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Development of A Sustainable LandscapeArchitecture Best Practices ManualA Major Qualifying Project for Stantec Consulting Ltd.submitted to the Faculty ofWORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTEin partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of ScienceSubmitted by:Peter CacciatoreJames HoganRebecca MatternAngel MunozProject Advisors: Fred Hart and Suzanne LePageProject Sponsor: Klaas RodenburgMarch 4th, 20101

AbstractThe goal of this project was to develop a Best Practices Manual (BPM) forStantec Inc regarding sustainable landscape architecture practices. The manual will beused by Stantec employees to help assess the feasibility of landscape architecturepractices for specific projects. Potential Benefits, Potential Risks and Considerations,Estimated Costs, Recommended Site Characteristics, and Potential LEED Credits wereresearched and presented for each practice within the BPM. This information was thenposted on an internal electronic best practices manual so that all employees withinStantec could access the information.2

AcknowledgementsThe team would like to thank the following people for their assistance over the course ofthis project:Klaas Rodenburg (Sustainable Design Coordinator)Fred Hart (WPI, Professor)Suzanne LePage (WPI, Adjunct Professor)Brian Stephenson (Manager, Corporate Real Estate)Christa Maiorana (Human Resources)Shawn Paulson (Director, Learning)3

Executive SummaryStantec is a thriving engineering firm based out of Edmonton, Alberta, which hasrecently been established as one of the top 10 design firms in the world. Today thecompany has over 10,000 employees that concentrate on environmental, industrial,transportation, urban land, buildings, and sustainable engineering. With a company thesize of Stantec, Best Practices Manuals (BPMs) are often an efficient means to transferengineering knowledge between employees.A BPM includes information regarding a practice that is meant to serve as areference for those unfamiliar with the practice. They are useful for large companiesbecause they reduce the need for employees to ask other employees for informationthat can be cataloged and placed in one manual. By providing this information in asingle location, the employee seeking the information can access it faster withoutinterrupting other employees who may or may not know the desired information.Therefore, the introduction of BPMs can increase productivity of organizations such asStantec.Sustainable engineering is one of the subdivisions within Stantec and is the focusof this report. Within sustainable engineering, this report primarily focuses onsustainable landscaping architecture practices and the incorporation of a BPM forStantec. Landscape architecture encompasses urban design, community and regionalplanning, interior and exterior garden design, parks and recreation, historic site andnatural area preservation, energy and water conservation, landscape restoration andmanagement, among others (Answers Corporation, 2010). Within this broad field thefollowing practices were considered and analyzed: Green roofs Green walls Permeable pavements Stormwater runoff infiltration4

Constructed wetlands Rainwater harvesting XeriscapingIn addition the practices of district energy and air handler condensate recoverysystems were incorporated into the BPM produced. The entire BPM can be seen inAppendix A: Best Practices Manual.District energy and air handler condensate recovery systems were consideredbecause a large amount of useful information was collected regarding them during thecompletion of a subproject. The subproject was a report on sustainable strategy optionsfor the city of Kingston, Jamaica. This report was compiled during the beginning phasesof the BPM project and helped to help establish a uniform format for the finished BPM.The Kingston report can be seen in Appendix B: Report Compiled for Jamaica Project.In addition to the Kingston subproject, the team also assisted in the preparation andexecution of a design charrette for the Clareview Recreation expansion in Edmonton,Alberta, Canada.For the charrette, the team compiled a report on potentially useful sustainablestrategies from the sustainable landscape practices BPM and other sources. This reportcan be seen in Appendix C: Recreation Center Charette Preparation. It provided theteam with an opportunity to test the usefulness of the BPM and was helpful indetermining the overall structure of the manual.The project team also used the Clareview Recreation as the basis of a casestudy on how the BPM would be applied to real projects. This would serve as the basisof the capstone design project. The capstone design project consisted of applying theBPM to a simplified recreation center to examine the feasibility of installing a green roofon the facility. More details on the capstone design project can be seen below in theCapstone Design section.The results of this project include the Landscape Architecture BPM, itsincorporation into the eBPM, and a capstone design. The Landscape Architecture BPMwas designed as a tool to help Stantec employees select from a varied list ofsustainable technologies during the preliminary stages of a project.5

The main sections of the BPM were potential benefits, potential risks andconsiderations, costs, and recommended site characteristics. These where chosen torepresent the most common areas Stantec employees need when interacting withclients interested in implementing sustainable practices. Therefore, the BPM provides atimely method for conducting initial research, which allows additional time to explorealternatives or more in-depth design considerations. Once the BPM was completed, itwas posted onto an internal electronic Best Practices Manual (eBPM) within Stantec.Stantec has an internal eBPM for the transfer of information between itsemployees. This eBPM is referred to as a “living document” because of the ability ofindividual employees to add information to the eBPM through the posting of newsections. It was to this document that the individual sections of the BPM produced wereadded.On the eBPM the sections for green roofs, green walls, permeable pavements,stormwater runoff infiltration, constructed wetlands, rainwater harvesting, xeriscaping,and air handler condensate recovery systems were added under the subtopic of “WaterManagement Strategies” within “Resource Management” and the district energy sectionof the BPM was added in the “Resource Management” section directly. This was donebecause the all the practices considered in the BPM were related to water conservationexcept district energy.The capstone design project assessed the applicability of three different greenroof designs to the proposed recreation center which was presented at the designcharrette. The options were an extensive green roof on both the new and existingstructures, an intensive roof on both structures, and an intensive roof on the newstructure with an extensive roof on the existing. These options were assessed in termsof impact on air quality, thermal performance, impact on stormwater runoff, installationand maintenance costs, and structural requirements. In the end, it was determined thatthe best option was to apply an extensive green roof design to both the proposedexpansion and the existing building.6

Capstone DesignIn accordance with the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology(ABET) a capstone design project was incorporated into this report. This capstonedesign project consisted of analyzing the feasibility of installing a green roof on arecreation center in Edmonton, Alberta. This analysis included a comparison of thebenefits and costs of installing either an extensive or intensive green roof on an existingbuilding or a proposed expansion. To fulfill the ABET requirement, six of the eight fieldsof consideration were examined during this analysis. The six considerations wereEconomic, Environmental, Sustainability, Manufacturability, Health and Safety, andSocial.Economic ConsiderationsA detailed cost analysis was performed in this design problem in order todetermine the economic feasibility of the different design variations presented. Thefactors that were considered include: the cost of manufacture and installation, the costof structural upgrades to the building required for the design, the change inmaintenance costs with the different designs compared to a normal roof, and thesavings associated with a reduction in stormwater runoff and a reduction in electricityand natural gas used to heat and cool the building. All of these factors represented achange in the economic consideration of the design, and the final conclusion is partiallybased on these factors.7

Environmental ConsiderationsThe installation of a green roof can have significant environmental impact on thesurrounding area. In this case three different factors were considered. The first is thatthe presence of greenery can reduce the amount of pollution and particulate matter inthe air. The second is that the plants and soil on a green roof absorb stormwater andcan reduce the flow of runoff into the wastewater system. The third is that reducingenergy usage will result in fewer emissions from power production, since powergeneration in Edmonton uses coal powered plants. Due to this fact energy reductionwas considered both an environmental benefit and a sustainable benefit.Sustainability ConsiderationsGreen roofs generally have a very positive impact on the sustainable operation ofa building. In this case several factors contributed to the sustainability of the project.Reduced energy demand for heating and cooling is sustainable since it moves thebuilding towards the eventual “Net-Zero” goal for power usage. The reduction instormwater runoff contributes to sustainability because it can help mitigate the need forlarger wastewater treatment facilities as cities grow in size. The reduction inmaintenance on a green roof along with its longer life span contributes to sustainablegoals because having longer lasting products will reduce waste over time. One concernof the green roof systems designed in this analysis is that the intensive systems mayrequire irrigation, which is not very sustainable compared to the drought resistant plantschosen for the extensive designs.8

Manufacturability ConsiderationsThe design life of the roof was considered as a positive manufacturability feature,since the green roof may require different components to be used when considering thatthe roof will go significantly longer without replacement. Additionally, the structure of thebuilding was a strong consideration in the choice of green roof design. It was taken intoconsideration the complications of upgrading the structure of the new building, andpossibly replacing parts of the structure on the old building. It was concluded that theconstructability of the design was dependent upon the weight of the roof, and sinceupgrading the structure of the existing building would be extremely expensive this wouldnot be intelligent from a manufacturability perspective. Considered also was the fact thatan increase in the structural capacity might necessitate an increase in building height,which may interfere with the plans for building enclosure and mechanical systems.Health and Safety ConsiderationsThe main health consideration on this project was the effect that green roofs mayhave on local air quality. Detailed analysis was performed to quantify the amount ofpollutants that could be removed from the air by the vegetation on the green roof for theparticular climate and air quality status of Edmonton. Air quality can have a significantimpact on human health in some instances, so improved air quality was factored intothe design decision.Social ConsiderationsThe social implications of a green roof include the Aesthetic appeal, and thepublic exposure to sustainable concepts. Green roofs can be very visually pleasing as9