Integrating Habitats

Growing populations. Rapid development. Increased pressure on natural areas, clean rivers, streams and valuable fish and wildlife habitat. How can we achieve balance between development and conservation? What are the best ways to accommodate growth while protecting the region’s environment and quality of life?
Our approach

Blend. Balance. Integrate. Use long-term vision, collaborative effort and holistic values to guide development that protects clean water and honors co-existence. Design for this generation and those to come. Design the built environment with nature in mind.

The design competition

Integrating Habitats will challenge entrants to work across disciplines in collaborative teams to create elegant and functional designs for conceptualized sites typical of the Portland metropolitan region. The competition’s challenge is to create successful and innovative site designs that blend open space access, site planning, and environmental preservation and restoration in construction and development.
The design categories

1. neighborhood infill development with a remnant oak woodland/savannah habitat interface
2. mixed use development with a riparian forest habitat interface
3. commercial development with a lowland hardwood forest habitat interface

Participants

Students and practitioners from all relevant disciplines, including landscape architecture, architecture, planning, urban design, stormwater management, engineering, water quality, ecology, wildlife biology and development, are encouraged to participate.

Outstanding features

A world-renowned jury will select the very best designs and announce them at an award event. In addition, citizens and communities will select their favorite designs via the People’s Choice Awards, a web-based gallery voting system. The Design Guide, a publication featuring the top choices, will be distributed throughout the region and beyond to promote projects that feature nature-friendly development and serve as a definitive resource for the design and development communities on solutions to protecting and restoring nature in new and re-developments.

The future

Post-award receptions and award showcases at outreach events, sponsor organizations, art galleries, schools and other venues will continue throughout the years following the competition. Integrating Habitats will create a ripple effect of influence, interest and action around nature-friendly design ideas. These design ideas are poised to usher in a new era of development that keeps nature in all our communities and ensures the continued preservation and enhancement of our quality of life and the environment for ourselves and future generations.

Full information: http://www.metro-region.org/article.cfm?ArticleID=21627