Often thought of as the ultimate urban environment, New York City is actually the greenest city in the country. Over 25% of the city is parkland, managed by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (Parks).

Parks is poised to undertake its largest infrastructure improvement initiative since the 1930s, giving rise to an extraordinary opportunity to rethink traditional park design and construction. Seizing this opportunity, the Design Trust forged a partnership with the Parks Department to create Park Design for the 21st Century: High Performance Landscape Guidelines for sustainable park construction (anticipated publication date: July 2009). These guidelines will become Parks' standard specifications, and will revolutionize how our green spaces are conceived and constructed.

The High Performance Landscape Guidelines will build on the Design Trust's groundbreaking work in sustainable design and construction, as the third in our trilogy of sustainable design manuals. The Design Trust's previous publications, High Performance Building Guidelines (1999) and High Performance Infrastructure Guidelines (2005) set the stage for a paradigm shift in the way New York City is constructed. These two publications led directly to the enactment of local laws that encourage high performance construction, and also paved the way for Mayor Bloomberg's recent sustainability initiatives.