Finding Eco-Density
How dense, mixed-use design can not only create great spaces, but also save money, resources and maybe even the planet.
Roy Higgs

Influential German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once famously made the observation that, “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” As pivotal 21st-century issues surrounding sustainability, resource management and energy conservation continue to emerge and occupy an increasingly prominent place in our collective social consciousness, we are witnessing that dynamic at play at the intersection of architectural design and environmental sensibilities.

Environmental initiatives are no longer a peripheral or future phenomenon. Conservation and environmental awareness is about more than simply recycling soda cans and donating a few dollars to save the rainforest; “green” thinking is being integrated into the mainstream and is becoming an ever-more influential factor in a wide range of everyday applications.

Foremost among these is the rapid emergence of environmentally sensitive design and ecologically sound planning. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Center for Sustainable Development, buildings consume 40 percent of the world’s energy. As the importance of resource management and the economic and social value of green thinking permeate through society, environmental perspectives and eco-friendly principles manifest themselves as transformative factors in planning and architectural design. Both nationally and internationally, architectural and planning concepts are influencing — and are in turn being influenced by — the form, function and aesthetic of green design. Today, Smart Growth is more than just a New Urbanism buzzword; it is a fundamental pillar of quality planning and design.

As these new priorities coalesce, they become a catalyst for fresh insights, innovations and technological advances. Not least of all, they prompt a healthy and invigorating re-examination of the ways in which humans occupy and move through space, generate thought-provoking conclusions about the form and function of designed environments, and point to an intriguing bottom line: density and ecological sensitivity are no longer mutually exclusive.

Design as Conservation

While political perspectives differ and scientific conclusions about the extent and severity of global environmental concerns may vary, there is no debate about the degree to which these issues exert a strong influence over some fundamental aspects of design and development.

Environmentally conscious design principles are given coherent and compelling voice by advocates of Smart Growth. At its core, Smart Growth promotes increased density in new or existing development that either uses existing infrastructure and utilities or minimizes new construction. The antithesis of urban and suburban sprawl, Smart Growth advocates dense, compact planning and design choices and integrated mixed-use layouts to create livable environments with a powerful and defining sense of place.

The key to the effectiveness and popularity of Smart Growth is the way in which the philosophy prioritizes long term big-picture considerations over short term results. Examining the specific mechanisms that make Smart Growth such an effective and efficient conservational development strategy provides valuable clues as to how progressive design can promote and enhance powerful places and sustainable spaces.

It may seem counterintuitive, but dense development does not necessarily equate to overdevelopment. The true enemy of sustainable, eco-friendly design is not density, but uncoordinated, unfocused development. Poorly planned construction undertaken without sufficient regard for efficiencies of movement, usage and space leads to disorder and sprawl. These types of visually and experientially chaotic and disconnected environments create inherent conflicts that are typically resolved or ameliorated through still more development. Dense development can change this counterproductive dynamic and help avoid perpetuating this vicious cycle.

Consider the most iconic of American urban landscapes: New York City. As David Owen points out in a 2004 New Yorker article titled “Green Manhattan,” the popular conception of New York from an environmental perspective is akin to that of a garbage-choked polluted wasteland, a veritable monument to environmental degradation. In fact, however, from an energy consumption standpoint, New York is one of the most efficient human ecosystems in the world. If New York City were a state, it would be the 12th most populous state in the nation, but it would be the most energy efficient. The combination of compact design, a vibrant mixing of uses, and a pre-automobile street plan that emphasized commercial density over civic legroom, and the resulting energy-saving efficiencies has led some to only half jokingly refer to New York as “The Green Apple.”

Dense, vertical, thoughtfully considered development has several inherent advantages. Fundamentally, and perhaps most importantly, it simply occupies less space. Smaller footprints translate to less land, while providing the same net square footage. Building closer and higher is also more efficient from an energy standpoint. The consistency of master-planned projects and other coordinated development allows for careful planning of the structural grid that can streamline energy delivery and reduce overall demand. Additional savings can be realized by ensuring that HVAC mechanical and control systems are consistent and compatible — something that is easier to achieve in multi-use buildings and vertical design profiles. Many architects and developers retain specialized engineers and mechanical consultants with expertise in creating tailored cutting-edge systems to maximize energy efficiency and minimize ongoing costs.

New and improving technologies make investing in innovative and energy-saving materials a more viable and attractive option. This is not a phenomenon limited to a few niche developers or idealistic granola-crunching architects. Global mega-retailers such as Wal-Mart have embraced the concept. In a small, but illustrative, example of Wal-Mart’s $500 million annual commitment to energy conservation, the firm has been using energy-efficient and longer-lasting LED lights in exterior signage for some time, and recently committed to installing LED lighting in the freezer cases of all new Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club beginning in 2007. Other environmentally friendly substitutes — using water-based acrylic-latex paints that contain little or no volatile organic compounds (VOCs), water-based glues, wood materials purchased from sources certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) — provide additional design and construction options, and the creative use of recycled materials, such as sidewalks made from old tires, can offer alternatives that are not only a functional and aesthetic success, but also require little or no ongoing maintenance.

While new materials are sometimes more expensive than existing industry standards, and upgrading to more eco-friendly options may require a costly initial investment, creative and innovative architectural design strategies can have a dramatic impact. Many are very cost-effective, and sometimes require little more than a willingness to try something new. Trees and lush landscaping elements are a prominent feature of most green design. Balancing hardscape with abundant softscaping not only creates a more pleasant environment, but trees and plantings absorb pollution, provide a significant cooling effect, and reduce runoff and wastewater. Managing stormwater is a particular problem in the large asphalt parking lots of traditional malls and commercial venues. Green overflow parking and permeable asphalt are promising technologies that allow water to infiltrate through, but an increasingly popular design option is to take parking facilities in the same conceptual direction as commercial and mixed-use projects and “go vertical.” The higher construction costs of parking decks are often offset by reduced land consumption, and owners/developers can sometimes recoup their investment through a tax increment financing plan or by developing shared transit and usage programs in association with local municipalities.

As the issue of parking so clearly shows, most shopping centers are underdeveloped properties that fail to make the most efficient use of space. The power of dense, compact mixed-use design and development, both as an engine of sustainable architectural design and as a place-making tool, stems from the fact that mixed-use is also multi-use. The resulting synergies of design and function are limited only by the imagination. To see what is perhaps the most striking and diverse example of this connection already adopted in popular use, we need to go straight to the top — the rooftop.

Heat reflection from roofs in cities and highly developed areas is massive. The “heat island” effect — resulting in urban areas that are anywhere from two to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than their rural counterparts — has a tremendous impact on energy consumption and environmental stresses. Not least of all, from a design point of view, roofs are wasted space. The (previously) wasted potential and costly inefficiencies of empty rooftops are being addressed in a variety of ways. Large roof areas can be used as catchment areas for graywater collection, or as a place to mount energy-saving solar panels. The landscaping, cooling power and absorptive properties of “green roofs” aids conservation by decreasing energy demands, costs and pollution.

The intuitive leap from energy-saving rooftop plantings to literal destinations that enliven and add value to a project is a small one, and several developments have already bridged that gap. Atlantic Station in Atlanta, the award-winning Menlyn Park Shopping Center in Pretoria, South Africa, and the soon-to-open Istinye Park in Istanbul, Turkey, both “recycle” parking deck rooftops as mixed-use and lifestyle center components, laying the street grid directly above the deck. The result is not only a more energy-efficient and eco-friendly design, but also a more engaging destination.

Saving Money And Saving The Planet Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Today, it is not uncommon for development proposals to require participating parties to be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council (USBC), which, in addition to certifying sustainable structures and projects, issues its Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) Certification to architects, landscape architects, engineers, real estate professionals, facility and construction managers, and other design and development professionals. LEED certification is becoming a standard industry prerequisite, sometimes even appearing in leasing agreements at the request of retail tenants.

There will always be objections to dense, compact design from those who equate density with traffic and congestion, and others who worry about the affordability of residential options in a mixed-use format. Experience has shown us, however, that the walkability and ready conveniences of dense environments more than alleviate these concerns. As a result, there is a great demand for a mix of uses in the industry right now. For the most part, this is a global phenomenon (India and China, while they are taking tentative steps in the right direction, are notable exceptions); it is a trend that is transitioning rapidly from the fringes to the mainstream.

While individual and private entities are generally more flexible and therefore more able to commit to changes or investments in sustainable eco-friendly strategies or technologies, some local governments and municipalities are pursuing aggressive environmentally friendly design and development initiatives. Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Greenbelt program, for example, promotes Smart Growth and dense, compact design strategies by limiting developmental sprawl outside of its urban core and preserving a band of parks and green space around the city. Cities around the world, from Portland to Paris, and from Chicago to Shanghai, are pursuing similarly progressive green initiatives.

Legislation and oversight are helping to facilitate the process, but, ultimately, these concepts are succeeding because they are proving themselves in the marketplace. While peer pressure, public relations, and an urge to “do the right thing” are undoubtedly driving some early adopters, the explosive growth and burgeoning popularity of these ideas comes from the growing recognition that dense, compact, ecologically sensitive design works. Density preserves the aesthetic and functional integrity of our built environments, as well as our natural ones. Compact, mixed-use design and Smart Growth create great places that generate a self-reinforcing cycle; quality spaces that attract more people, who add to the energy and dynamism and further increase density. It is very revealing that many of the Smart Growth design guidelines touted by environmental organizations like the Sierra Club — narrower streets, wider sidewalks, dense construction and a mix of uses — are virtually indistinguishable from the tenets of quality design espoused by the design philosophy of New Urbanism.

Appropriately enough, environmental design is, at its core, an equation about resources. Natural resources, of course, but also emotional, aesthetic and financial resources. It is no coincidence that many of today’s greatest and most innovative retail and mixed-use designs are finding exciting new ways to preserve and promote those resources, proving once and for all that commercial and environmental success stories don’t need to sacrifice one kind of “green” in pursuit of another.

Roy Higgs is chief executive officer of Baltimore-based Development Design Group Inc., an architecture, planning and design firm with a history of creating high-profile, high-quality environments around the world.