interested, pick two or more species that share similar habitat; after developing planning/design guidelines for each species, compare the guidelines to see whether there are conflicts or synergies.

Research the medical effects of extra night lighting (or lack of dark hours) on humans.

Brainstorm a list of occupations and activities that put people at risk for excessive exposure to night lighting; include urban design practices that expose people to extra light. Analyze whether age, gender, or ethnicity are likely to increase or decrease any of these types of exposure.

Consider which of the occupations and activities are critical to the functioning of society, and which are optional. Develop planning and design guidelines that could minimize the exposure and/or the risk involved in the critical activities.

Principle 9: Quietly Defend Silence Overview: Noise has been described as the most pervasive pollutant in America. Whether indoors or outdoors, noise is nearly inescapable. Some of the most disruptive noises are by-products of machinery and could be eliminated or improved if there was committed public demand. Other types of noise are deliberate, like outdoor concerts, or unavoidable. They add up to levels that in many places are loud and constant enough to cause both physical and psychological problems for people (and presumably animals) exposed to them.

Like darkness, silence cannot be created, but noise can be decreased, eliminated, or excluded.

Outdoors, excluding noise is very difficult, and many common methods, such as noise walls, are not as effective as they are often made out to be.

Landscape professionals can make a difference in the quality of outdoor places by learning how noise works and the terms used to define it; by using the relatively few techniques that can reduce or absorb noise outdoors; and by supporting policies that require machines, buildings, and other sources to be as quiet as reasonably possible.

Core knowledge:  Know basic noise and acoustics vocabulary. In particular, understand the difference between frequency and pitch, and how each affects the way noise travels.  Understand the decibel system for measuring and quantifying sound. Be aware that decibels are logarithmic, and cannot simply be added for multiple sources. Understand the bias inherent in the dB(A) system, and how this can mask some noise problems simply by the units used to measure them.  Be familiar with the threshold values (in decibels) at which hearing loss, pain, and even death can be caused by loud noise. Recognize that US policy has historically been more tolerant of higher noise levels than are permitted in Europe or elsewhere.  Be familiar with the term “bioacoustics,” and what it implies for noise and non-human species.  Understand the limitations of noise barriers, walls, berms, and vegetation. Most recent research shows that outdoor barriers offer relatively poor protection against noise, whether measured in actual noise-level reduction, or in terms of the area protected by a specific barrier.  In particular, be aware that for plantings to physically diminish the intensity of noise, a specific width and structure of planting is required – and that the necessary minimum width is not available on most project sites.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Be aware of the relatively high costs of noise barriers, and the fact that the cement industry in particular has been promoting them as a growth area. Public policy in many places requires noise barriers without (or despite) evidence that their performance makes them worth the cost.  Because there is a strong out-of-sight effect (noise whose source can’t be seen seems less annoying), if barriers are unavoidable, be familiar with the possibilities for high-quality aesthetic design.  Become familiar with current types of noise-absorbing barriers, and watch for new materials to be developed. Understand the difference between absorption, reflection, and transmission of noise by a wall or material.  Consider experimental uses of white noise generators, including recent interactive white noise systems.  Be familiar with the significant differences in noise levels generated by various types of landscape equipment. In particular, evaluate small gas engines against electric motors where noise is an issue. Contractors in particular are in a position to influence tool suppliers toward quieter design, by voting with their equipment dollars.  Recognize that because control of noise once it is in the landscape is so difficult, the landscape professions have an unusually good motivation for supporting noise ordinances that require prevention at the source. Be aware of the way in which the anti-regulatory Federal stance of recent years has undermined feasible and legitimate noise regulations.

Discussion questions:  See the question above on the ethical issues of light pollution. Ask the same questions concerning noise. Should environmental impact studies be required to document noise that is outside the dB(A) range?  Why does it appear that people are less reactive to noise if they cannot see its source? How does this compare to the fact that people accept far higher levels of sound if they are causing or controlling it, than if someone else is?  New York and other cities have found that noise complaints are among the most frequent reason for citizen contact with government agencies, and also the most common reason for moving away from an area. Consider and discuss the indirect costs and environmental impacts of noise in this context. Have you ever moved, or considered moving, to a place that you hoped would be quieter than your former home? How frequently do you think this occurs? Are such moves successful in protecting people from noise long-term?

Suggested assignments:  Borrow or rent a decibel meter and monitor the noise in various parts of your usual environment. Try to include a wide range, from the local library to the airport, classroom to design office. For some areas, monitor the same location at different times of day. Relate these sound levels to OSHA and other standards for noise comfort and safety.  Locate a noise wall in your region and measure the sound near it. If safe and permissible, measure the sound on the source side; if not, try to estimate noise based on traffic volume or other statistical information. Be sure to measure (and map) noise behind the wall at various distances from it, including near the ends of the wall. If possible, measure levels at the top of the wall, and from second-story or higher locations behind the wall. Consider repeating your measurements on a day when the wind is blowing and a day without wind.  Create a sound sculpture of some kind that is durable enough to be located outdoors. Try to predict the decibel levels and frequencies that will be produced under various weather conditions. If possible, validate these guesses using a meter. If possible, design the sculpture to

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

be tunable, and/or to have sound-producing parts that can be interchanged depending on the season or time of day. Consider whether you could design a system that interacted with outdoor conditions, so that solar intensity, temperature, wind speed, or precipitation changed the sounds produced by the sculpture. Don’t forget to use recycled materials and almost no energy inputs!

Principle 10: Maintain to Sustain Overview: Maintenance of landscapes is perhaps the most often overlooked part of professional practice (as well as something many landowners forget or avoid). This has particularly serious consequences in trying to make the built environment more sustainable, less wasteful, and more energy and resource efficient.

The best landscapes are designed to be maintained. This means more than just “easy maintenance.” It means that they are designed so that maintenance is planned for and expected, and so that the tools required for good maintenance actually work well and fit the design. Imagine having to trim a hedge with a chainsaw, or trying to mow a 12”-wide strip of lawn with a 36” riding mower. Unfortunately, many built landscapes suffer from problems almost that ridiculous.

Even when well designed, maintenance costs energy, resources, labor, and money. It is still unusual (though typical of high-quality work) for these costs to be thoroughly accounted for at the design stage, when many of them could be reduced.

Most maintenance issues are not completely separate from construction – the same machinery may be used, and similar materials and methods (for example, for soil stabilization) may be applied during construction and to repair or prevent problems in a completed landscape. This section looks at issues already discussed above, but with a particular focus on maintenance.

Core knowledge:  Think carefully about the concept of “maintaining” a landscape, which is a living thing.

Maintenance is much more like preventive health-care than like “upkeep” on a building.  Recognize that maintenance uses resources, but that reliable estimating tools are scarce. Thus, it is worthwhile keeping detailed records of actual maintenance for specific landscapes, in terms that (over time) can be compared and analyzed to develop rule-of-thumb methods of estimating future projects. These estimates are necessarily regional. Use LCC (Principle 7) for maintenance estimates as well as capital costing.  Similarly, recognize the value of interaction among designers, contractors, and maintenance experts. In particular, information about expected maintenance methods and machinery should be part of the data used by the designer. However, specific dimensions for landscape machinery are not readily available.  The least-impact machinery, tools, and methods may be even more important during maintenance than during construction (Principle 1). Similarly, clean energy sources may be more important at established sites than on construction projects.  Be aware of bio-based lubricants and other maintenance products. Again, their lower toxicity and potentially better eROI (see above) may be even more appropriate for work on established landscapes than for new construction.  Pest management and fertilizers are subjects that are strongly associated with environmental concerns. For professionals, these landscape practices are primarily part of maintenance work.

Constructing a non-toxic landscape and then spreading pesticides or industrial fertilizers on it is self-defeating. Be aware of Integrated Pest Management, organic fertilizers, and related minimum-toxicity approaches.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Just as on-site materials can and should be part of sustainable construction, on-site resources can be part of landscape maintenance. In particular, organic materials should seldom be removed from the site, but composted and reused instead.  Be aware of mulching mowers, as well as the possibility of ‘mowing’ with sheep, as methods to recycle on-site nutrients.  Recognize that native plants are likely to need different maintenance than imported ones – usually, but not always, less.  Coordination is frequently the key to high-quality, sustainable maintenance. Just what “coordination” means may vary from region to region, or between clients, but it always includes communication among design, construction, and maintenance professionals, starting at the earliest phase of design, and continuing through the project’s maturity.

Discussion questions:  Current landscape practice (with parallels in architecture) is uncoordinated and poorly unified.

Designers get higher pay and respect, construction contractors are in the middle, and maintenance professionals at the bottom. What factors contribute to this? How can it be changed by individual firms? What social changes might be possible and beneficial?  Recent reports have shown than biofuels like ethanol have driven up food prices. Worse, demand for corn and other fuel-crops has encouraged forest clearance that releases more CO2 than ethanol use could possibly save. What mistakes were made in promoting biofuels that led to these problems? Are some biofuels less likely to cause these problems than others?

Suggested assignments:  Choose a construction plan for a landscape that has actually been built, preferably one you do NOT know well. Evaluate the plan, and then the existing landscape, in terms of maintainability.

Consider feasibility of maintenance, assumptions about tools, machines and methods, and resource/energy costs. Were there items that you missed on the plan, that were evident as potential maintenance problems when you visited the site? What were they, and what contributed to the difficulty in seeing them?

Conclusions & Beginnings Overview: Sustainability is not about victory, but about adaptation. In other words, it is a goal toward which we must navigate by constantly steering a little this way, then a little that way, but with a constant general direction.

The techniques described in the bulk of the book are methods of steering; some general principles provide guidance as to direction. Change has to occur both in practice and in education, where the skill of adaptive design can be fostered in each new generation in different ways.

The conclusions of this book are not “exam” material, really. However, it is worth being aware of the broad issues that seem to recur, because often they inspire creative thinking about specific practices and projects. That is how conclusions shape beginnings.

Core knowledge:  Be familiar with the seven themes that SLC2 identifies as emergent properties of sustainable construction. Be able to define what these mean, and to give or recognize examples of each one in tangible practice.  Be aware of recommendations cited in SLC2 for broadening landscape education to improve skills and motivation for sustainable work. Clearly, these are not the only options, but are worth knowing as a beginning point.

This Study Guide is copyrighted: ©2008 Kim Sorvig, all rights reserved. You may not post or distribute electronic copies without written permission from the author. As a student, you may use this guide for personal study. As an instructor, you may use this guide to help you prepare lectures, and you may give printed copies to your students. You may not give or sell this guide in any format to anyone (except an instructor to his or her students), nor reproduce or publish it in any form either printed or electronic, except by written permission.

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Recognize the potential of built landscapes to educate the public about sustainability and the environment. Build a mental file of successful public education projects, starting with the short list of examples in SLC2.

Discussion questions:  Pick one of the seven “themes” and describe projects that you have actually visited that fit the theme. Analyze how and why they seem to fit this theme, and how this contributes to their claim of being sustainable.  What general themes or principles could you add to the list found in SLC2? What would they add to the practice of sustainability that isn’t already part of it? Why do you think they were not included in SLC2? Have you seen them published in other sources?  What do you think is the single most important change that could be made in design education (particularly but not exclusively in landscape design) to encourage sustainable work by graduates? What educational changes would you add to the SLC2 lists?  Discuss the same questions about education, but in regard to contractor education (both construction and maintenance contracting).  Discuss the above questions about education, but specifically focus on licensing exams and continuing education for working professionals. Do current licensing requirement help or hinder those who want to practice “green” design and contracting?  What aspects of the social context of professional planning, design, construction, and maintenance need to change to improve the sustainability of the results? Legal and economic contexts might be examples. What are others? How do they currently hinder or help sustainability efforts, and what could be changed?  What sites or landscapes have you visited that educated or changed your awareness of sustainability and environmental issues? How did they accomplish this? Can the “educational” methods used at those sites be generalized and re-used at other projects, or are they truly sitespecific?  Can sustainable design be beautiful? What is the relationship between the concepts of sustainability and aesthetics? Is that relationship fixed, or changeable?

Suggested assignments:  Compile a portfolio of landscapes that interpret or educate about sustainability, ecological dynamics, conservation, or related issues. Include illustrations, descriptions, and explanations of how the interpretation works. Consider how these projects differ from projects that are sustainable but not intended to educate, and from projects that are focused on aesthetics.  Develop a list of sustainability education centers, programs, and institutes, especially those that involve the built environment in some way. Get and compare curriculum listings, course descriptions, and other information about each program. Analyze what elements all programs share, and what are unique strengths of individual programs. If you are especially interested, design what you believe would be an ideal curriculum.

The following assignments are a semester-long sequence, used at the University of New Mexico, and intended to integrate technical knowledge with critical judgment and tangible design.

1. Pick 3 sustainable construction techniques related to three different SLC2 principles. The techniques may be among those included in the book, or from other sources. Research each technique. Present technical details in a written paper and in-class report.

2. In a second written paper and in-class presentation, address the following: How do each of the three selected techniques inter-relate? If all three were used on the same site, how would they affect one another, and what would be the trade-offs involved? Assume a client has asked

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specifically for all three of these techniques to be used on a project – how do you respond to that request? What are the positive and negative results, in sustainability terms as well as economic ones, that you would expect from this project?

3. Pick a studio design project, preferably one that you have during the current semester, or have had recently. Decide which sustainability techniques would contribute most to that site and its program or facilities. Support your choices and priorities. Take the three most important sustainability systems and integrate them into the site design of the project, changing whatever other design elements you need to make these systems fit functionally and aesthetically. Show the integration of these systems on plan and elevation, and in at least one accurate sketch perspective. Create construction details (in sketch form, but with believable dimensions and proportions) showing the actual form these systems would take, and how they would be constructed. Write a construction specification for each of the three systems that will ensure correct quality construction if the design is handed over to a contractor. Include specific provisions for monitoring and testing of performance over the life of the project.