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Landscape Performance: Tools to Estimate Benefits and Promote Sustainable Landscape Solutions (Barbara Deutsch) - ULI fall meeting - 102611
1. Landscape Performance: Tools to Estimate Benefits and Promote Sustainable Landscape Solutions ULI Fall Meeting, October 26, 2011 2011 TRB Annual Conference January 25, 2011 Washington, DC
Thank you for the opportunity to present the latest thinking and work the Landscape Architecture Foundation/ I am honored and delighted to be here— I am a board member . . . And I serve on the board because . . . This presentation provides an overview of the Landscape Performance Series, a new online, interactive set of resources from the Landscape Architecture Foundation.
LAF was founded in 1966 by Ian McHarg and leading landscape architects of the day to increase our collective capacity to solve the environmental crisis. LAF does this by investing in research and scholarship. Since 1986, LAF has invested nearly $600,000 in research initiatives and awarded over $775,000 in scholarships and fellowships to nearly 450 students. LAF’s latest research initiative is the Landscape Performance Series, which was launched in Sept 2010…
LAF is the leader in providing scholarships for landscape architecture students LAF is also like a thinktank for the profession Not just best practices but next practices/ where needs to be And where the profession needs to be is designing for landscape perofrmance
The issue leading to the big idea is that Design professionals, property managers, regulators and the general public have become increasingly aware of techniques to improve a building’s health and efficiency, yet there remains a general lack of understanding about landscape and its potential to make a significant contribution toward achieving sustainability. So the big idea is to make the concept of “Landscape Performance” and as well understood as “Building Performance” is today. Implicit in this idea is the understanding of both “Landscape” and “Performance”. “ Landscape” encompassing planning and design for natural processes, natural resources, and people; and inclusive of a hierarchy of scales including the built and natural environments. “ Performance” providing a measure or the efficiency with which something fulfills its intended purpose. So “Landscape Performance” is putting it together to achieve sustainability- Most everyone believes “green” is good, and more green is better, but how much do we need to turn this ship around and truly sustain life on this planet as we know it?
SO performance is key-- As a shift in thinking beyond green improvements within individual buildings and other landscape components is required to achieve this awesome challenge. There is no one system or target for achieving sustainability but here’s one example. As you can see you can’t achieve Zero Carbon, Zero Waste, Net-Zero Water, Biodiversity, or livability . . . . w/o considering landscape and using an interdisciplinary and systems approach. So if want to be part of the solution for these performance objectives, need to be able to quantify the benefits of landscape solutions
This is the National Association of Realtors building here in Washington, DC It was the first LEED certified building in DC, getting a Silver rating in 2004. I knew of it, Googled it, and just from the links on the first page, I was able to pull these quantified benefits. In this sense, the architects, engineers and others who work on buildings seem to be way ahead of landscape architects and others dealing with the site. And when its time to value engineer a project, having these numbers – especially when they can be translated into cost savings – carries a lot of clout.
By contrast, here is a typical case study for a landscape. Lists Features not benefits Can’t go to the drawing board with these-- can’t show how it contributes to Zero Carbon, Zero Waste, . . .
Lists qualified benefits or claims-- still can’t contribute to the bottom line for performance objectives e.g. Zero Carbon, Zero Waste, Net-Zero Water, etc
Need for quantified data to fully participate in integrated solutions with performance benefits e.g. Zero Carbon, Zero Waste, Net-Zero Water, etc
To help fill this critical gap in the marketplace, LAF developed the Landscape Performance Series The LPS is an online interactive… read rest The LPS consist of 4 components: Case Study Briefs, a Benefits Toolkit, a Factoid Library, and Scholarly Works. I’ll be going into more detail and showing you what each of these looks like in today’s presentation. The url is here and I’ll also make it available at the end
Before we show you the components, it’s useful to quickly run through what the LPS is and what it is not. There are a lot of people working on sustainability and this is intended to help you understand the niche that the LPS fills. Read through bullets: Sustainable Sites Initiative and Landscape Performance Series are two separate and distinct programs that dovetail nicely together: SITES is on the front end to help you design for sustainability LPS is on the back end showing how landscapes are performing This is just the start, the vision is to have 100s of case studies, 100s of tools and factoids To be a hub of dialogue Not just for LAs but all those working to achieve sustainability/ all those who need data to make their case for sustainability
Priority to build content and roll-out
Transition to website here, if you have Internet access and skip slides 10- This is what you’ll see on the LPS landing page – an overview and a description of each of the 4 components, which can be accessed using the links on the right or the navigation buttons on the left. And if you scroll down below the fold…
… you see a toolbar to search the entire LPS by performance benefits. This allows you to search across components – Case Studies, tools, factoids, etc.
So say that I’m interested in the economic benefits of landscape I could select “Economic (view all) or any one of the subcategories, hit the “Go” button And…
… the search will return these 8 case studies, each of which has a quantified economic landscape benefit And…
..if I scroll down, I’ll also get these results from the Factoid Library, Benefits Toolkit, and Scholarly Works. I’m going to use this screen to show you what the various LPS components look like.
So, let’s start by taking a look at the Factoid Library I’ll click on the first link here…
..and I’m taken to that entry in the Factoid Library Read factoid The Factoid library is a searchabe collection of landscape benefits derived from published research. If I know I need a factoid to make the case for… I can search within the factoid library…
Going back to the search return page from when we searched on Toolkit
Going back to the search return page from when we searched on Toolkit
… the search will return these 8 case studies, each of which has a quantified economic landscape benefit And…
Different from typical marketing sheets-- As you can see the first thing you see are the comparative images-- to show the value of design; and the performance benefits not just one liners-- Ecological benefits, social benefits, and economic benefits And each case study has a pdf showing how the performance benefit was determined
It is inspiring to see the creative and critical thinking across all the case studies-- there is no one way to calculate many of the benefits-- you can decide if the method works for your project or not and use it or learn from it for your own work
The case study also includes other traditional case study types of information . . . List of features that led to the performance benefits
Here is another example whereby no built pipes were used to manage the flows . . . Read benefits . . . Eliminated $30m stormwater impact fees and $40m infrastructure costs ove rthe life of the project-- that is $70million that can go above ground and provide multiple benefits-- can’t have a picnic in a tunnel . . .
Many ways to quantify benefits- -all are acceptable for differnent
Vision is that people understand the contribution that landscape solutions make toward achieving sustainability-- can’t achieve it without it The vision is 100s of case studies, 100s of factoids, tools, and scholarly works . . . This is just the start but like the buddhist monk thich naht hanh we have to start where we are The vision is to change practice so that we design and document high-performing landscapes and get this information outside the choir to all the others workign to achieve sustainability
Priority to build content and roll-out
Outreach has been incredibly strong
Benchmark above average for organizations our size and topic Stats from 9/1/10 (launch) – 8/25/11: 52,773 visits from 152 countries/territories 83% from U.S., 2.3% from Canada, 1% from China, 1% from U.K. May only be a few people but almost every country in the world has viewed the LAF site
But building case study content proved more diffficult. Have online form and did several calls to encourage submissions…but limited success
To respond to these challenges, LAF created CSI. Marries, LAF programs by investing in students to produce much-needed research.
Thank our generous sponsors JJR/Roy Fund and AECOM without which the LPS would not be possible. There are may ways to support LAF: Thought leadership Financial support Program participation Board service so if you think this work is important and like what you see, then please make an investment in LAF. The world needs what we have to offer but we need to get it out there so others can receive what we have to offer. The LPS does that!