HomeLifestyleWorld Environment Day: Bring home sustainability and luxury - UnlistedNews

World Environment Day: Bring home sustainability and luxury – UnlistedNews

A landscape architect offers advice on how to build spaces that offer the peace and comfort of a luxurious eco-home



As residents of the post-pandemic world, how do you define luxury? In an urban Indian city, access to green space and good air quality are fast becoming luxuries that only the very rich can afford. Our urban landscapes have swallowed up forests and wetlands, and we have scared away various birds, bees, and butterflies.

This World Environment Day, here is a guide to help you design and plan your spaces, whether at home or in the office, taking sustainability into account without giving up luxury. One of the best ways to do this is landscape architecture, the design of outdoor areas.

cool spaces

Landscape architecture is often relegated to simply planting for frivolous embellishment, but in reality, it is like a living art form that integrates strategic planning and environmental science.

There are few greater pleasures than nurturing a garden – it feeds the body, mind and soul. Terraced gardens, especially, can offer us immersive experiences of nature in the midst of our hectic city lives. They can be designed as shelters protected from the outside world, with plants that protect us from pollution and views of construction sites.

Our planting palettes must subscribe to xeriscape, where native plants and xerophytes such as cacti are prioritized to conserve water. Succulents also have strong aesthetic appeal. Native species are especially valuable because in addition to supporting local biodiversity and avoiding ecosystem collapse, they require far less water and maintenance than the exotic varieties we seem to admire.

Try to minimize impervious landscaping. Instead of concrete, choose materials like gravel and grass pavers. These allow rainwater to infiltrate the ground, recharge groundwater storage, and reduce storm runoff. This, in turn, mitigates the risk of local flooding. Yo

Here are a couple of tricks to reduce waste in the realm of landscape design:

  • Construction waste can be turned into sustainable building material. For example, crushing bricks and rubble and using the aggregate as gravel with a distinctive red color.
  • The boulders that emerge from the excavation for the construction of a building can be reused as decorative elements of the landscape in gardens, patios and terraces.

We all know that time spent in green spaces is directly proportional to reducing stress and promoting healing, yet this information hardly applies in our built environment. Why not weave nature into our balconies, terraces and offices to reap the benefits of its therapeutic quality and make more beautiful homes in the process?

Kunal Maniar is a founding partner and principal architect of Kunal Maniar & Associates.

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Sara Marcus
Sara Marcushttps://unlistednews.com
Meet Sara Marcus, our newest addition to the Unlisted News team! Sara is a talented author and cultural critic, whose work has appeared in a variety of publications. Sara's writing style is characterized by its incisiveness and thought-provoking nature, and her insightful commentary on music, politics, and social justice is sure to captivate our readers. We are thrilled to have her join our team and look forward to sharing her work with our readers.
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