Organic Agriculture and Local Food

Green Building & Retrofitting

1.Whole Systems Approach to Ecological Design
Ecological Designs	Master Planning	Climate Change & Peak Oil

Master Planning – moving towards the sustainable city

Now we move on to the processes of delivering ecological designs. Half of the planet’s population live in cities. Many of the challenges we face as designers are ones of scale. How can “ecovillage design” be applied in urban areas to create the “city as ecology”? The simple model aside describes a master planning approach.

A number of steps are necessary to deliver a master plan. The first is the Sustainability Protocol. The design team meets with the project client and works through:

Vision
Values & Principles
Strategic Objectives
Financial Model, including cash flow & funding
Performance Targets (Sustainability Indicators)
Design Specifications
Delivery
Monitoring (Outcome Mapping)

The sustainability indicators inform the detailed design and specifications. The delivery vehicle can be a management or construction contractor or contractors.

Utilities will be engineered, where possible, in an integrated design. The “Ecotect” suite of computer design programmes is a valuable tool. The project will be costed with budget and cash flow targets. A typical schematic diagram of the process is given below.

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