Course: GFM 103 Exterior Environmental Management

Reading and Audio-Visual Assignments

(1/2)
Defining Sustainable Landscapes, Grounds, and Related Facilities (Hardscapes, Permeable Pavements, etc.)

Sustainable landscape architecture is a category of sustainable design concerned with the planning and design of outdoor space.

This can include ecological, social and economic aspects of sustainability. For example, the design of a sustainable urban drainage system can: improve habitats for fauna and flora; improve recreational facilities, because people love to be beside water; save money, because building culverts is expensive and floods cause severe financial harm.

The design of a green roof or a roof garden can also contribute to the sustainability of a landscape architecture project. The roof will help manage surface water, provide for wildlife and provide for recreation.

Sustainability appears to be a new addition to the traditional Vitruvian objectives of the design process: commodity, firmness and delight. But it can be seen as an aspect of both firmness and commodity: an outdoor space is likely to last longer and give more commodity to its owners if it requires low inputs of energy, water, fertilizer etc., and if it produces fewer outputs of noise, pollution, surface water runoff etc.