Presenters:

Daniel E. Williams, Daniel Williams Architect: architecture, urban & regional design, Seattle, WA

Rebecca Shaffer, HDR One Company, Anchorage, AK

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The significant impacts of climate change require a similar scale of action in design. The challenges associated with housing and feeding an additional billion people within the next 40 years are not solvable on the architectural scale alone.

Designing at the urban and regional scale is central to this need. Design at this scale begins with applying the knowledge of the region's ecology. This approach recreates synergistic connections between the design and the sun, soil, air, water, and gravity. The removal of these connections – the natural subsidy - has decreased the quality of life as it has exponentially increased taxes and stress on the global social, ecologic and economic systems. Design at this large scale enhances the regions' social, ecologic and economic health and is the forcing function of sustainability at the neighborhood scale.

All sustainability is regional. Integrating the knowledge derived from systems ecology into the design program illustrates a systems approach to resource protection, quality of life and sustainable community design. These designs use the free work of nature and provide better places at lower costs and impacts.

Community designs that incorporate renewable resources and are respectful of the natural cycles create compelling neighborhoods while protecting the resource base. Solar driven urban and regional design creates a community that is efficient, economical and compatible with the regions resources. This presentation will illustrate the methodologies and principles developed for sustainable projects from the scale of individual buildings to entire watersheds.

Presenter Bios

Daniel E. Williams
Daniel Williams is principal of Daniel Williams ARCHITECT and a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects. DWA is a nationally recognized consultant in architecture and planning with projects that include sustainability issues in economic development, transportation, agriculture, education and natural resource protection. He is active on the Sustainable Seattle Advisory Group; the Seattle American Institute of Architects; Committee on the Environment and was urban planner/architect for the Seattle “Green Line” corridor location study for the ETC - Seattle Monorail Project. He initiated and chaired the Committee on Long-Range Regional Planning for the American Institute of Architects and was one of 30 invited participants to the joint conference sponsored by DOE and FEMA: Communities in Harms Way - on the re-design of communities post natural disasters. He is on the LEED development team for the next phase of the national certification process and evaluation and serves of the Environmental Council for the Urban Land Institute. He chaired the Task Force on the Environment and Energy for the Congress for the New Urbanism and chairs the National Committee on the Environment for the American Institute of Architects. His work on regional carrying capacity won the 1999 and the 2000 National Honor Award for Urban and Regional Design from the American Institute of Architects and the Catherine Brown Award for Urban Design in the American Landscape in 1999.

Click here to listen to Daniel E. Williams' presentation podcast.

Rebecca Shaffer
Rebecca Shaffer is a LEED AP and intern architect at McCool, Carlson and Green, an architectural design firm in Anchorage, Alaska. She is currently a LEED consultant for two projects seeking certification. Prior to her work at MCG, Becky was the Sustainable Design and Development Coordinator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District, where in 2004 she was an early implementor of LEED for Corps construction in Alaska. Becky's most recent projects involve working with federal, state, and local officials and NGOs to generate ideas for sustainable community design needed for the relocation of many native Alaskan villages devastated by coastal erosion. Becky has a Master's degree in Architecture with a focus on Sustainable Design from the University of Oregon in 2003.  She is an active member of the Alaska Branch, Cascadia Region Green Building Council and the Anchorage Mayor's Sustainable Building Initiative Task Force.

Click here to listen to Rebecca Shaffer's presentation podcast.

Audio edited by http://h2opodcast.com.