Designing in green

The progressive work of the sustainable Princeton architects profiled in your March 21 issue is impressive. Side by side with the architects using green practices are landscape architects promoting these innovative practices in every phase of their work.

Today my profession is at the forefront of sustainable planning and site design; we soon will go public with a LEED-like system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative, or SITES, which defines a voluntary rating system for design and construction outside the building skin.

As a project manager for one of the SITES pilot projects, I am helping to test sustainable guidelines for water, soil, vegetation, materials, and human welfare. Emphasizing regeneration (not just conservation and restoration), the system will provide a nationwide guide for design, construction, operations, and maintenance of landscapes, with and without buildings.