Why leave green buildings to do all the environmental work? Green infrastructure, like forests, parks, alternative stormwater systems and recycled sidewalks, can also do some of the heavy lifting in an effort to make our urban environments better. For example, this article mentions the following:
And green infrastructure often does the job better than anything human-built, for much less money, as groups like the Tree People in Los Angeles and Cascade Land Conservancy in Seattle argue. Take storm-water management. With conventional approaches, runoff from roofs and roads is channeled into underground pipes and into lakes and streams, an expensive process that also causes too much water to flow too quickly, disrupting habitat for fish and picking up pollutants from city streets and yards, spoiling water quality for all. Trees and vegetation slow, collect, and filter flowing water, and replenish aquifers.
Enter the “green street” concept. In this, Seattle, the city of rainstorms, is leading the way. The city constructed the Street Edge Alternative (S.E.A.-Street) pilot project with a group of citizens. In this innovative streetscape, designers wove winding landscaped areas along the road edge to filter and slow the runoff into nearby Piper’s Creek. Some of these projects rise to the level of a new artform. The “Growing Vine Street Project,” designed by Carlson Architects and Peggy Gaynor, which carries storm-water over eight blocks of Seattle’s downtown, features a streamlet coursing downhill over a series of water and plant terraces that act as biofilters for stormwater, as well as walkways and gardens to be enjoyed by passersby.
Green infrastructure is a deep interest of mine, the natural outgrowth of my planning degree and an interest in sustainable design. The greater question is always, how can I incorporate it here in the stodgy and often less-than-progressive Midwest? and I haven't come up with a good solution for that yet. Building a green building out in the 'burbs doesn't work from a larger environmental point of view; what good is a green building when you have no choice but to drive to it? So green urbanism is really the next, natural step.
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