Friday, September 19th

8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Sustainable Urbanism: Advanced Techniques and Metrics
with Doug Farr

Synopsis: Sustainable urbanism is gaining wide international acceptance as a pattern of settlement superior to today’s climate changing sprawl. Defined in Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature as walkable, transit-served urbanism integrated with high performance buildings and infrastructure, this sustainable reform is the subject of a national campaign to become the dominant pattern of development in the US by 2030. Achieving this ambitious goal is entirely viable. It requires taking a fresh approach to our professional routines, and agreeing on a common shared vision of the future.

One of the greatest challenges is in overcoming the widespread professional illiteracy about the near-universal rules of thumb for designing the human and natural systems underlying sustainable settlements. Examples of this include the development density and configuration required to support public transit, the number of dwellings required to support walk-to retail or the land area required to reinfiltrate stormwater in urban contexts. With the publication of Sustainable Urbanism, expert techniques and metrics to address these key sustainability parameters are compiled into a single source.

In the morning session, participants will be lead through the techniques and metrics outlined in the book. In past seminars this presentation has been very lively, generating a lot of questions and debate. The afternoon session will reinforce these concepts in a hands-on design workshop and will be conducted in small groups. The design assignment will task participants with integrating sustainable urbanist patterns and thresholds to design a sustainable neighborhood and a sustainable corridor.

Morning Session

Overview of Sustainable Urbanism

1. Metrics of distress from the US’s wrong course on the built environment
2. The history of current movements seeking to reform the built environment.
3. The three-part strategy to make sustainable urbanism the norm by 2030

Tools and Techniques for Implementing Sustainable Urbanism

1. Communicating sustainable urbanism
2. Implementation agendas for leaders
3. Tools: charrettes, plans, codes, RFQ’s, RFP’s benchmarks, etc.

Thresholds of Sustainable Urbanism

1. The environmental benefits of density
2. The sustainable neighborhood and supporting thresholds
3. The sustainable corridor and supporting thresholds
4. High performance buildings and infrastructure
5. The 2030 Community Challenge

Global Case Studies of Sustainable Urbanism

1. Built Infill and Greenfield
2. Unbuilt Infill and Greenfield
3. Scales of Intervention

Break

Afternoon Session

Hands-on Design- Small group break-out
Local examples of sustainability - application of LEED-ND and metrics from Sustainable Urbanism

The West Tennessee Regional Opportunity Forum is presented in conjunction with Sustainable Tennessee co-organizers Tennessee Environmental Council and

Tennessee Conservation Voters