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Green Roof Contributor Profile: SWA Group
SWA Group's generous contribution to the ASLA green roof project demonstrates the firm's commitment to sustainability and community service.
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The SWA Group led the interdisciplinary team and worked on all phases of environmental background analysis, public outreach, and park planning for the North Portion of the GOlden Gate National Recreational Area. The firm's work earned ASLA's 2005 Landmark Award (photo: Tom Fox, SWA Group) |
SWA Group, last year’s winner of the ASLA Landscape Architecture Firm Award, and its president Kevin Shanley, ASLA, are no strangers to sustainability. In fact, improving the environment is so important to Shanley that for more than a decade he has been working to restore the bayous of Houston, Texas, through his work with the Bayou Preservation Association, a group he has served as a board member, president, and chairman. Shanley’s work for that group earned him ASLA’s Community Service award last year.
With the firm’s commitment to sustainability—Shanley says the firm considers itself a “land-based practice,” and one that considers how a project will effect the system it is built upon for the lifetime of that system—it is no wonder SWA Group has decided to donate funds to the ASLA green roof project. Shanley says that the firm has made such a commitment because it believes the landscape architecture profession should be taking a leadership position on sustainability, and the green roof seems like a good opportunity to “practice what we preach on sustainability.”
“Landscape architects should be out in the community,” he says, “creating new solutions to urbanization and the ongoing changes to our environment.”
Still, Shanley adds that green roofs should be only a starting point for landscape architects’ involvement in sustainable building methods. In fact, he says that green roofs are “just one tool in what needs to be a very big toolbox for sustainability.” He adds that SWA has been installing intensive green roofs for decades as part of its practice and has a large portfolio of “on-structure landscaping.” As green roofing systems become more advanced, lighter, and thinner, Shanley believes they will become more widespread in larger land-planning projects as just one piece of a sustainable solution.
“One brick in a building”
When discussing sustainability, and green roof projects in general, Shanley can’t help but take a holistic view. He notes that when SWA installs a green roof or other sustainable design, it is often asked what impact “one little green roof” will have on the environment. He admits that one green roof by itself will do little, but quickly adds that you must start somewhere.
“One brick does not make a building, and it will take a lot of green roofs to make an impact,” he says. “It also takes thousands of bricks to create a building, but you always start with one. The point is: Each of us has to do our part.”
But Shanley also notes that as the green roof movement takes shape, there is the possibility that state and local governments will take notice and begin to provide incentives for green roof construction. This type of movement, he says, can create a larger impact in the move toward sustainability.
When asked whether landscape architects should be considered the “go-to design professionals,” Shanley sounds a surprisingly cautious note. He says that in the end it’s a question of whether landscape architects will take the lead on sustainability as a whole, not just with green roofs. He adds that while landscape architects should be who building owners look to when they “want to do something different” with green roofs—such as creating open or decorative space—he’d like to see a day when extensive green roof systems are so ubiquitous and easy to install that a building manager can order their installation as easily as a standard roof.
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