Laurie Olin: Sustainability with
a big or small "s"
is a concept that's been around
for a long time.
We didn't call it that in
earlier days.
And it's become very important
to a lot of people and it's
now on everybody's radar.
But what does it mean?
Well, it means many
different things.
Ken Smith: A lot of people think
that it's the green stuff,
but in fact if you think
about sustainability,
it's a larger general concept
dealing with social issues
and environmental, ecological
issues and economic issues.
Thomas Woltz: I think a key part
of sustainability in landscape
is responsiveness.
Responsiveness to not only the
needs of the client,
to the program, but also to the
needs or demands
of the ecology of the place
that you're working.
Diana Balmori: For me it also
means connectivity.
That means the fact that we have
adopted and understand
that the world is an ecosystem
and that we're all connected
means that we have to act as if
we're all connected.
And in order to sustain our own
life, we have to sustain
the life of the plants or of
the rivers, of the air,
of the animals.
It's that connectivity
which is essential.
Thomas Woltz: More and more
with changing climate globally,
I think we're finding that
landscapes have
to not only tolerate
but actually embrace a regime
of disturbance and become
resilient in the face
of disturbance.
But we can't really ignore the
fact that inundation,
floods, drought, high winds,
these things are going to have
an effect on our landscapes.
Chris Reed: A great example
that's very relevant right now
is sea level rise.
How is it that cities can begin
to remake themselves
or make themselves in ways that
can accommodate
lower levels of water,
higher levels of water, storm
surge inundation?
Julie Bargmann: I think when you
don't see landscape as this
perfect snapshot
and a static thing,
it gets to this whole issue
that's become important
in terms of this resiliency.
Chris Reed: I'm thinking of a
space that we designed
on Cape Cod.
...It's a site that's along a
river that's subject
to tidal inundation.
There could potentially be
multiple future
states for this project;
sea level could rise, it could
inundate the site.
The site could dry out
in certain ways.
Radical wind shifts could begin
to really reshape how that
site ecologically would
perform....
But by being able to
respond to each of these
conditions we weren't putting
the town in the position of
having to defend one version of
the park's future from all
these other incursions,
therefore lowering maintenance
and operations costs.
This kind of thinking, which is
really informed by ecological
research is something
that's only now
being brought into
public space design
and even city design in fairly
significant ways.
Julie Bargmann: It's that
power of using landscape systems
that are adaptive, you know,
that they're malleable,
they're responsive,
they just can respond...
to the conditions.
And that's...sustainability,
in terms of just even
exposing those processes and
allowing them to become part of
the built work.
Mary Margaret Jones: And it
has to be social as well as
environmental because
these changes involve
people now.
You can no longer say we're just
in a world of environmental
planning, ecological planning
that's about the environment.
It all involves people now
because it all
involves land use.
Kathryn Gustafson: When you
build a piece that is really
good for the public,
they understand that.
They understand that
an effort has gone in.
They understand when you build
something well for them,
that you're saying to them
I care about you.
And I think that means they
start caring about it.
Thus, it becomes more
sustainable.
David Fletcher: Sustainable
design is, if you're
creating something
that people love.
They will cherish it,
it'll last.
Laurie Olin: When we did Bryant
Park it was unsustainable,
it was going downhill and
everybody hated it and nobody
knew what to do with it.
Now after we redid it... people
love it and they really take
care of it and it now
generates enough
money for its own maintenance...
producing things that people
value and desire and like,
and want to be in, raises the
ability for them
to take care of it.
Ken Smith: Some part of design
is actually defensive,
designing things that can sort
of withstand abuse
at some level.
And other parts of it are much
more kind of aspirational
where you have to create
something that you hope will be
beautiful enough or
loved enough that people will
really want to take care of it.
