S.A.D. = Sustainable and delightful: A designer's guide to sustainable site planning

This book is the product of having spent many years introducing the mysteries of site planning as a design activity to both landscape architecture and urban and regional planning students at undergraduate level and to landscape architecture students at graduate level. My primary aim is to sort through the diverse theoretical writings and ideologies contained in the various references cited to identify both the common and divergent threads of design processes, theories and practice that can be drawn upon to inform the site planning of landscape or development projects. It is intended to support student learning in carefully structured problem based design studios. The objective is to provide a simplified guide for beginners to help them gain confidence in their own abilities and to encourage the development of sound foundation skills and knowledge for a professional career in environmental planning and design. Wherever possible I have used examples from my students’ work to illustrate the principles or processes being discussed. The intent here is to set achievable goals for the beginner and to promote confidence at an early stage of the learning process. Once confidence is established, then the bar can be set progressively higher as the students develop their professional competencies in later stages of learning. I am indebted to both my faculty colleagues and many former students who are now my professional peers for the constructive criticisms of earlier versions of this teaching resource. The book is also a product of an ingrained habit of Reflection-in-action and Reflection-on-action, a topic discussed in Section 13.0. I know I am a better site planner and designer for the experience.