STUDY SHOWS GAP BETWEEN DESIGNERS' BELIEFS AND PRACTICES
Why, when most design professionals recognize an environmental obligation to design sustainable projects, is there so little evidence of sustainable practice? Last summer, the International Interior Design Association, in partnership with Collins & Aikman Floorcoverings, sponsored a study to assess design professionals' attitudes toward sustainability. Of the 100 professional interior designers surveyed, who specialize in commercial, retail, healthcare, hospitality, government design, and facility planning practices, 83 percent believe they have a moral obligation to offer sustainable solutions to clients, yet only 37 percent do so. The designers surveyed classify the primary obstacle to sustainable design as too little information. They lack knowledge about the subject, aren't familiar with  research that demonstrates its benefits, and believe that sustainability is a low priority with clients. And many fear compromising their standards by having to sacrifice color, performance, application, or cost for sustainable design. - Interiors, Jan 00, p 28, by Neil Frankel. [The complete study will be available in late March from IIDA: http://www.iida.org]

TWO GREEN BUILDING DESIGNS ON THE BOARDS
Construction begins this summer on a $5 million instruction and research facility associated with the 1,189-acre Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve on the edge of Stanford University's campus in Palo Alto, California. Administrators promise that the building will be ecologically sensitive from its design through construction and operation. Designed by Rob Wellington Quigley, the 10,000-square-foot building will be heated and cooled with passive solar energy, construction materials will be recycled and planners intend to generate no landfill waste. "It will be as green as we can make it," says Philippe Cohen, the preserve's director. "We want this to be an example of how construction and design ought to occur." The Jasper Ridge laboratory is home base for Paul Ehrlich's 40-year study of the bay checkerspot butterfly population, and for an important study of global climate change. Meanwhile, the city of Chattanooga has picked a joint venture team of New York City's Croxton Collaborative and rtec of Chattanooga to create a sustainable design for the city's new Development Resource Center. The office building will consolidate the majority of city and county government agencies related to the built environment, including planners, architects and engineers. The 85,000-square-foot structure, slated for completion in 2001, will rise in an aging industrial zone that the city has targeted for revitalization. - San Jose Mercury News, 3 Feb 00, by Marilee Enge (Jasper Ridge article; more: http://jasper1.stanford.edu/) and Architectural Record, Feb 00, p 32, by Soren Larson (Chattanooga article).

SUSTAINING THE FINNISH FOREST
The Finnish forest industry has introduced an alternative certification method that will allow it to prove to potential purchasers that its timber is produced in a sustainable manner. Although many countries use the widely recognized FSC certification system, it's not appropriate for Finland where 62 percent of the forest is privately held by 440,000 owners whose property size averages 30 hectares [74 acres]. Requiring every owner to produce detailed compliance documentation isn't feasible, so the Finnish Forest Industries Federation developed its own system that allows for group rather than individual certification. Numerous small holdings are formed into regional associations that apply for certification on behalf of the group. The system includes standards for the strips of forest that must remain uncut beside watercourses, and for the proportion of trees that must remain standing in an area that has been cut. Although there is already a high degree of environmental awareness among forest owners in Finland and some skeptics question the need for a certification system at all, certification will help ensure that damage is not caused by ignorance or oversight. - The Architects' Journal, Jan 00, p 27, by Ruth Slavid.

PENNSYLVANIA BUILDERS AT ODDS WITH ANTI-SPRAWL PLAN
The Pennsylvania Builders Association is fighting Gov. Thomas Ridge's call for local growth boundaries and restrictions on legal challenges that builders routinely file to circumvent zoning laws. The association contends that these changes would threaten the state's economic health and the rights of property owners. Ridge's anti-sprawl proposals, which the House may consider as early as next month, are a response to recommendations made by a committee he appointed last year to document the state's growth patterns and recommend ways to promote more integrated, less auto-dependent growth in the far-flung suburbs, and revitalization in the cities and inner-ring suburbs. Under current law, builders can file curative challenges when they believe a municipality is unfairly excluding a certain type of development. Builders with successful challenges can build what they want to where they want to, even if that undermines a municipality's land-use plan. Ridge has proposed allowing municipalities or the courts to decide where a curative-imposed development should go. That could mean putting it on land that the developer who filed the challenge does not own. Some builders are also opposed to local growth boundaries, claiming that by limiting where development can occur, these boundaries increase land and housing costs. But in Lancaster County, where growth boundaries have been in use since the mid-1990s, there's no evidence that they have driven up land or housing prices, says county planner James Cowhey. - Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 Feb 00, by Diane Mastrull.

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ABOUT THE PUBLISHER Sustainable design consultant Chris Hammer publishes GreenClips in San Francisco. Ms. Hammer helps her clients with environmentally responsible approaches to urban planning and development, and to building design, construction, and operation. GreenClips is written by Chris Hammer and Jennifer Roberts.

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