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Archive for November, 2010

Moving Towards a Bat-friendly Wind Turbine

Posted in Ecosystem Services, Renewable Energy, Wildlife on 11/30/2010 | 1 Comment »

BBC News reported on a new study that shows insects are attracted to white or grey colored wind turbines. If turbines are swarming with insects, they in turn attract bats (and birds), which are then killed by the revolving blades. Interestingly, the researchers found the color insects like least is purple so some researchers are now considering the question: should [...]

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Ecology and Transportation Conference Call for Papers

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Environment, Landscape Architecture, Opportunities, Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Transportation, Wildlife on 11/29/2010 | Leave a Comment »

The theme of the 2011 International Conference on Ecology and Transportation (ICOET) is “Sustainability in Motion.” According to the organizers, ICOET is a ”multi-disciplinary, inter-agency event conducted biennially to identify and share quality research applications and best management practices that address wildlife, habitat, and ecosystem issues related to surface transportation systems.” ICOET’s lead sponsors this year include [...]

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Interview with Caroline Fraser, Author of “Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution”

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Water Management, Wildlife on 11/24/2010 | Leave a Comment »

Caroline Fraser is the author of “Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution.” Fraser has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Outside magazine, and other publications. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In your book, “Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution,” you said rewilding, which [...]

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HUD Secretary Donovan on Fighting Sprawl

Posted in Policy and Regulation, Real Estate Development, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization on 11/24/2010 | 1 Comment »

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan outlined the state of the economy and housing market, explained HUD’s green programs, announced a new mortgage product aimed at making energy efficiency retrofits easier, and promoted the Obama administration’s efforts to fight sprawl and encourage sustainable communities at the 2010 GreenBuild. “The built environment helped create the economic crisis,” said [...]

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Chicago Mayor Daley: “Cities Must Feel Alive at All Times”

Posted in Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Policy and Regulation, Public Spaces on 11/24/2010 | Leave a Comment »

Serving as inspiration for the U.S. Green Building Council’s new “Richard Daley Legacy Award for Global Leadership in Creating Sustainable Cities“ and also receiving the first award himself, Mayor Daley argued that mega-cities like Chicago must become environmentally-sustainable, but not “lose their identity in the process. The city must feel alive at all times.” During the closing session of the 2010 GreenBuild, Daley said the initial debate [...]

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Reinventing Water Reuse with Ecological Systems

Posted in Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials, Technology, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Waste, Water Management on 11/19/2010 | 5 Comments »

In one session at the 2010 GreenBuild, Greg Sparks, Port of Portland, Will Kirksey, Worrell Water Technologies, and Doug Sams, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects outlined how the new Portland port headquarters building applied a cutting-edge “Living Machine” to treat wastewater on site and reuse for toilets and building cooling systems. Jon Gray, who works for the [...]

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A New Way to Plant Urban Trees

Posted in Forests, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Technology, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management on 11/18/2010 | 26 Comments »

At the 2010 GreenBuild, Peter MacDonagh, the Kestrel Design Group, James Urban, FASLA, Urban Trees + Soils, and Peter Schaudt, FASLA, Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects, argued that without new tree planting techniques that use healthy loam soils, major “one million” urban tree planting campaigns will fail, wasting lots of money in the process. MacDonagh said “urban [...]

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Quantifying the Benefits of the Sustainable Sites Initiative

Posted in Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Smart Growth, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Waste, Water Management on 11/18/2010 | 2 Comments »

Barbara Deutsch, Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) and Jose Alminana, FASLA, and Tom Amoroso, Affiliate ASLA, of Andropogon Associates discussed how to quantify the ecosystem services provided by sustainable landscapes using the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) prerequisites and credits and other tools and calculators (see earlier post) in a session at the 2010 GreenBuild. SITES and LAF’s Landscape Performance Series [...]

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Green Buildings Take off in China

Posted in Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Sustainable Design on 11/17/2010 | Leave a Comment »

Lin Borong, Tsinghua University, Angela Li, EMSI, and Xu Xiaowei, Shenzhen Institute of Building Research, discussed how green buildings are taking off in China at the 2010 GreenBuild. Noting that “one of out of every two new houses built is in China,” the speakers argued that the growth of energy-efficient buildings on the mainland is not only important for China, [...]

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Applying the Sustainable Sites Initiative

Posted in Climate Change, Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design on 11/17/2010 | 1 Comment »

At GreenBuild 2010, David Yocca, FASLA, Principal of Conservation Design Forum, explained how the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) is moving to the next step in its path towards becoming a functioning rating system: “receiving feedback from real projects.” SITES, as Yocca explained, is an “interdisciplinary effort to create a voluntary national guideline and rating system that can encourage [...]

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