Sierra Club Meeting - Dallas

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.