Page 201 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

SITE SELECTION AND SITE EVALUATION 177

Courtesy of TMA Architects LLC & Mary Deweese, Landscape Architect, Acorn Landscapes.

From this project and many other examples, you can realize that site selection
is often a critical issue in determining whether a project can reach high-level sus-
tainability goals. The Sustainable Sites section of the LEED evaluation system
offers considerable guidance for organizations that are flexible in their location
criteria. Often we have no flexibility in site selection, for example, for a campus
project or for an urban infill project. However, there are situations where two or
more sites are being evaluated for a potential green building project. Key ques-
tions you should be asking during this phase of a building project often include the
following:

1 Does the building program work better in an urban, suburban, or rural location?
Can low-rise buildings be grouped for urban uses, in place of a high rise?
2 Who will be making the site selection decision? Are there explicit criteria? If
we’re going to use commercial brokers (to help us find a site), how will they
understand what we’re really after?
3 Are there restrictions on the sites under consideration that would hinder sustain-
able design in the project such as height restrictions, poor drainage or poor soils,
a high groundwater table, or limited water availability?