Letting the Bad Ideas Speak for Themselves

We’ve generally argued that for a good green design, it is necessary to get the environmental agenda on the table as early as possible in the design process. Every decision that is made along the way represents a commitment to a particular path and the closing out of other options. If too many decisions are made before bringing an environmental consciousness in, opportunities for fundamentally different alternative approaches are lost, and the environmental program starts to look like a bunch of expensive alterations and material substitutions.

There are some instances, however, where it might not hurt to show up late at the table. Some conventional approaches to site engineering and infrastructure development are both environmentally intrusive and expensive, so good design concepts may be best appreciated by comparing them with more wasteful approaches. By waiting until the client is faced with more expensive conventional options before proposing an elegant solution, a green designer may find a more sympathetic response.

This was the case with the site design for a current Habitat for Humanity project in Georgia. An engineering firm from another region, whose staff had never visited the 67-acre site, proposed an infrastructure plan with a half-million dollar price-tag. As is all-too-often the case, the plan called for wide streets, storm drains, and a concrete detention pond.

Faced with this unwieldy project, Habitat officials were very interested in an alternative solution that came from a small charrette with environmentally conscious designers. This plan clustered the houses, made the streets narrower, and used existing drainage patterns to manage the (greatly reduced) stormwater. The net result was a solution that protected more of the site’s natural habitat and saved the developer a bundle. Would this plan have been as well received if it were proposed first?

– Nadav Malin