The PI will define terms, conduct a literature search, review and read the literature, identify projects recognized as sustainable in the selected regions, and contact individuals responsible for aspects of the various projects. Work will lead to the gathering of pertinent information and knowledge and to the development of a project list that will become the basis for future work (sabbatical – phase 2).
The objectives for the second phase are to visit the sites, meet designers and developers, and to learn how in these designed communities and neighborhoods the layout of lots and buildings, roads, paths, walks, bikeways, and transit stops, and other practices such as low-impact development, created wetlands, landscape restoration, rain gardens and bioswales have been used to reduce impacts on the landscape and achieve sustainable benchmarks. To assist the PI, the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and the Universities of Melbourne and New South Wales (Sydney) have agreed to host the PI and to collaborate with him during his sabbatical leave.
Intermodal
The challenge of our time is to address the staggering issues associated with global warming and climate change. Changing behaviors and the ways in which we operate, developing new technologies and materials and creating new places for living and working, may lead us to curb our appetites and reduce our impacts on the environment. Nations around the world are taking the lead in a variety of areas including green building and site development, the use of alternative energy supplies, and increased emphasis on the use of bikes and public transit as a means of moving through our cities and towns. One area of particular potential is the sustainable community which may loosely be defined as an environment in which people live and work and where buildings, infrastructure and landscapes are designed to reduce impacts and protect the finite resources and underlying systems on which they depend. They are communities designed to be pleasing in which to live and work, relying less on cars and more on walking, biking and public transit to get to and from destinations, and they balance concerns with ecology with those of equality and economy. While such places may exist, they are difficult to find and study. What they are, where they are, and how they function is the subject for this study.
Research will be conducted in the following way:
1.1 Literature Search and Web Review – Using the library at the University of Rhode Island and the worldwide web, the PI will research topics, collect abstracts and journal articles and review publications with a focus on sustainable communities and an emphasis on sites in South Africa and Australia.
1.2 Article and Text Review – Collected materials will be reviewed and read while developing definitions, criteria, benchmarks, and lists of sites recognized for having sustainable community layouts and transportation systems. Lists of architects, engineers, landscape architects, municipalities and individuals will also be developed.
completion by 12/31/08
$38,000.00
yes
This research and its timing will provide an excellent opportunity to gain knowledge and insights into a topic of great importance and interest at the University of Rhode Island and elsewhere. It also leads directly to a six-month period of further research when the PI will be visiting sites and interacting with faculty in South African and Australian institutions of higher education. This work and the knowledge gained about sustainable communities and transportation systems, and the PI’s sabbatical to follow, will lead to collaborations with faculty at each of the host institution. It will lead to papers and presentations at institutions in the USA, as well, and will enhance his reputation as a scholar in the area of sustainable communities and sustainable transportation systems.
This knowledge will be used in landscape architecture design studios at the University of Rhode Island. Over the past 15 years, the Principal Investigator has directed senior-level design classes focusing on sustainable community designs located along some of the busiest roads in Rhode Island. In these classes students have developed design visions for roadway corridors and streets, greenways and bikepaths, greenfields and brownfields. They have conducted public workshops and made public presentations highlighting their visions for more sustainable communities and village centers. Their designs have linked multi-use sites through trails, walks and bikeways to town centers. They have used bus shelters and street furnishings, open spaces and mixed-use developments to create low-impact, aesthetically pleasing pedestrian-oriented developments. Some of the stakeholder groups with whom my classes have worked include the Towns of Exeter, Charlestown, Richmond, and North Kingstown, the city of Newport and the Washington County Regional Planning Council.
Finally, I want to note that when I first joined the faculty in 1992, the focus of my work at that time was on responsible landscape architecture design which very soon became known as sustainable design. I have continued to speak publically, publish, invite lecturers to URI to discuss the topic; I have toured and made presentations in New Zealand and wish to continue to enhance my reputation in this field. Currently, I am chairing an abstract review committee on sustainability for the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Council of Landscape Architecture Education (CELA). Thus, it is within this context that I suggest the importance of this research project that is consistent with the URITC theme of “Connectivity through Sustainable Transportation Systems”. This research will allow me to continue developing new knowledge on this important topic and applying it through scholarship and landscape architecture design studios.
As indicated, this work will be the first phase of a research project that will result in papers, collaborations, presentations made both abroad and in the United States. The work will also be incorporated into upper-
level landscape architecture design studios focusing on connectivity and sustainable communities.
This research project will be the beginning of a two-phase project that will take the PI to South Africa and Australia where he will research, conduct site visits and meet with faculty, designers and developers responsible for sustainable community projects. At the completion of the dual-phased project, beneficiaries will include stakeholder communities who will receive services from the students in Landscape Architecture Design Studios. The students will also benefit as they receive information, visual and verbal descriptions and listen to reports and presentations on the PI’s research. In addition, landscape architecture departments at the Universities of Pretoria, Melbourne and New South Wales will benefit through presentations and class interactions. It is expected that there will papers generated as a result of collaborative efforts.
Sustainable communities, context sensitive design, greenways, bikeways, sustainable/ecological development, TOD’s, best management practices, low impact development, sustainability