Sustainability and Resilience in Practice
As the impacts from climate change and resource depletion continue to cause increased economic hardship and ecological stress throughout the world, professionals in all disciplines need to think differently about their work and its potential to help mitigate long term environmental damage.
At ARQ, we look for opportunities to build increased sustainability and resilience into our professional work and personal lives. We feel that by addressing the challenges of energy use in buildings, toxicity of construction materials and detrimental impacts from careless site development, we help our clients manage future risks and build more sustainable, resilient and healthier buildings.
We bring the same ethos to our personal and professional lives, investing in our local communities, reusing and improving existing buildings, and installing alternative energy systems to help make the places where we live and work stronger, more vital and more beautiful.
For more information on how ARQ integrates sustainable and resilient design strategies in our practice, please take a look at a few of our recent project examples:
Prioritizing Pedestrians
ARQ Architects designed and built a pedestrian connection in the Foreside neighborhood of Kittery, Maine. Partners Paul and Lucy have invested time and energy in the commercial district in Kittery to help support its growth into a hub of small locally-owned businesses.
Building Community
Jay, principal in the Baltimore Office of ARQ, helped develop the first community-lead vision plan for the Old Goucher neighborhood in central Baltimore. The all-volunteer effort involved leading community charrettes, conducting extensive research, producing neighborhood maps and organizing the final plan document. ARQ plays an active role in both communities where our offices are located. We have helped support the founding of small businesses, provided pro bono design services to local non-profits and invested time, money and energy in making our neighborhoods better places to live and work.
Sustainable Site Development
Construction projects can be inherently disruptive and have long terms negative impacts on local environments and ecosystems. However, new projects also provide a chance to repair and enrich damaged properties and improve ecosystem health. In each of our projects, we look for opportunities to ameliorate negative environmental impacts and enhance native habitats. At the New Hampshire SPCA, ARQ, in collaboration with landscape architect Soren Deniord, used native wetland plantings to capture and infiltrate storm water on site in place of large concrete detention basins or other “hard” infrastructure. The result was an extensive “rain garden” that not only manages storm runoff but also replaced a large expanse of lawn with a vital, self-sustaining, natural ecosystem.
Conserving Rssources
We work to include sustainable design features in our projects to help minimize negative site impacts, manage storm water on site, reduce energy consumption and improve indoor environmental quality. The photograph above from the Potter League for Animals shows a hose bib that uses recycled rainwater to reduce potable water consumption for cleaning.
Preserving Natural Environments
Paul and Lucy, partners in the Maine office of ARQ, established the Deering Pond Conservancy to help preserve in perpetuity a vital natural resource in Kittery Point. The Deering Pond property includes extensive wetlands which are home to a wide variety of native plants and animals.
Resilience and Adaptation
Planning for an uncertain climate means consciously considering different scenarios and developing strategies which can address multiple possible futures. Working extensively on projects in Maine coastal communities, ARQ is used to considering sea level rise, flooding and potential extreme weather events part of the process of site design and project conceptualization. If we want our buildings to be here in a hundred years, thinking about the future becomes an critical task in the present.
Mitigating Climate Change
Renewable energy systems offer opportunities to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels used to condition and power our homes and businesses. The photograph above shows a solar thermal installation that supplies heat to the Studio Verte building, which contains Buoy Gallery and Black Birch.