The beauty of Breuner Marsh is well concealed. To get to this tranquil stretch of shoreline along the San Francisco Bay, near Richmond, California, you take a heavily trafficked thoroughfare through a landscape of industrial plants and refineries. A hill in the distance is dotted with fuel tanks at the Chevron facility and an acrid odor hangs in the air.

The East Bay Regional Park District plans to make the former Breuner property a protected wetland and a link in its network of trails. Photo: Jack Rafferty.

Once you have arrived, though, you forget the dross-filled landscape and the “No Trespassing” sign on the gate, and are overwhelmed by the wind coming off the bay, the water trickling between the reeds, and the crash of the surf. Read more…

When Bob Berkebile approached the American Institute of Architects in the late 1980s to seek funding for research into sustainable architecture, he was told that it sounded more like an environmental problem than a professional problem—in short, “No, thanks.” Fast forward to 2011 and his firm, BNIM, has won the AIA National Architecture Firm Award, for its achievements in sustainable design.

For a man committed to reducing carbon footprints, Berekebile’s over 30 years of work in sustainability have left a lasting imprint on the green design movement. He founded the AIA’s National Committee on the Environment, helped create the U.S. Green Building Council, and contributed to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system, used internationally as a standard to design and evaluate sustainable buildings. For Berkebile, sustainability is about fostering a new ethic. When it comes to water, that means treating “every drop that falls from the sky as a precious resource.” We spoke with Berkebile to find out how that attitude is reflected in design.

University of Kansas Students: How important is responsible water management in designing sustainably?

Bob Berkebile: I think water is the biggest challenge we face. We have all focused a lot on energy, appropriately, because of our carbon footprint, and it’s disastrous effect on the environment. As a direct result of our bizarre attitude about water, coupled with climate change, many places on the planet are already suffering for lack of potable water. In the very near future, I think we’ll be finding in this country that people will be shooting one another over water, and that a lot of our food production will be limited. So, it’s really time for a transformation in how we think about water as a resource and to design an integrated water management system that is consistent with the number of people on the planet and the water that’s available to us. Read more…