December 19, 2005

Land Matters
In a preview of the January column for Landscape Architecture magazine, Bill Thompson, FASLA, looks at Ed Marzia’s work on the design and construction industry’s contribution to global warming.

Catastrophic weather changes, driven by global warming, are upon us. The hurricanes that devastated New Orleans may only be a harbinger of what’s to come. More and more storm scientists are becoming convinced that the upsurge in Category 4 and 5 hurricanes is a direct result of the warming of the world’s oceans. And that’s only one of many grim forecasts that include the inundation of coastal communities as the polar icecaps melt, massive die-offs of climate-sensitive plants and animals, the probable destruction of the world’s coral reefs (home to a quarter of the world’s marine species), and an increased incidence of tsunamis.

Here’s the kicker for landscape architects: Designers are part of the problem.

That’s what Santa Fe architect Ed Mazria, author of The Passive Solar Energy Book, found out when, in preparation for a talk on green design, he started studying the Department of Energy statistics on energy consumption. The doe’s pie chart of total U.S. consumption, Mazria found, lacks a slice devoted to buildings. Its biggest slices are those for industry (which includes mining, manufacturing, and construction) and transportation.

Mazria decided to see how the pie would slice if he reapportioned some processes that were lumped under industry—the manufacture of construction materials, for example—into a new category that included all buildings. Apportioned that way, buildings claimed an even bigger slice of the pie—and a resulting share of greenhouse gas emissions—than even industry or transportation (see “Turning down the Global Thermostat” at mazria.com).

“Unknowingly,” writes Mazria in an open letter to the architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and building community, “we are responsible for half of all global warming emissions annually.” Because he’s an architect, Mazria is concerned primarily with buildings, but as all landscape architects know, site elements are a major portion of any development. Hence, landscape architects share complicity with architects in Mazria’s chart of greenhouse gas emissions. But Mazria’s outlook isn’t fatalistic. If architects and landscape architects share the blame for a big chunk of greenhouse emissions, they can also—if they make wise design and material choices—greatly reduce emissions from the construction sector. In fact, Mazria says, “It is time for designers to lead in the race to prevent dangerous climate change.”

As an immediate target, Mazria proposes that “all new buildings, developments, and major renovation projects be designed to use half the fossil fuel energy they would normally consume.” This, of course, would require a huge change in the day-to-day design operations of most mainstream landscape architecture offices. They’d have to think, as a matter of routine, about specifying recycled materials, reducing paving in the design of roads and parking lots, decreasing the use of conventional storm drains, and deciding when to recommend not to build.

But Mazria’s call to action doesn’t stop there. He proposes that architecture, landscape architecture, and planning schools establish a mandatory, full-year, studio-based program that promotes creative problem solving relevant to counter climate change. Since it will take time to implement this program, in the interim all design studio instructors should issue design problems that “engage the environment in a way that dramatically reduces or eliminates the need for fossil fuels.”

That sounds like a huge challenge for instructors. How many in the academic sector are teaching students to think about such difficult concepts as embodied energy and how that affects material choices? How many are showing students how to perform rough energy audits for site construction? What forward-thinking instructors are already starting to incorporate techniques into their studios to meet Mazria’s challenge to turn back the tide of greenhouse emissions?

Have an opinion? Respond now by emailing Bill Thompson at bthompson@asla.org.

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