Bina Puri upbeat on cracking RM1b mark

The company expects 2011 to be one of its better years since its listing in 1995, says Bina Puri's group managing director

BINA Puri Holdings Bhd, which is expanding its business, is bullish that revenue will surpass RM1 billion this year, its chief said.



"This year is all about execution of projects and finishing existing jobs. We expect 2011 to be one of our better years since our listing in 1995," group managing director Tan Sri Tee Hock Seng told Business Times.

In 2010, Bina Puri secured projects worth RM2.5 billion. Among the contracts it won were the Ampang light rail transit line extension, the low-cost carrier terminal in Sepang, the Kuala Lumpur-Kuala Selangor Expressway privatisation project and building ramps and a main line bridge for the Eastern Dispersal Link in Johor.

The company hopes to maintain the rate of new contracts this year by securing RM2.5 billion worth of work.
It has bid for building and infrastructure projects worth over RM2 billion, in Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and the Middle East.

For the nine months ended September 30 2010, Bina Puri posted a net profit of RM8.13 million on revenue of RM861 million. In 2009, Bina Puri made RM6.4 million on revenue of RM780.1 million.

Tee said the company's order book of RM3.3 billion will help improve its earnings for the next two to three years.

Meanwhile, Tee said Bina Puri is on a drive to expand its property division, which contributes less than 10 per cent to its revenue and net profit.

Bina Puri ventured into property development in the 1980sas a boutique developer.

Some of its prime projects include Bukit Idaman township in Selayang and Jesselton Condominium in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Tee expects contribution from the division this year to be in the region of 15 per cent with RM900 million worth of housing projects in Klang Valley, Johor and Sabah.

"We want to expand the division because of the higher margins that can be made from property development. We don't want to be too dependent on construction, which is harder to take on," Tee said.

By Business Times


Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection

Bina Puri upbeat on cracking RM1b mark

The company expects 2011 to be one of its better years since its listing in 1995, says Bina Puri's group managing director

BINA Puri Holdings Bhd, which is expanding its business, is bullish that revenue will surpass RM1 billion this year, its chief said.



"This year is all about execution of projects and finishing existing jobs. We expect 2011 to be one of our better years since our listing in 1995," group managing director Tan Sri Tee Hock Seng told Business Times.

In 2010, Bina Puri secured projects worth RM2.5 billion. Among the contracts it won were the Ampang light rail transit line extension, the low-cost carrier terminal in Sepang, the Kuala Lumpur-Kuala Selangor Expressway privatisation project and building ramps and a main line bridge for the Eastern Dispersal Link in Johor.

The company hopes to maintain the rate of new contracts this year by securing RM2.5 billion worth of work.
It has bid for building and infrastructure projects worth over RM2 billion, in Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and the Middle East.

For the nine months ended September 30 2010, Bina Puri posted a net profit of RM8.13 million on revenue of RM861 million. In 2009, Bina Puri made RM6.4 million on revenue of RM780.1 million.

Tee said the company's order book of RM3.3 billion will help improve its earnings for the next two to three years.

Meanwhile, Tee said Bina Puri is on a drive to expand its property division, which contributes less than 10 per cent to its revenue and net profit.

Bina Puri ventured into property development in the 1980sas a boutique developer.

Some of its prime projects include Bukit Idaman township in Selayang and Jesselton Condominium in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Tee expects contribution from the division this year to be in the region of 15 per cent with RM900 million worth of housing projects in Klang Valley, Johor and Sabah.

"We want to expand the division because of the higher margins that can be made from property development. We don't want to be too dependent on construction, which is harder to take on," Tee said.

By Business Times


Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection

Size Does Matter, or Not

An interesting article in Planetizen called "Beloved and Abandoned: A Platting Named Portland" investigates one of the unique, frustrating and beloved quirks of Portland. This is, our slicework of 200 foot square blocks... making for a lot of roads, and development of tiny blocks. It's our burden to bear. The article is a fascinating ride - so check it out.


:: all images via Planetizen

The authors discuss the 'Hippodamian' grid, which is an interesting way of saying square, and relate it to current urban design theory and practice. "Current planning literature brims with references to "the grid" in juxtaposition with curvilinear and dendrite conventional suburban layouts. The "grid" as a network concept has been widely accepted and is now regarded as a superior geometry for laying out greenfield and infill sites."



There is also the reference to the success of Portland directly related to these small blocks, which I'd disagree with (as the authors soon do). I'd say Portland succeeds in spite of this phenomenon, and the issues pervade - as is shown with a reference to successful urban grids, mostly those of the non-square ilk. "Urbanists and romanticists have expressed equally strong sentiments about Paris, London, Barcelona, Curitiba, Amsterdam and Venice. Of the six, only Barcelona adopted the Hippodamian grid in 1859 for its vast expansion, and Venice, without a classic grid, is the preeminent pedestrian haven, yet neither city matches the urbanist’s praise for Portland. Whatever the mix of reasons, Portland dominates the American planners' imagination feelings and talk. Disentangling this intangible realm can be an elusive goal; grounds and figures on the other hand may produce tangible results."

A grid alone is not the recipe for success, and in practice there are few pure iterations of the grid, with zigs, zags, curvy spots, the axial geometry of Ladds addition, and many other quirks. As a fan of the grid for wayfinding and layout, there's something to be said for the rigorous adherance to the formality, which much theory has been laid out in curvy, suburban blah. Some support of the grid: "The degree of connectivity of the street network could count as another practical reason. 'Network', by definition, is a set of linked components, whether a spider-net, a fishnet, or the Internet - all networks connect. What distinguishes them is the manner, geometry and frequency of connection: leaf, tree, blood vessels, telephone and web networks are dendrite, hierarchical (fractal) but fishnets are not. Portland’s is a dense fishnet with nodes at every 200 feet, which produce 360 intersections per square mile -- the highest ratio in America, and 3 to 5 times higher than current developments. For example, older and newer areas in Toronto, typical of most cities, range from 72 to 119 intersections per square mile in suburbs and 163 to 190 in older areas with a grid. As connectivity rose in importance as a planning principle, Portland’s grid emerges as a supreme example.
Coupled with connectivity, its rectilinear geometry is indisputably more advantageous for navigation on foot, car or bike than any alternatives. Visitors often feel lost and disoriented in medieval towns and in contemporary suburbs and this feeling leads to anxiety and even fear and a sense that all is not well."


The grid is rightly stated as derived by speculators for maximum corner lots - not in the grand plan of some more model communities. The fact is, again, that the grid can improve or degrade the urban environment, as the authors mention, but success is not inherently depending on that as the only criteria. "Evidently, Portland’s founders either understood little about infrastructure costs or judged them irrelevant; a judgment that no planner, developer or municipality today would take at face value. When economic efficiency matters, Portland’s grid fails the grade."

In a theoretical sense only. There's comments from Sitte and Duany on the lack of art in the grid... but really is urban planning about art? Is curvy and artistic more successful in an urban context? I doubt it. Anyway, the fact that our grid, much like the national grid system, is overlaid on a extant topography in somewhat irresponsible ways have led to issues with erasure and negative impact on natural hydrologic patterns, which only bend when topography and streams are too steep or significant to pipe, grade, and cover over. Also, the sheer amount of street paving is significant, as our small blocks lead to significantly more stormwater impacts. This however, has been the genesis for innovative strategies such as green streets to combat this - sort of making a silk purse out of a bad grid.



While it may be easy to ignore progress in combating our bad grid, it's again a pointless thought exercise (these adaptions in the following paragraph are the lifeblood of modern urbanism, as we can't recreate what has already been created). Thus, it's interesting to think of ways of refuting the present by showing how the past is flawed: "The ordinary impression on the ground that the Portland grid 'works' in contemporary traffic conditions is casually taken as a sign of suitability. This view obscures an entire century of engineered physical, mechanical and management adaptations which are overlaid on the 1866 platting. Remove these (in a thought experiment) and imagine the outcome. Clearly, an ill-suited geometry is made to work with interventions such as dividing lines, medians, traffic signs, traffic lights, directional signs, bollards, street widening, one-ways, traffic circles or roundabouts and many others."

I think that's called adapting to change, but then again, it's a thought experiment, so fun nonetheless. As the authors conclude: "For reasons of land efficiency, infrastructure cost, municipal expenses, rainwater management, traffic safety and flow, and the demand for increased pedestrian share of public space, the praised, pure Portland platting will likely not find new followers. Portland will remain a adored and beloved by urbanists, but her Hippodamian grid layout seems destined for the archives, abandoned as a good idea of a byegone era. This transcendence leaves urbanists, who seek to regenerate a contemporary urban pattern that is as pure, complete and systematic, looking for alternatives: ones which excite the same first blush of adoration and delight and lead to a deep abiding love, but also hold up to intense scrutiny of their economic, social and environmental performance."

I agree with the main tenets of their thesis (and it's a great notion and read) and frankly think the grid is a pain in the ass, but it's one of those theoretical arguments that really doesn't mean much in terms of modern urbanism, particularly in a city that plans things to death and beyond. Few if any new cities are built from scratch with no existing contextual framework - so maybe in the few new communities, a particular utopian grid system can be applied - probably modeled after the latest New Urbanist theory. It'd be interesting to imagine a re-thinking of the 'Hippodamian' grid being retrofit, as is, into something else in Portland - elongated, filled in, abstracted into a more pure and reasonable pattern, with streets removed to be open spaces, bikeways, and other green infrastructural systems. But the question is moot, a thought experiment if you will, and like it or not we are stuck with our pattern.

We deal with it, we plan around it. We love its street/building staccato chatter back and forth, with our 360 intersections per square mile, and we curse the stop sign hovering on your bike every 200 feet, waiting for that car to come zipping by take you out. It makes life exciting. But, in general it doesn't mean much, and isn't as derogatory to a high quality public realm as implied. Portland isn't to be copied for urban form, and really shouldn't be degraded for a grid system that was done without regard. We're known for for innovation and foresight in policy, transportation, stormwater management, and other factors. Many of these come from the very problems that arise from our back-assward small grids. But it works, because sometimes a grid is just a grid.
Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection

Size Does Matter, or Not

An interesting article in Planetizen called "Beloved and Abandoned: A Platting Named Portland" investigates one of the unique, frustrating and beloved quirks of Portland. This is, our slicework of 200 foot square blocks... making for a lot of roads, and development of tiny blocks. It's our burden to bear. The article is a fascinating ride - so check it out.


:: all images via Planetizen

The authors discuss the 'Hippodamian' grid, which is an interesting way of saying square, and relate it to current urban design theory and practice. "Current planning literature brims with references to "the grid" in juxtaposition with curvilinear and dendrite conventional suburban layouts. The "grid" as a network concept has been widely accepted and is now regarded as a superior geometry for laying out greenfield and infill sites."



There is also the reference to the success of Portland directly related to these small blocks, which I'd disagree with (as the authors soon do). I'd say Portland succeeds in spite of this phenomenon, and the issues pervade - as is shown with a reference to successful urban grids, mostly those of the non-square ilk. "Urbanists and romanticists have expressed equally strong sentiments about Paris, London, Barcelona, Curitiba, Amsterdam and Venice. Of the six, only Barcelona adopted the Hippodamian grid in 1859 for its vast expansion, and Venice, without a classic grid, is the preeminent pedestrian haven, yet neither city matches the urbanist’s praise for Portland. Whatever the mix of reasons, Portland dominates the American planners' imagination feelings and talk. Disentangling this intangible realm can be an elusive goal; grounds and figures on the other hand may produce tangible results."

A grid alone is not the recipe for success, and in practice there are few pure iterations of the grid, with zigs, zags, curvy spots, the axial geometry of Ladds addition, and many other quirks. As a fan of the grid for wayfinding and layout, there's something to be said for the rigorous adherance to the formality, which much theory has been laid out in curvy, suburban blah. Some support of the grid: "The degree of connectivity of the street network could count as another practical reason. 'Network', by definition, is a set of linked components, whether a spider-net, a fishnet, or the Internet - all networks connect. What distinguishes them is the manner, geometry and frequency of connection: leaf, tree, blood vessels, telephone and web networks are dendrite, hierarchical (fractal) but fishnets are not. Portland’s is a dense fishnet with nodes at every 200 feet, which produce 360 intersections per square mile -- the highest ratio in America, and 3 to 5 times higher than current developments. For example, older and newer areas in Toronto, typical of most cities, range from 72 to 119 intersections per square mile in suburbs and 163 to 190 in older areas with a grid. As connectivity rose in importance as a planning principle, Portland’s grid emerges as a supreme example.
Coupled with connectivity, its rectilinear geometry is indisputably more advantageous for navigation on foot, car or bike than any alternatives. Visitors often feel lost and disoriented in medieval towns and in contemporary suburbs and this feeling leads to anxiety and even fear and a sense that all is not well."


The grid is rightly stated as derived by speculators for maximum corner lots - not in the grand plan of some more model communities. The fact is, again, that the grid can improve or degrade the urban environment, as the authors mention, but success is not inherently depending on that as the only criteria. "Evidently, Portland’s founders either understood little about infrastructure costs or judged them irrelevant; a judgment that no planner, developer or municipality today would take at face value. When economic efficiency matters, Portland’s grid fails the grade."

In a theoretical sense only. There's comments from Sitte and Duany on the lack of art in the grid... but really is urban planning about art? Is curvy and artistic more successful in an urban context? I doubt it. Anyway, the fact that our grid, much like the national grid system, is overlaid on a extant topography in somewhat irresponsible ways have led to issues with erasure and negative impact on natural hydrologic patterns, which only bend when topography and streams are too steep or significant to pipe, grade, and cover over. Also, the sheer amount of street paving is significant, as our small blocks lead to significantly more stormwater impacts. This however, has been the genesis for innovative strategies such as green streets to combat this - sort of making a silk purse out of a bad grid.



While it may be easy to ignore progress in combating our bad grid, it's again a pointless thought exercise (these adaptions in the following paragraph are the lifeblood of modern urbanism, as we can't recreate what has already been created). Thus, it's interesting to think of ways of refuting the present by showing how the past is flawed: "The ordinary impression on the ground that the Portland grid 'works' in contemporary traffic conditions is casually taken as a sign of suitability. This view obscures an entire century of engineered physical, mechanical and management adaptations which are overlaid on the 1866 platting. Remove these (in a thought experiment) and imagine the outcome. Clearly, an ill-suited geometry is made to work with interventions such as dividing lines, medians, traffic signs, traffic lights, directional signs, bollards, street widening, one-ways, traffic circles or roundabouts and many others."

I think that's called adapting to change, but then again, it's a thought experiment, so fun nonetheless. As the authors conclude: "For reasons of land efficiency, infrastructure cost, municipal expenses, rainwater management, traffic safety and flow, and the demand for increased pedestrian share of public space, the praised, pure Portland platting will likely not find new followers. Portland will remain a adored and beloved by urbanists, but her Hippodamian grid layout seems destined for the archives, abandoned as a good idea of a byegone era. This transcendence leaves urbanists, who seek to regenerate a contemporary urban pattern that is as pure, complete and systematic, looking for alternatives: ones which excite the same first blush of adoration and delight and lead to a deep abiding love, but also hold up to intense scrutiny of their economic, social and environmental performance."

I agree with the main tenets of their thesis (and it's a great notion and read) and frankly think the grid is a pain in the ass, but it's one of those theoretical arguments that really doesn't mean much in terms of modern urbanism, particularly in a city that plans things to death and beyond. Few if any new cities are built from scratch with no existing contextual framework - so maybe in the few new communities, a particular utopian grid system can be applied - probably modeled after the latest New Urbanist theory. It'd be interesting to imagine a re-thinking of the 'Hippodamian' grid being retrofit, as is, into something else in Portland - elongated, filled in, abstracted into a more pure and reasonable pattern, with streets removed to be open spaces, bikeways, and other green infrastructural systems. But the question is moot, a thought experiment if you will, and like it or not we are stuck with our pattern.

We deal with it, we plan around it. We love its street/building staccato chatter back and forth, with our 360 intersections per square mile, and we curse the stop sign hovering on your bike every 200 feet, waiting for that car to come zipping by take you out. It makes life exciting. But, in general it doesn't mean much, and isn't as derogatory to a high quality public realm as implied. Portland isn't to be copied for urban form, and really shouldn't be degraded for a grid system that was done without regard. We're known for for innovation and foresight in policy, transportation, stormwater management, and other factors. Many of these come from the very problems that arise from our back-assward small grids. But it works, because sometimes a grid is just a grid.
Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection

Big Box Surplus Space

One of the major 'big ideas' of our Integrating Habitats competition, or the idea of reinventing suburbia in general, is the reduced parking need over time - and what to do with the leftover paved areas. An article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows this idea isn't merely peak oil induced futurism, but a more current reality. From the article: "Ever think a Home Depot parking lot is too sprawling and vacant? Home Depot does, too. 'A number of stores have barren asphalt, and it’s not in anyone’s best interest to leave it sitting there,' said Mike LaFerle, Home Depot’s vice president of real estate."


:: image via ajc

It's not a surprise, when at least 1/3 of all the properties for big box stores are for parking and many stores downsizing or at least getting much less traffic, that valuable land starts looking desirable. Continuing: "But Home Depot has land, and lots of it. In its most recent annual report, the company said it owns 89 percent of its 2,274 stores chainwide (including stores in Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico). That’s 212 million square feet of real estate — not including parking lots and garden sales areas. The value of Home Depot’s land assets totaled $8.3 billion, the report said, and building assets are $17 billion."

What might this mean in terms of area? "Few big box stores have as much parking as a Home Depot, he noted. Home Depot typically buys about 12 to 15 acres per store, he said, at an average cost of $500,000 per acre. He estimated Home Depot could sell the acreage for about that much, and raise tens of millions of dollars with the asset sales."

At 2000 stores, that's between up to 30,000 square feet of pavement ready for repurposing in full or in part.
Oddly enough (or perhaps not surprising) the ideas of how to reuse these spaces, mostly with more of the same (in a smaller variety): "Despite the general retail slowdown, chains that are still expanding — such as Chick-fil-A, Arby’s and El Pollo Loco — may jump at the chance to be near a Home Depot store, he said. “It’s a good strategy,” he said. “It’s no different from a power center anchored by a Target or Kohl’s, with small tenants like Sally Beauty Supply as a co-tenant.”


:: the cat box? - image via lowering the bar

Or as I mentioned in an email recently. That's like cleaning all the dogshit out of the backyard, then dumping the catbox in a pile in the front yard... or something like that :)Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection

Big Box Surplus Space

One of the major 'big ideas' of our Integrating Habitats competition, or the idea of reinventing suburbia in general, is the reduced parking need over time - and what to do with the leftover paved areas. An article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows this idea isn't merely peak oil induced futurism, but a more current reality. From the article: "Ever think a Home Depot parking lot is too sprawling and vacant? Home Depot does, too. 'A number of stores have barren asphalt, and it’s not in anyone’s best interest to leave it sitting there,' said Mike LaFerle, Home Depot’s vice president of real estate."


:: image via ajc

It's not a surprise, when at least 1/3 of all the properties for big box stores are for parking and many stores downsizing or at least getting much less traffic, that valuable land starts looking desirable. Continuing: "But Home Depot has land, and lots of it. In its most recent annual report, the company said it owns 89 percent of its 2,274 stores chainwide (including stores in Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico). That’s 212 million square feet of real estate — not including parking lots and garden sales areas. The value of Home Depot’s land assets totaled $8.3 billion, the report said, and building assets are $17 billion."

What might this mean in terms of area? "Few big box stores have as much parking as a Home Depot, he noted. Home Depot typically buys about 12 to 15 acres per store, he said, at an average cost of $500,000 per acre. He estimated Home Depot could sell the acreage for about that much, and raise tens of millions of dollars with the asset sales."

At 2000 stores, that's between up to 30,000 square feet of pavement ready for repurposing in full or in part.
Oddly enough (or perhaps not surprising) the ideas of how to reuse these spaces, mostly with more of the same (in a smaller variety): "Despite the general retail slowdown, chains that are still expanding — such as Chick-fil-A, Arby’s and El Pollo Loco — may jump at the chance to be near a Home Depot store, he said. “It’s a good strategy,” he said. “It’s no different from a power center anchored by a Target or Kohl’s, with small tenants like Sally Beauty Supply as a co-tenant.”


:: the cat box? - image via lowering the bar

Or as I mentioned in an email recently. That's like cleaning all the dogshit out of the backyard, then dumping the catbox in a pile in the front yard... or something like that :)Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection

Sustainable Sites - Update

From some sneak peeks of the latest update to the Sustainable Sites Initiative (more from L+U here), I was both excited about the next iteration and establishment of more rigorous set of criteria, and a bit curious how it was going to maintain some of the necessary distance, inclusivity and poetry that is lacking in many other site rating systems. I'm not sure how I feel about the new split between the guidelines and the 'case' for sustainable sites



The full text from the Sustainable Sites website:

"The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 is the product of more than four years of work by a diverse group of experts in soils, hydrology, vegetation, materials and human health and well-being. It is expanded and updated from the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks –Draft 2008, which was released in November 2008. The Initiative developed criteria for sustainable land practices that will enable built landscapes to support natural ecological functions by protecting existing ecosystems and regenerating ecological capacity where it has been lost. This report focuses on measuring and rewarding a project that protects, restores and regenerates ecosystem services – benefits provided by natural ecosystems such as cleaning air and water, climate regulation and human health benefits.
The Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 includes a rating system for the credits which the pilot process will test for refinement before a formal release to the market place. The Rating System contains 15 prerequisites and 51 credits that cover all stages of the site development process from site selection to landscape maintenance. If you are interested in becoming a pilot project to test this Rating System, please apply here. Feedback from the pilot projects will be used to create a reference guide which will provide suggestions on how projects achieved the sustainability goals of specific credits.
The companion document titled The Case for Sustainable Landscapes provides a set of arguments—economic, environmental, and social—for the adoption of sustainable land practices, additional background on the science behind the performance criteria in the guidelines and performance benchmarks, the purpose and principles of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, and a sampling of some of the case studies the Initiative has followed."
It's great to see a site-specific system taking shape, and can't wait to see it begin to permeate the discussion of true sustainability and green building - and addition long-lacking in the current dialogue. For a bit of additional info, check out this short presentation 'Landscapes Give Back' which makes a case for the role of landscape in this discussion. More to come.



More to come after I have a chance to take a look at the updated documents. Additionally, the concept of What is a Sustainable Site will be a common theme in the next year, as the Oregon ASLA embarks on a number of events, discussions, workshops, and symposia around this idea.

Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection

Sustainable Sites - Update

From some sneak peeks of the latest update to the Sustainable Sites Initiative (more from L+U here), I was both excited about the next iteration and establishment of more rigorous set of criteria, and a bit curious how it was going to maintain some of the necessary distance, inclusivity and poetry that is lacking in many other site rating systems. I'm not sure how I feel about the new split between the guidelines and the 'case' for sustainable sites



The full text from the Sustainable Sites website:

"The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 is the product of more than four years of work by a diverse group of experts in soils, hydrology, vegetation, materials and human health and well-being. It is expanded and updated from the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks –Draft 2008, which was released in November 2008. The Initiative developed criteria for sustainable land practices that will enable built landscapes to support natural ecological functions by protecting existing ecosystems and regenerating ecological capacity where it has been lost. This report focuses on measuring and rewarding a project that protects, restores and regenerates ecosystem services – benefits provided by natural ecosystems such as cleaning air and water, climate regulation and human health benefits.
The Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 includes a rating system for the credits which the pilot process will test for refinement before a formal release to the market place. The Rating System contains 15 prerequisites and 51 credits that cover all stages of the site development process from site selection to landscape maintenance. If you are interested in becoming a pilot project to test this Rating System, please apply here. Feedback from the pilot projects will be used to create a reference guide which will provide suggestions on how projects achieved the sustainability goals of specific credits.
The companion document titled The Case for Sustainable Landscapes provides a set of arguments—economic, environmental, and social—for the adoption of sustainable land practices, additional background on the science behind the performance criteria in the guidelines and performance benchmarks, the purpose and principles of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, and a sampling of some of the case studies the Initiative has followed."
It's great to see a site-specific system taking shape, and can't wait to see it begin to permeate the discussion of true sustainability and green building - and addition long-lacking in the current dialogue. For a bit of additional info, check out this short presentation 'Landscapes Give Back' which makes a case for the role of landscape in this discussion. More to come.



More to come after I have a chance to take a look at the updated documents. Additionally, the concept of What is a Sustainable Site will be a common theme in the next year, as the Oregon ASLA embarks on a number of events, discussions, workshops, and symposia around this idea.

Source URL: https://threemoonsevolving.blogspot.com/search/label/infrastructure
Visit Future Design Interior for daily updated images of art collection