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Sustainability envisions the enduring prosperity of all living
things.
Sustainable design seeks to create communities, buildings, and
products that contribute to this vision.
To paraphrase educator and author David Orr: Sustainable design is
the careful meshing of human purposes with the larger patterns and
flows of the natural world.
To paraphrase architect Bill Reed: Sustainable design is a process
that supports and improves the health of the systems that sustain
life.
AIA/COTE 10 Measures of Sustainable Design
Sustainable Design Intent and Innovation
Sustainable design is rooted in a mindset that understands humans
as an integral part of nature and responsible for stewardship of
natural systems. Sustainable design begins with a connection to
personal values and embraces the ecological, economic, and social
circumstances of a project. Architectural expression itself comes
from this intent, responding to the specifics region, watershed,
community, neighborhood, and site.
Regional/Community Design and
Connectivity
Sustainable design recognizes the unique cultural and natural
character of place, promotes regional and community identity,
contributes to public space and community interaction, and seeks to
reduce auto travel and parking requirements and promote alternative
transit strategies.
Land Use and Site Ecology
Sustainable design reveals how natural systems can thrive
in the presence of human development, relates to ecosystems at
different scales, and creates, re-creates or preserves open space,
permeable groundscape, and/or on-site ecosystems.
Bioclimatic Design
Sustainable design conserves resources and optimizes human comfort
through connections with the flows of bioclimatic region, using
place-based design to benefit from free energies—sun, wind,
and water. In footprint, section, orientation, and massing,
sustainable design responds to site, sun path, breezes, and
seasonal and daily cycles.
Light and Air
Sustainable design creates a comfortable and healthy
interior environment while providing abundant daylight and fresh
air. Daylight, lighting design, natural ventilation, improved
indoor air quality, and views, enhance the vital human link to
nature.
Water Cycle
Recognizing water as an essential resource, sustainable design
conserves water supplies, manages site water and drainage, and
capitalizes on renewable site sources using water-conserving
strategies, fixtures, appliances, and equipment.
Energy Flows and Energy Future
Rooted in passive strategies, sustainable design contributes to
energy conservation by reducing or eliminating the need for
lighting and mechanical heating and cooling. Smaller and more
efficient building systems reduce pollution and improve building
performance and comfort. Controls and technologies, lighting
strategies, and on-site renewable energy should be employed with
long-term impacts in mind.
Materials, Building Envelope, and Construction
Using a life cycle lens, selection of materials and products can
conserve resources, reduce the impacts of
harvest/manufacture/transport, improve building performance, and
secure human health and comfort. High-performance building
envelopes improve comfort and reduce energy use and pollution.
Sustainable design promotes recycling through the life of the
building.
Long Life, Loose Fit
Sustainable design seeks to optimize ecological, social, and
economic value over time. Materials, systems, and design solutions
enhance versatility, durability, and adaptive reuse potential.
Sustainable design begins with right-sizing and foresees future
adaptations.
Collective Wisdom and Feedback Loops
Sustainable design recognizes that the most intelligent design
strategies evolve over time through shared knowledge within a large
community. Lessons learned from the integrated design process and
from the site and building themselves over time should contribute
to building performance, occupant satisfaction, and design of
future projects.
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