Tree Establishment in Urban and Difficult Sites:

A Short Course for Landscape Architects and Arborists
Sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County
June 17, 2010 Community Room, Yonkers Public Library, 1 Larkin Center, Yonkers, NY

The objective of this course is to increase the participant's understanding of the challenges faced when establishing trees in urban and difficult sites. The course will introduce the skills necessary to solve landscape establishment problems. The most contemporary advances in plant establishment, including the variables in plant growth will be covered.  The best new trees for challenging sites, such as compacted soils, shade and dry or overly moist sites will be covered.  “Structural soil” and porous asphalt/pavements will be discussed in detail.  You will see demonstrations and be engaged in site assessment techniques and visit on-site installations.

Instructors:
Peter J. Trowbridge, Professor and Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cornell University
Nina L. Bassuk, Professor and Program, Leader of the Urban Horticulture Institute at Cornell University
Cost: $195.00
6 Hours of Continuing Education Credits for ISA arborists and Landscape Architects registered in NY

For More Information:
http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/westchester
/PDF/Tree_Establishment_in_Urban
_and_Difficult_Sites_2010.pdf

Contact: Anna Snider at als227@cornell.edu or 914-285-4617

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Coming Events in June  

6/09/10: EGB-NJ Presents: The Willow School Tour
3:00pm-5:00pm, The Willow School
1150 Pottersville Road, Gladstone, NJ 07934
Express Registration

6/14/10: Register Today: North & Central Branches Present: NJ Green Home Remodeling Guidelines  6pm, The Barn at Baker Farms, 93 Church Lane, East Brunswick, New Jersey For more details, CLICK HERE

 June 17 - Northeast Sustainable Communities Workshop
 New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ
 For complete details & registration, CLICK HERE.

6/24&25/10 Green Career Expo Presented By EGB-NJ and Post Conference LEED Green Associate Workshops 
Exhibit Your Company

June 25th Post-Expo Workshops
Part 1: Fundamentals of Sustainability – LEED for Design & Construction. 9:00AM-12:00P
Part 2: LEED-GA Green Associate Prep Course 12:30-3:30PM
FOLLOW THIS LINK for details

June 18, 2010 - Regen: Conference on Regenerative Design and the NJ Highlands
The Morristown-Beard School
70 Whippany Rd
Morristown, NJ 07960
Exploring practical ways of reversing the degradation of natural systems, while integrating human activity with living ecosystems, building resilience and community. For complete details, click here.

Sept 16-17, East Coast Green, Atlantic City, NJ
Registration is open, visit website for details!
USGBC-NJ is partnering with AIA-NJ for this event.  This exciting conference is coming to Atlantic City in September  For Sponsor and Exhibitor opportunities, visit http://www.aia-nj.org/ECG/. USGBC-NJ will also be hosting several pre-conference LEED wkps on Sept 15th. More to come. Exhibitors Needed!

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The Key to Killer Short List Presentations: Go Long on Them, Short on You

Excerpted from the Friedman File, April, 2010.
NJASLA provides this article for informational purposes, only. As a courtesy, we present contact information for the authors, but no endorsement or guarantee on the author’s service is implied. No income is derived from this posting.

As many of you know all too well, competition among A/E/C and environmental consulting firms has become extremely intense. In addition to key pre-positioning and business development strategies I've addressed in previous Friedman File issues, the shortlist presentation is where the proverbial rubber meets the road. It's your last shot at winning the business. Yet with all that at stake, one of the biggest problems I observe is the lack of a well-conceived, crisp message. Often, the content ends up rambling, running long, or otherwise failing to influence.

One of my consulting partners, Terri Langhans, CSP, (Certified Speaking Professional), is out to change that. I first heard Terri present her "Maverick Marketing" program at a Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) national conference a few years back. She has cleverly named her company "Blah, Blah, Blah." (Not surprisingly, her URL is www.BlahBlahBlah.us, and her "blahg" site is www.AnythingButBlah.com.) I think you get the idea.

Terri has a program, "Get to the Point," for A/E/C firms who want their people to be clear, confident and convincing in presentations, and I thought Friedman File readers would benefit from a few observations and pointers from Terri. So, here goes:

Too much stuff. We know our stuff, and we want to share it. We figure the more stuff we share, the more credible we'll be and the more likely we are to get hired. Wrong! This approach bores people into a stupor or frustrates them into belligerence. Terri recently worked with a client who had more than 100 slides for a 30-minute interview. They whittled it down to 23, but the rule of thumb is about two minutes per slide. So yes, they were still rushed. Whether you have 30 minutes or an hour or more, picture your audience extending you a thimble's worth of interest. Don't fill it with a fire hose.

No one cares about you. Even though they put you on the short list, invite you to present, and ask you to talk about your firm, prospects still don't care about you. They care about themselves, their project, and what you'll do for them.

So here's how you convert your credentials and capabilities into something more relevant:

1. Describe your firm, the team, and your qualifications or experience. As part of the exercise; not in front of the prospect. Not yet, anyway.
2. Given all you've said, isolate 3 or 4 key attributes that you think are most important to the decision-makers for this project. (Experience, innovation, specialists, local.)
3. Those are your features. Now, we're looking for benefits — the need or the want that is satisfied by those features. So, what's the client's need or want that is satisfied by hiring a local firm? An experienced firm? An innovative firm?
4. Better yet, drill down even further. Look at those features and benefits and fill in the blank: "Why is [experience] important personally to this decision maker?"

Look at your answer and ask it again. "Why is that personally important to this decision maker?" Or, "What is it about your answer that is important, personally, to this decision maker?" And again, "Why is whatever you just answered important personally to the decision maker?"

Keep going and you'll have a list of want or need words and phrases that are all about the client. Save money, maximize budget, higher trust, no surprises, more flexibility, more confidence, less stress, better communication. These are the words that not only help you connect to what clients care about, they help convince clients to hire you.

Get to the point. Instead of thinking about the stuff you want to say, that you hope you get time to say, think about what will happen when it's all said and done. When you leave the room, what's the single most important thing you want remembered and repeated by the client? What do you want them to say when someone asks, "So, what do think about Acme Engineering?"

A: "Well, they talked about this, and they showed us that, and they're located there, and they were pretty easy to talk to…"

— or —

B: "They've got the experience and can hit the ground running."

I hope it's obvious that you want B, or something like it. That's the point of your presentation, and everything you say, do, or show needs to support, defend, prove, demonstrate, or bring to life that point. What facts, features, and benefits will prove that point? Which case studies or examples will make it clear? Remember the thimble and choose wisely. Note: Your point is NOT "hire us." That's your call to action. It's what you want them to do as a result of being convinced of your point.

Terri and I hope that these pointers help your firm rise above the fray in this noisy, competitive marketplace. Keep in mind that Terri's advice applies to any marketing or new business development message, spoken or written, proposal or presentation, short-list or not. Let us know if we can help by calling (508-276- 1101) or e-mailing (rich@fried manpartners.com).

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NYC’s largest green roof — a post office park

By: Johanna Björk, September 25, 2009
They’re popping up all over these days, and are a great way to reduce the carbon footprint of any given building. The new green roof atop the Morgan mail processing facility is so vast — at 2.5 acres the largest in NYC — that it deserves to be called a park. This is the U.S. Postal Service’s first green roof, but with all the facilities they operate across the country it is hopefully not the last.

Built in 1933, the 2.2 million square foot Morgan facility is located on 9th Avenue and 30th Street in midtown Manhattan and became a historic landmark in 1986. The roof was originally constructed to serve as an additional mail processing location, and supports 200 pounds per square foot. This made is a perfect candidate for a green roof, since it is strong enough to support the weight of the soil, vegetation and other green roof components.

Walking paths and FSC-certified wood benches make this 2.5 acre green space a bona fide park.
A green roof is not only aesthetically pleasing, it also provides other significant benefits. First, it lasts up to 50 years, which is twice as long as a conventional roof. It helps reduce the amount of contaminants in storm water runoff flowing into municipal water systems. The reduction of polluted runoff is projected to be as much as 75% in the summer, and up to 35% during the winter. A green roof also helps save money and energy on heating and cooling since temperature is regulated naturally. The Postal Service’s goal is to reduce the Morgan facility’s energy use by 30%.

Seven stories above the city, the Morgan green roof offers a spectacular panoramic view of midtown Manhattan and the northern New Jersey shore. Elizabeth Kennedy Landscape Architects designed the garden-like space with low-maintenance native plants such as Calamagrostis (a lush, maintenance-free grass), coral carpet, John Creech, Immergrunchen and Fudaglut sedums. The 14 orange-hued Ipe Brazilian wood benches are made from lumber certified sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council.


Low-maintenance native plants and grasses ensure sustainability.

“The Morgan green roof is the largest in New York and one of the largest in the country,” says Sam Pulcrano, the Postal Service’s vice president, Sustainability. “Not only does it provide employees with a beautiful, serene outdoor environment, the green roof will help us meet our goal to reduce energy usage 30 percent by 2015.”

The new green roof is part of the Postal Service’s commitment to create sustainable spaces and facilities wherever possible. Their greener facilities strategy also includes the use of environmentally conscious building components, renewable materials, energy-efficient lighting and HVAC, low volatile organic compound parts, low-water use fixtures, solar photovoltaic systems, a LEED-certified facility opening soon in Long Island, an expanded NYC-wide mixed paper and cardboard recycling program (materials recycled have tripled compared to the previous year), and a growing fleet of hybrid electric delivery vehicles.


Components of a green roof. To be suitable, buildings need to be able to withstand a large weight load.  View footage of the Morgan green roof here.

Benefits of Green Roofs – “talking points”
excerpted from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
With concern growing about climate change and the urban heat island effect, green roofs are seen as one way of mitigating both threats. Adding plants to roof top environments bring such benefits as shade, insulation for the building below and reduced stormwater runoff. On a green roof, the plants and growing medium or soil take the place of the asphalt and gravel or shingles on the roof. The roof includes a waterproofing layer, a drainage layer, the growing media and the plants covering the surface.
Green roofs can help cities and improve the quality of the air and reduce stormwater runoff while also improving the energy efficiency of the building beneath them. Wildflower Center projects use regionally appropriate native plants, preserving the natural heritage of the region.
Reduction of heat island effect - The heat island effect is the difference in temperature between urban areas and the surrounding countryside caused by a lack of vegetation and a large number of reflective surfaces that absorb heat. Wildflower Center research shows that green roofs can be up to 80 degrees cooler than adjacent buildings with traditional roofs.

Reduction of storm water and pollutants - Green roofs retain and filter storm water through vegetation. In areas where rainfall contains significant pollution loads, green roofs should be able to improve the water quality of the stormwater. Green roofs also help air quality by filtering pollutants from the air while adding oxygen to our urban environments.

Increased energy efficiency of building - The cooling and shading properties of a green roof can decrease the amount of heat flowing into a building and can significantly reduce air conditioning requirements.

Wildlife habitat - Particularly in urban areas, green roofs can create valuable habitat.

Aesthetic Value - Green roofs convert typically wasted space into valuable aesthetic and recreational amenities.

Longer lifespan - Plants and other layers on the green roof help protect the roof membrane from extreme temperatures, hail, foot traffic, and direct sunlight. This can prolong the life expectancy of the roof. The initial cost of installing a green roof, which is higher than traditional roof systems, can be partially offset by reduced roof replacement costs in the long run.

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The Permaculture 8-Day Design
Certificate Course
Offered over two long weekends: July 8-11 and October 21-24, 2010
Co-Sponsored by NOFA-NJ & The Permaculture Project at Duke Farms, Hillsborough, NJ

Permaculture has expanded its purview to include economic and social structures that support the evolution and development of more permanent communities, such as co-housing and ecovillages.

As such, Permaculture design concepts are applicable to urban as well as rural settings, and are appropriate for single households as well as whole farms and villages.  From households to bioregional planning, Permaculture is about whole systems, not about separate components.  Because each element in a landscape or the built environment affects every other element at a site, a complete, comprehensive assessment is tantamount to develop healthy, productive, energy efficient relationships between elements for the benefit of everyone and everything involved in day to day operations and life. By paying attention to all details: topography, climate, water, wind, sun, activity nodes and corridors, buildings, machinery and tools, the waste stream, plants and animals, it enables us to make best use of what is already on the ground, and what we intend to put there. With a dynamic interaction of elements in process, and an assessment of
both spatial and temporal attributes, organized around sound ecological principles, we can maximize yields and balance the landscape.

Dates and Details
July 8-11 & October 21-24
This course is very intensive and will run from 8 am—6 pm each day.  The course will delivered at
the Coach Barn at Duke Farms in Hillsborough, NJ and the hands-on design project will be part of
the Community Garden at Duke Farms.  The first four days will focus more on the planning
components and the second four days will include some implementation at the Permaculture Display
Garden at Duke Farms.
For more information about the course content, please visit www.permacultureproject.com

Wayne Weiseman is certified by The Permaculture Institute of Australia as an instructor of the Permaculture
Design Certificate Course. He is also certified by the American Institute of Architecture to teach continuing education in Permaculture to licensed architects and landscape architects. Wayne has taught and featured internationally for many years. Wayne is the Director of The Permaculture Project LLC, a full service, international consulting and educational business promoting the ideas of eco-agriculture, renewable energy resources and eco-construction methods.
Fees
 $1,300 per person, $1,200 for NOFA-NJ members
-$100 reduction if registering two family/farm members
 -$100 reduction for registration by June 25.

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Special Notice on Changes to Pennsylvania Landscape Architect Law:
Eligibility and Continuing Education Requirements

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