1st Edition
Ways of Greening Using Plants and Gardens for Healthy Work and Living Surroundings
This book focuses on rethinking working and living spaces and understanding how "greening" can make them healthier and their occupants happier. It teaches how to see unique ideas for spaces and some of the materials needed to create the designs.
Inspired by a study that states that 8% of a space needs to have plants in order to positively affect the air quality of the space, this book explores what that minimum would look like in spaces and how it can be done to existing spaces as well as to new site designs, greening both interiors and exteriors. Using the mathematical amount of 10% per square foot, the illustrations start at that quantity of greening and show how it can look.
The sites selected are both public and private sites, as well as interior and exterior. As there are more modalities, needs, and locations where people now work, making sure that multiple types of spaces are designed for people’s success is more relevant than ever. This includes designs for more traditional offices, open-air offices, commercial spaces, homes, studios, and more.
Ways of Greening: using Plans and Gardens for Healthy Work and Living Surroundings gives readers a way to not only understand greening but to understand how to see greening applied to their place. The two basic ways to see the spaces selected are existing spaces to which greening design is applied afterward and upcoming spaces in which greening design can be built directly into the space. The first type of retrofitting greening into existing spaces can also be combined with the second type of space (new designs). There are examples of both types throughout the book. Essentially, this book addresses ways in which business owners, residents, developers, architects, agencies, and others can integrate greening to improve the air quality and the quality of life with a green solution.
Foreword
About the Author
Gratitudes
Introduction
Chapter 1 Exploring Greening Design
1a. Greening Designs
1b. 10% of the Space for Greening
1c. Permeable Pavers
1d. Grey Water
1e. Air Pollutants and Air Quality
1f. Soundwaves
1g. Psychological Effects of Green Design
1h. JEDI in Design
Chapter 2 Urban Areas
2a. Neighborhood with Greening on Rooftops
2b. Greening of City Block with Rooftop, Street Trees, Green Alleys
2c. City Block with Greening
2d. Street View of City Greening
2e. Under Freeway for Agriculture
2f. Under Freeway for Park
Chapter 3 Commercial Spaces
3a. Storefront Window
3b. Mixed Use Street
3c. Shopping Plaza
3d. Parking Garage Exterior
3e. Parking Garage Interior
3f. Parking Plaza
Chapter 4 Time Invested Spaces
4a. Loft with Vertical Greening
4b. Loft with Brick Wall Greening
4c. Home Office
4d. Courtyard
4e. Office Meeting Room
4f. Classroom
Chapter 5 Private and Public Spaces
5a. Warehouse
5b. Old Architectural Space
5c. Spiritual Center
5d. Courthouse steps
5e. Penn Station
d. Bibliography
e. Image Credits
f. Index
Biography
Stevie Famulari, Gds is an artist, author, researcher, green design specialist, founder, and principal of Engaging Green and a tenured professor of Landscape and Urban Design at Farmingdale State College, SUNY, in the Department of Urban Horticulture and Design. She is a keynote speaker, has received numerous awards, and has shared information to help numerous people experience greening in new and unique ways.
Her recent installation Engaging Urban Greening was installed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. Over 1,400 seeded paper pieces (colorful papers embedded with a wildflower seed mix) were given to the public during the installation. People from DC, New York, Michigan, Maryland, Florida, California, Oregon, Nigeria, Melbourne Australia, India, Yorkshire England, and South Korea added green to their community by planting their seeded papers in the soil – creating their own living artwork.
Stevie Famulari’s designs and design research explore the relationship, extension, and application of green designs to other diverse fields to create healthy spaces for living and working. Time, change, and engagement in the process are some of the continuing themes in her works. Defying traditions as well as celebrating ecological processes, and using community and individual stories of sites are themes she is widely recognized for. With the applied art of green design combined with the science of phytoremediation, her works have aesthetic beauty as well as healing properties for both people and the environment. Her work in greening designs, research, and education can be seen nationally and internationally and includes green walls; planted roofs; green remediation designs for interior and exterior applications; designs for the Environmental Protection Agency in Colorado; Ghost Ranch Visitor Center for the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Abiquiu, New Mexico; development of green design and policies on the UNM campus; and flood control design for the Red River in North Dakota. Lectures, presentations, and exhibitions of her work have been held at Harvard University, Plains Art Museum, San Diego Museum of Natural History, UC Berkeley, MECA, UMN, NDSU, ASLA, and AIA.
Stevie Famulari’s phytoremediation database of hundreds of plants which clean the air, soil, and water of contaminants is used by the EPA, courses at Harvard Graduate School of Design, the International Phytoremediation Society, landscape architecture and engineering firms, and government agencies. She has been an investigator for grants which explore water remediation design for oil drilling and fracking processes, improvements of air quality, remediation design for communities, and interior greening applications. Her designs and design research explore the relationship, extension, and application of green designs to other diverse fields.
Stevie’s Ph.D., ABD research is at RMIT. She received her Mistress’ Degree in Landscape Architecture (MLA) from the College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY, with a concentration in Fine Arts from Syracuse University. Her Bachelor of Fine Arts is from NYU. Stevie Famulari’s work has appeared in hundreds of books, magazines, newspapers, and television programs, including Smithsonian Magazine, Food Network Challenges, and Specials, Oakland Tribune, World Entertainment News Network, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Travel Channel, Good Morning America, CBS Early Morning News, Washington Post, the Post Standard, Trust for Public Land, Boston Herald, Berkeley Daily Planet, Santa Fe Reporter, and Star Tribune.
Famulari makes a public call to the design profession in her new book to integrate greening into everyday practice. Each individual involved in shaping the built and natural surroundings has the responsibility to lean on allied professions to create healthier places for people and this book is the recipe you'll want to follow. Inequitable access to green space was exacerbated by the pandemic. It's our responsibility to right these inequities and Famulari puts designers, planners, architects, landscape architects, and other allied professions on notice to step into the role of a change agent. Professor Famulari presents her most important lecture yet. The teachings in this book highlight the vision to easily integrate greening practice.
Whether you are new to this work, or a veteran, this book provides green selections of design interventions that can serve as inspiration for a range of contexts and applications. The time is now for greening and biophilic design – health cannot wait one more day. And Famulari shows us just how easy it can be.
-- Ashley Zidon, ASLA, AICP. Community planner, researcher, and change-maker.
This book addresses the impacts on design and the need to build an inclusive culture - detailing the how and who has access to interact with green space. Stevie's ability to challenge the status quo, specifically with how people and plants interact, is a beautiful push on our responsibility to climate change. She does an excellent job showing us how to prioritize and value plant life and its numerous positive impacts on the earth and life in every facet of daily living.
-- Janna Pea, Founder of Pea Nation, communications executive specializing in social impact campaigns and narrative change
