The meeting starts at 7:00 PM. From 6:30 to 7:00 PM, you can enjoy snacks and refreshments as you wander among various issue booths to pick up information and talk with Sierra Club members and leaders. Contact our program chair if you have questions or suggestions regarding our programs.
Dallas Cohousing (short program)
Describing New York City's first
cohousing project, a
New York Times article said cohousing speaks to people who
want to own a home but not feel lost in an impersonal city.
That's the starting point for Dallas Cohousing. We're growing a
community of like-minded folks who'd like to live cooperatively and
sustainably in urban Dallas, close to a DART station. We're at the
forming stage, which means we're drawing together a core group of
people willing to commit financially and eager to co-create our new
community. Our goal: to retrofit an existing office building or
warehouse into condos, with common space for gardening, cooking &
shared meals, work space, child care--whatever we all choose
together.
Angela Alston and her husband Hugh
Resnick are spearheading Dallas Cohousing. Angela co-owns MocaMedia,
a company which designs and executes community engagement strategy
for independent films. Angela has lived in shared housing in
Seattle, Chicago, Austin and Brooklyn. She was inspired by visiting
cohousing communities, including the very first community in Denmark.
Angela also teaches Awareness Through Movement® at
MoveStudio. Hugh owns Pizel &
Associates, a commercial realty brokerage. His work
background includes construction. He spent eight years living in a
Denton Ashram. Hugh is a lifetime member of the Sierra Club.
The UT-Arlington Green at College
Park and The Sustainable Sites Initiative (long program)
David Hopman will discuss sustainable
landscapes and how the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES™) credit
rating system was applied to The University of Texas at Arlington
Green at College Park. The nine acre Green at College Park at UTA is
one of 150 sites from around the world testing the SITES™ rating
system for sustainable landscapes, with and without buildings.
SITES™ is shown to be a valuable tool
that provides incentives and metrics for sustainable landscape
development, particularly in the current economic climate where there
is always an incentive to "value engineer" best practices
for both sustainability and good design in general. Future viable
works of landscape architecture are enhancing the beauty, meaning,
and performative aspects of landscapes from an ecological
perspective. Professor Hopman has an ongoing role as principal
investigator of the UTA SITES™
certification and manager of the first extensive green roof
constructed in North Texas.
David Hopman, Associate Professor
and Landscape Architect, at The University of Texas at
Arlington program in Landscape Architecture,
has energetically pursued a faculty role bridging practice and
research. The courses he teaches
reflect his research interests in ecologically performative
landscapes, plant materials and ecology, landscape aesthetics, and
computer visualization.
Professor Hopman travels extensively to
document forward thinking ecologically performative landscape designs
from across the United States, Europe, and Canada.
Mr. Hopman holds master degrees from
both Southern Methodist University and UT Arlington, and a bachelor
degree from The University of Memphis. Practice experience includes
Kings Creek Landscaping, Huitt-Zollars, Inc., RTKL, Mesa Design
Group, Inc., and a current independent practice. He is a licensed
landscape architect.
Sonal D. Parmar
is currently a UT-Arlington faculty research associate working with
Prof. Hopman on the Sustainable Sites Initiative program. Ms. Parmar
holds a Master's degree in Landscape Architecture from the University
of Texas Arlington and has a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from
The Center for Environment Planning and Technology, India.
