ANNOUNCEMENT:
An important new book has been published, one that illustrates what our
urban landscapes might look like if all of the emerging principles of
sustainable design were applied. Although there are a number of books on
sustainable design, there are very few, if any, illustrated case studies
of complete sustainable communities.

This book is comprehensive enough for the classroom, accessible enough
for high school students, yet stylish enough for the coffee table. I
strongly urge you to consider acquiring this important book for yourself
or for your library.


More information is available from Alison Arsenault via e-mail at
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SUSTAINABLE URBAN LANDSCAPES: THE SURREY DESIGN CHARRETTE

Patrick M. Condon, Editor
ISBN 0-88865-535-5
Published by the UBC James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable
Environments.
Distributed by University of British Columbia Press

Despite emerging regional, provincial, and federal urban development
policies that promote and indeed increasingly require our cities to be
more sustainable, we are still seeing our urban landscapes being
insulted with poor design and overall disregard. One roadblock to
building new more sustainable communities is that we have, until now,
lacked a concrete "Vision" of exactly what such communities would be
like.

Sustainable Urban Landscapes: The Surrey Design Charrette records how
sustainable communities can move from idea to reality and, along the
way, provides useful guidance on how we can build better and more
responsibly. In contrast with many books that deal with sustainability
and planning theory, this books provides tangible "pictures" of what a
more sustainable community might actually be like.

This book catalogues the results of a design charrette hosted by the
University of British Columbia's Chair in Landscape and Liveable
Environments in the Fall of 1995. Top landscape and building architects
from all over North America, supported by UBC Architecture and Landscape
Architecture students, formed themselves into four teams, and, armed
with the most innovative and up-to-date sustainable principles, designed
a sustainable community for a 400 acre parcel in Surrey, British
Columbia, Canada.

The 5 day brainstorming design exercise produced 4 complete plans and 4
sets of illustrations for a sustainable community of 10,000 persons. The
end products are far different from conventional subdivisions currently
being built in most cities. Instead, the natural environment retains its
integrity, with designs reflecting many sustainable urban landscape
design principles - more park space, narrower residential streets to
slow traffic, walking-friendly streets, varied housing types, and a
working with rather than against the natural systems of the site.

The book is laid out so that the reader gets a sense of the evolution of
a designers thought process through the progression of illustrations. In
each chapter, a team describes the steps in which they chose to tackle
the design problem.  Illustrated with over 98 colour images, the
chapters follow a sequence from the ground up - exposing each teams
approach to problem solving. Readers will be drawn into the highly
illustrative pages packed with analytical diagrams, perspective
sketches, site sections, housing prototype studies, block prototype
studies, axonometrics, illustrative site plans, and detailed site plans.

The forward is by Doug Kelbaugh, FAIA, charrette team leader, professor
at the University of Washington department of Architecture, editor of
the influential "Pedestrian Pockets Handbook, organizer of over a dozen
of his own international charrettes at the University of Washington, and
the official advisor to the UBC charrette project. The introduction is
by the editor Patrick Condon, holder of the Chair in Landscape and
Liveable Environments, Charrette host, and team leader. Bill Morrish,
Director of the Design Centre for the American Urban Landscape, an
influential thinker in the field of urban design and a charrette team
member, provides an essay on ways to integrate urban infrastructure with
natural systems.

The other team leaders for the charrette were:
Joost Bakker, Architect, Vancouver, British Columbia; Cheryl Barton,
Landscape Architect, San Francisco, California;Catherine Brown,
Landscape Architect, Minneapolis Minnesota; Patrick Condon, Landscape
Arc hitect, Vancouver, British Columbia; Roger Hughes, Architect,
Vancouver,British Columbia; Ken Greenberg, Architect, Toronto, Ontario;
Jennifer Marshall, Architect, Vancouver, British Columbia; Stacy
Moriarty, Landscape Architect, Vancouver, British Colum bia; Moura
Quayle, Landscape Architect, Vancouver, British Columbia; Murray
Silverstein, Architect, Berkeley, California; Ron Walkey, Architect,
Vancouver, British Columbia; Bill Wenk, Landscape Architect, Denver,
Colorado; Carolyn Woodland, Landscape Arc hitect, Toronto, Ontario; Don
Wuori, Landscape Architect, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Largely descriptive rather than prescriptive, "Sustainable Urban
Landscapes" is the first book to provide readers with innovative
concepts for integrating nature with the city and, further, the design
details to make it work.