Starting a project with a site walk to gather an inventory of the existing trees is a critical first step in the development process that is often ignored. Observing the site first hand often raises awareness and appreciation for the natural resource of the existing trees and invariably makes for a better project.

Tree protection is the next vital step once the decision has been made to maintain a tree on a construction site. There are rules of thumb to use, protecting the ground around the tree from the drip line to the trunk from excavation or compression, for example. However, the best bet is to have an experienced arborist give recommendations as to how to protect the specific species of tree. Some trees have more sensitive root systems than others. A critical root zone should be established for all the trees to be protected on site and a sturdy fence put in place. As communication is key in any successful project, letting everyone on site know about the importance of the critical root zone is also necessary. Most of the tree’s roots are within 3 feet of the ground surface for access to air, water and nutrients, so adding more soil on top of the protection zone is also to be avoided.

Trees have so many benefits; providing shade and oxygen are just two of these. Promoting wild life habitat, increasing concentration for workers with views to trees, lowering stress levels, reducing water run-off, providing energy savings for buildings they shade and increasing property values are some of the many other benefits. (The Tree Keeper class taught through the Heartland Tree Alliance is an excellent resource if you would like to learn more about urban trees and their care.) Trees work to enhance the architecture when placed well so they can grow and mature healthily. I can’t think of an example where I have seen a tree and thought … gosh, that building would be so much better if that tree weren’t there…Even in the case of the Eames House, where the Eucalyptus trees are in very close proximity and tower way over the structure, the space created by these trees is so grand and powerful, the experience would be diminished without them. I use this example only because my understanding of the building was so changed by actually going there and walking under the canopy and viewing the site.

Finally, trees have a financial benefit to a city and this is an investment that should be handled with care. They absorb carbon and contribute to the public health of a community, in addition to the other benefits listed previously. A great tool to help ascertain the value of a tree is iTree, a program used to calculate the economic value of trees (www.itreetools.org). It takes approximately 20 years for a new tree to grow and be able to provide the financial benefits to a community that exceed the amount of investment needed to maintain and nurture that tree, which means that mature tree canopies should be cared for and protected and new trees planted with a long term goal in mind.

Go to www.heartlandtreealliance.org for more resources and ways to get involved in the Kansas City Metro area to protect and learn about trees.

This blog is dedicated to advancing the ideas of sustainable architecture and urban design.  The idea is to share the research and experience we are engaged in as an architecture and urban design office, as well as provide a platform for accelerating the dialogue of how to best achieve higher levels of design and building performance.

Since having been involved in the green building industry since the mid 1990′s, I have been working to understand and implement better practices and questioned the status quo methods of building and development.   The slow pace by which the majority of the United States has reacted to calls to rethink our development patterns is especially distressing.  We need to be more resourceful, smarter and sensitized to our environment and the impact we are having.

I grew up in a neighborhood where children could ride bikes or walk to the park, to friends’ houses and to many community amenities.  And although my hometown was a densely populated and well established suburb of New York, there were many green places to explore, from the old orchards to the beaches and woods.  When our family relocated to a suburb developed in the 1950′s around a golf course, I was unbelievably bored. My friends and I could no longer go to the downtown shopping district without a ride from parents.  Spatially isolated, trapped and removed from a sense of the greater community, this post war suburb made me very aware of the community I had lost.   Living in and continuing to create more “neighborhoods” that rely soley on cars for transportation is underserving our youth, elderly and handicapped populations, not to mention that it is simply not sustainable for many reasons that I will continue to elaborate on…

A new, interdisciplinary approach to design thinking is being advanced – Ecological Urbanism,  tangentially related to the decades long Urban Ecology movement.  We are facing a crisis of depleted resources and sense of place, and it is going to take more than the knowledge of planners and architects to get us out of it.  Thus, I initiated the Ecological Urbanism Series in 2009 with the help of the Kansas City Design Center’s Vlad Krstic and staff from DA+UD.  We have held a forum on the major challenges facing our Kansas City region with panelists including an economist, geoscientist, planner and architect to talk about water, air quality and the stresses on our existing infrastructure.  We also held a panel discussion and documentary viewing of “Contested Streets” with local leaders, a public works director and landscape designers, followed by an interactive session with all attendees to define what greener “Complete Streets” would look like.

We hope to continue this work with a case study style design exercise for a specific site in Kansas City, Missouri’s downtown.  Robert, my husband and I, are teaching a studio this semester based on ideas of Ecological Urbanism, at the University of Kansas.  Working along side the KCDC students and with local municipal planners and stakeholders, as well as professionals, we hope to engange in re-envisioning what our post-industrial cities can become.  More to come on this matter…

Our practice is also actively designing and building four, ground up, infill homes that we have the goal of achieving either LEED or NAHB Green Standard certification varying from Platinum to Silver levels.  These homes are using various methods of building envelops; SIPS, advanced framing, the “perfect wall system” and Insulated Concrete Forms.  All will be heated and cooled with a Ground Source heat pump and other high efficiency systems. We will profile these homes in a future post as well…so please keep tuned!