Sustainable Landscapes are
based on principles of permaculture, healthy communities and true urban smart growth.
Buildings, neighbourhoods,
and settled areas of all types with their landscapes become part of a total
environment that helps to improve energy and resource use efficiency, reduce
capital and operating costs, improve waste water and air quality, produce food
and process organic wastes, increase soil fertility, protect ecological
functions and improve quality of life.
Sustainable Landscapes,
also referred to as ‘Solar
Landscapes’, or ‘Smart Landscapes’ thus play a significant role in
helping to reduce Green House Gas emissions and our ecological footprint.
Click to view examples of
Sustainable Landscape Projects.
The Sustainable Landscape design model can be applied to new projects or
retrofit to existing developments.
The following is an excerpt from THE SOLAR LANDSCAPE by C. Brad
Peterson Environmental Management and Landscape Architecture, July 2002:
Healthy housing, smart buildings and eco-village developments are rapidly gaining acceptance
in this time of concern over green house gas emissions, rising energy costs
and declining air and water quality. Solar landscapes are the natural
alternative to conventional landscapes that assist green developments achieve
their energy, cost efficiency and environmental protection targets. Solar
landscapes, eco-landscape or healthy landscape principles can be applied at
any scale, from individual homes to the eco-village, to communities of
municipal smart growth. Operational efficiencies may be gained at
known thresholds or scales of application.
The premise behind innovative use of landscape and living elements in
eco-village and solar structures is quite simple: plants and living systems
do work that benefit the environment and our communities. The building, its
occupants and their activities, and landscape are viewed as one contiguous
ecosystem. Energy and material flows involving space heating and cooling,
water heating, food production and organic waste assimilation are integrated
into a total living environment.
The Solar Landscape model explains the following seven major landscape
themes:
