Project Type: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED-ND) Residential Master Plan
The 50-unit residential project is a demonstration Low Impact Development (LID) sponsored by the U.S. EPA for Habitat for Humanity. LID is an ecological stormwater management approach that sustains a site’s predevelopment hydrologic regime. Planning begins with a Green Neighborhood Transect, leveraging urban and ecological services in the porch, yard, street, and open space. Neighborhoods are developed as sub-watersheds. This development model embeds ecological metrics into planning, land-use policy, and infrastructural design, and solves for the triple bottom line.
The planning and policy objective is to design a demonstration project following Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) criteria, a pilot certification program of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Porchscapes is one of 238 projects selected to participate in the LEED-ND pilot program, and is also a Low Impact Development (LID) project being funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. Project planning is sponsored under the U.S. EPA’s Section 319 Program for Nonpoint Source Pollution. The goal is to provide an affordable 10-acre housing development for Habitat for Humanity with projected housing construction costs of $60 per square foot. The challenge is to create a high-value development that solves for the triple bottom line (social-economic-environmental) on a greenfield site from modest one-story, single-family houses.
LEED-ND
Porchscapes is one of 60 priority projects in the LEED-ND pilot program for gauging standards. According
Smart-Growth Planning Metrics to USGBC: “The LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System integrates the principles
of smart growth, urbanism and green building into the first nationalsystem for neighborhood design.
LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a development's location and design meet accepted high levels of environmentally responsible, sustainable development. Currently in
its pilot period, LEED for Neighborhood Development is a collaboration among USGBC, the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The post-pilot version of the rating system, which will be available to the public, is expected to launch in 2009.” LID supports LEED-ND objectives with a physical place-making standard based on water.
Low Impact Development
Mainstreaming LID is a priority project of the U.S. EPA. LID is an ecological stormwater management
Parks, Not Pipes approach with a basic principle modeled after nature: manage rainfall on site using decentralized
facilities within a water treatment train. The goal is to sustain a site’s predevelopment hydrologic regime by using techniques that infiltrate, filter, store, and evaporate runoff close to its source. Instead of using conventional civil-engineered “pipe and pond” solutions, LID addresses runoff management with localized landscape facilities throughout the project―Parks, Not Pipes.
From LID to LEED
Four overarching LEED-ND principles guided project planning:
Leveraging Urban and Ecological
- Density and Compactness: Residential components are to be built at a minimum density of seven
Servicesdwelling units per acre of buildable land.
- Walkable Streets: The principle entry of each building has a front facade that faces a public space
such as a street, square, park, paseo, or plaza. The front facades of at least 50% of all units should be no more than 18 feet from the front property line.
- Street Network and Access to Public Space: Plan the project so that a park, green plaza or square at
least 1/6 acre in area lies within 1/6 mile distance of 90% of dwelling units in the project.
- Solar Orientation: Orient a minimum of 75% of dwelling units such that one axis of each building is at
least 1.5 times longer than the other, and such that the longer axis is within 15 degrees of the
geographical east/west axis.
Design
Conventional residential development separates horizontal infrastructural planning from individual
The Green Neighborhood Transect property development. Porchscapes devises a Green Neighborhood Transect to integrate the “context-
production” components of house, porch, yard, street, open space, otherwise developed and financed
autonomously. Neighborhood landscapes are developed in tandem with house-porch typologies.
Indeed, the porch is considered as much a component of the landscape systems as an extension of
interior home space.
Neighborhoods as Sub-Watersheds Hydrological processes organize various neighborhood sub-groupings in Porchscape. The project
introduces the “shared street”, as a green infrastructure to amplify ecological services delivered by site planning. Based on the Dutch woonerf, shared streets are designed as parks, combining pedestrian gathering spaces, parking, landscape systems, and stormwater facilities with traffic throughways. Woonerfs have a remarkable record of safety. Streets, then, become part of the runoff treatment train, incorporating bioswales, sediment filters, and infiltration trenches. This eliminates costly curbs, gutters, pipes, and catch basins in conventional civil-engineered systems, cutting costs by 40%. Streets and attending green spaces are recombined as a treatment network to create “productive park” space for the project.
LID Implementation
As a non-conforming runoff management and street geometry system, LID is illegal in most places. The
Municipal Codes and Policy: design team has partnered with the City of Fayetteville to form an LID Code Committee, consisting of
Watershed Democracy citizens, professionals, and city council members to construct best design and management practices to
be followed with a “by-right” LID code to mainstream LID implementation. From the outset of planning,
the team collaborated with the fire department, street department, sanitation department, public utilities, and the mayor. Rather than view city departments as downstream regulators, designers
established collaborative relationships with government agencies given their embedded technical
knowledge.
Collaborators and Early Adopters
While LID capital and operating costs are less than conventional development, current planning and
permitting time costs are not compatible with for-profit business models. For now, the volunteer-based, nonprofit housing providers may be the primary vector to mainstream LID development and solve for the triple bottom line. The planning project is a collaboration among the housing provider, university research community, for-profit and nonprofit professional organizations, city public works, and the local corporate community.
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PROJECT RESOURCES |
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Landscape Architect of Record:
Chris Suneson, RLA, LEED AP, McClelland Consulting Engineers, Inc.
University of Arkansas Community Design Center:
Stephen D. Luoni, Lead Designer
Aaron J. Gabriel, Assistant Director, Adjunct Assistant Professor
Katie A. Breshears, AIA, LEED AP, Project Designer
Cade J. Jacobs, Project Designer
Deborah Guzman, Student Intern
University of Arkansas Department of Architecture Students:
Clint Bailey Greg Stellmon
Jeremy Johnson William Britt
Jason Oury Landon Foster
Keith Wheeler Russell Worley
Dr. Marty Matlock, PE:
Ecological Engineer, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering
University of Arkansas Ecological Engineering Students:
Rusty Tate Heather Sandefur
David Gershner Zara Clayton-Niederman
Jeff Burns Vicky Zeledon
Maggie Strain Kyle Kruger |
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Habitat for Humanity of Washington County:
Patsy Brewer, Director
Jim Culberson, Development Consultant
University of Arkansas Women’s Giving Circle, Philanthropic Partner
City of Fayetteville, Municipal Partner:
Dan Coody, Mayor
Tim Conklin, Director of Planning and Development Management
David X. Williams, FTN & Associates
Blew, Bates & Associates
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