ASLA needs your help! Do you have helpful hints or good examples to highlight sections and/or specific topics within the SITES® Rating System? You do?…Great! We’ve created a form for you to share up to three examples that the Sustainable Design and Development Professional Practice Network (SDD PPN) and ASLA can highlight on the SDD PPN webpage and the ASLA SITES webpage.
Click on the link below to view an example, fill out the form, and find out how to get involved:
Please complete the form by Friday, April 14. For questions, please email sites@asla.org.
Need a little help getting started? Check out the example below:
Did you know that it is a requirement of SITES for all projects to form an integrated design team?
In Section 2: Pre-Design Assessment + Planning, the first prerequisite is “Use an integrative design process.” The intent of this section is to “Optimize site performance by identifying and executing synergistic opportunities across different disciplines throughout all phases of design and construction.”
The first step to achieve this prerequisite is to form an integrated design team, which should include at minimum the following roles:
- Owner and/or client
- Professionals knowledgeable in design, construction, and maintenance
- Professionals knowledgeable in sustainable practices
- Professionals with expertise in vegetation, water, soils, landscape ecology, materials, and human health and well-being, selected to meet the unique constraints and opportunities of the project and its site.
Information adapted from the SITES v2 Rating System
Question: Can you think of a project that you are currently working on that you think could be SITES certified? Can you verify that an integrated design team has been a part of that project for all phases of design and construction?
About the Rating System
The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES®) v2 Rating System is a set of comprehensive, voluntary guidelines and rating system that together asses the sustainable design, construction, and maintenance of landscapes. It is used by landscape architects, designers, engineers, architects, developers, policy-makers, and others to guide land design and development. The SITES v2 Rating System can apply to projects a various scales, with or without buildings. Project types include: open spaces, streetscapes, commercial and educational / institutional campuses, residential neighborhoods and yards, military, and more.
About SITES
The SITES Rating System is produced by the Green Business Certification Inc., which owns exclusive rights to the SITES Rating System, its publications, and trademarks. The material on which the SITES Rating System is based was developed through a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Fund, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the United States Botanic Garden.
by Linette Straus, ASLA, Professional Practice Manager