Listening to the Land: Cross Creek Featured in EcoStructure Magazine

Cross Creek's innovative site design and integrated natural systems are setting a standard for community developers all over the U.S.  Sustainable landscape architecture means "Listening to the Land", which is precisely how the Cross Creek Team approached this project from the beginning.

The following story was published in the December issue of EcoStructure Magazine:

Listening to the land: Site design is merging with building design, and none too soon. By John Cutler

The sustainability movement is turning U.S. building-design norms on their head, in ways that go beyond LEED ratings and net zero energy buildings. The most fundamental principals of landscape architecture and site design-analyzing the site and environment to holistically integrate it with development-are beginning to resonate with developers, investors, and corporate users like never before. Why is the U.S. real estate industry now warming up to ideas long practiced in Europe and Asia? Because it simply has become cheaper and smarter to do so.

Several factors driving this trend are embodied in a growing number of projects completed or under way across the United States. First, the sustainability movement has created a demand-premium for eco-conscious space. Not only are LEED-rated structures leasing and selling faster, but so are facilities with sustainable features that extend outside the building such as heat-absorbing green roofs, water-cleansing bioswales, creek-side parks that previously might have been buried under culverts, and other techniques that turn natural systems into project amenities.

Second, the real estate industry is recognizing greater cost savings and resource benefits when development starts with site design. Successful developers and architects create great buildings on most any canvas, and the traditional approach of scraping a site flat to "make development easier" is being disproved by environmentally sensitive developments that save energy and water and reduce maintenance costs. In fact, innovation in the environmental industry is making eco-friendly site design more cost-competitive with traditional approaches and actually cheaper in the mid- to long-term. Site-oriented solutions such as planting native flora instead of lawns or installing green roofs are gaining market acceptance despite not having ratings programs like LEED to tout the measurable benefits.

The article mentions a number of examples where innovative site design and integrated lansdcape architcture have made sense economically for developers.  Cross Creek Ranch's unique site plan and landscaping help.

Located on Houston's far west side, a 3,000-acre site known as the Stern Ranch is considered to be the future of the small farming town of Fulshear, Texas. New schools, housing, churches, parks, and other community amenities will allow the city to grow and maintain its economic viability as it moves from a small, rural economy to a mixed, urban community. SWA's concepts have looked at creating a consistent identity for the project. The master plan calls for an internal loop roadway and the expansion of an existing waterway. The waterway functions as a focal point, and provides the organizing element of an extensive open space system for the surrounding neighborhoods.

A prominent  feature  of  the   development known as Cross Creek Ranch is the restoration of Flewellen Creek, a stream re-made from an existing drainage way on the former agrarian site. Failing slopes, high sediment content, invasive species, low wildlife habitat, and unstable stream flow dynamics created a greatly denuded natural system. In consultation with Biohabitats, a conservation planning and ecological restoration firm, SWA Group is using fluvial geomorphologic concepts to create a restored base-flow channel, increased floodplain width, and lower floodbench to create more systems including native reforestation zones, prairie grassing areas, and wetlands planting zones. Residents will have access to the corridor and adjacent parks through multi-use trails such as community bikeways and paths that thread through the varying natural environments.

Considering the down economy, Cross Creek Ranch community's home sales may be evidence of the power of site-sensitive planning that restores or enhances the native ecosystem.

Read the full article on Eco-Structure.com