GreenClips.182 01.02.02 ALLIANCES AND THE BOTTOM LINE ADVANCE MUNICIPAL GREEN PROJECTS Hillary Brown, former assistant commissioner with New York City's Department of Design and Construction, helped convince city administrators to create the Office of Sustainable Design, which in June 1999 published the "High Performance Building Guidelines" for public buildings. Brown has since left city government to develop New Civic Works, which helps other municipalities inspire green works. She recently spoke with Metropolis about the process of building support for green design, including developing important alliances and public-private partnerships. Brown notes that "the New York State Energy Research and Development Corporation helped us with technical support, and the Design Trust for Public Space helped us find resources to publish the guidelines, as did several other environmental advocacy organizations. But I guess the thing that makes me proudest is that when we decided to write the guidelines, we invited the staff within the Department of Design and Construction to write chapters that applied to their field. . . They became the experts." Brown found the Giuliani administration to be receptive to moving the guidelines forward, "perhaps because we made a strong basic argument: high-performance buildings affect the bottom line." And, she says, "the more public agencies began thinking about green design, the more they saw it as a tool to serve their constituencies better." Download the Guidelines: http://www.nyc.gov/html/ddc/html/highperf.html. Metropolis, Jan 2002, p 20, by Tess Taylor. [Full text: http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0102/ob/ob03.html] ARIZONA COMMUNITY STRIVES TO PRESERVE SITE'S DESERT CHARACTER Civano, the master-planned community near Tucson, Arizona, has been nationally recognized for its progressive, environmentally sustainable community design since its 1999 opening. Less notice has been taken of Civano's landscape design. Notable strategies include the salvaging of 6,000 trees and cacti from the site when mass grading began, rainwater harvesting, and the landscaping of yards using mostly native plants. Civano includes land in and near the Pantano Wash flood plain, so storm drainage is important. Rather than detain floodwaters in huge basins that breed mosquitoes and are drowning hazards for children, the design directs water toward planting areas and then slows it down by small check dams. Stormwater percolates into the soil and irrigates vegetation throughout the site, while surface pooling is reduced. Urban wash preservation is a growing interest in Arizona. Historically, in Tucson and Phoenix such washes were channelized and considered as part of the metropolitan flood control system rather than part of the desert ecosystem. So far, the development at Civano stays away from the wash edge, although future low-density development is planned near the wash, which is less than desirable for protecting the wash ecosystem and wildlife habitat. By rethinking future development so close to Pantano Wash, Civano could be a leader in promoting and practicing ecologically appropriate edge treatment. Landscape Architecture, Dec 2001, p 28, by Rebecca Fish Ewan. [About Civano: www.civano.com] THREE NEW GREEN SKYSCRAPERS PLANNED FOR LONDON UK developer St. George recently unveiled plans for a 49-story building that would be Britain's tallest residential high-rise and "greenest" skyscraper. If approved, the triple-glazed, mainly glass structure will be topped by a 30-foot tall wind generator to provide enough power for the building's communal lights, and will use heat exchangers drawing on the water table to reduce the need for air conditioning and central heating. The building, say architects Broadway Malyan, will use just a third of the energy of a comparable building, reduce carbon emissions by up to 66 percent and include features like gardens and windows that open. Two other planned high-rises billed as ecologically sensitive are a 30-story "bioclimatic skyscraper" expected to be built next year in south London, by Malaysian architect Ken Yeang, and Norman Foster's 41-story "erotic gherkin" planned for the City. Most of Yeang's buildings have been in the tropics; he will have a different set of problems in south London, but we can expect a building with natural ventilation, natural lighting, and rain and wastewater collection systems. The Guardian (London), 12 Dec 2001 and 14 Dec 2001, by John Vidal. SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION ANNOUNCED The UK Government's Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme sponsored by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has launched its fourth open ideas competition to promote sustainable architecture. This year, entrants are invited to explore issues of environmental, social and economic sustainability for the Lochend Butterfly site in Edinburgh, Scotland. Open internationally to students and architects, first prize is L10,000 (US $14,500). Submission deadline: 28 Feb 2002. For more information, contact RIBA: tel. 01 13 234 1335 or http://www.riba-competitions.freeserve.co.uk/mainframe.htm. Architectural Record, Nov 2001, p 56, and RIBA website. NEW VISION OF INDUSTRY CELEBRATES HOPEFUL, ABUNDANT FUTURE Designers who embrace McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry's five-step strategy of eco-effective design would employ an ever-broadening ability to define, select and reinvent product ingredients, industrial systems, and relationships between producers and customers. The first step aims to remove from a product a specific chemical known to be harmful, such as chlorine. In the second step, the customer or manufacturer develops a list of preferred materials known to be safely created or harvested with minimal negative impact. At Step Three, designers examine the materials used in an existing product while it continues to be manufactured, with the goal of replacing problematic ingredients without missing a beat in the marketplace. In Step Four, designers actively define a product's ingredients, right from the start. A step-four laundry soap, for example, might be produced locally in dry pellet form and sold in bulk, reducing packaging and the costs of long-distance transportation of heavy liquid concentrates. Step Five asks how a product or service might best celebrate a basic human need, revitalize an aspect of culture or renew our engagement with the natural world. A step-five venture, for example, might focus on providing a community laundry service. Laundry could be picked up from customers in a community vehicle and delivered to one location, where washing machines would run on solar power and wastewater would be purified by a system of botanical gardens. More: http://www.mbdc.com. Green@Work, Nov-Dec 2001, p 32, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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