Planning for sustainability involves working at multiple scales to examine our world as a system composed of systems. Evaluating a system through multiple timeframes and planning horizons illuminates inputs, outputs, processes and effects to the larger system it operates within. Meta-Pattern embraces a landscape systems approach, rooted in the principles of permaculture and sustainable ecosystem management, to understand and capture landscape opportunities, to optimize and forge interdependencies between social, economic and environmental frames of reference.

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A unique strength of Meta-Pattern is that we directly address the critical need for social development that supports sustainability—i.e. the development of a sustainable social psychology. From the initial stages of project conceptualization and design through planning and development, we help our clients develop the capacity to identify and reinforce the inter-relationships among system conditions and social practices that support sustainability and development project objectives. In particular, we work with project leaders to improve their collaborative leadership capacity to influence sustainable change, and we design and develop social learning experiences that improve the community’s capacity to understand sustainability so they can contribute meaningful ideas and feedback regarding choices for sustainability.

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The green building industry’s response has been to craft a series of building principles focused on resource efficiency, health and productivity; which has culminated in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification program. LEED certification planning services include describing the certification process, conducting predesign workshops with stakeholders to establish sustainability and building performance goals, identifying targeted LEED points, examining strategies for implementation, assessing the impact on the Owner’s program and budget, and formulating certification schedule. Additional services such as third-party commissioning and LEED Certification documentation, as outlined within AIA Document B214-2007, Standard Form of Architect’s Services: LEED Certification, can also be provided.

Meta-Pattern assists its clients with full cradle-to-cradle lifecycle assessments of products and operations. The development of Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) guidelines can provide the basis for selecting products and materials that have the lowest social and environmental impacts.

Transparency pertaining to the economic, environmental, and social impacts of business operations has become a fundamental component in maintaining effective stakeholder relations, investment decisions, and other market interests. Sustainability benchmarking and reporting is the practice of measuring, disclosing, and being accountable to internal and external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of achieving sustainability. Meta-Pattern uses Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines and indicators to benchmark and communicate organizational sustainability/resilience goals and practices. Systems efficiencies, reductions in resource consumption and outputs are audited and documented. In light of the challenges associated with multiple indicator/metric frameworks, a general lack of uniform definitions, and a lack of consistent benchmarking applications Meta-Pattern can craft an approach and methodology that fits an organization’s operational framework, focusing on how the critical resources and elements in the supply chain have been optimized.

Meta-Pattern provides an array of interpretation/pedagogy services, including presentations on several relevant topics, including sustainability and sustainable urbanism, the inter-relationships between climate change, energy and water resources and cultural landscape interpretation. Meta-Pattern’s Managing Partner, Aaron Tuley is Southwest District Manager with The Reality Climate Project, and is responsible for administering the presentations of over eighty presenters within a four-state area (TX, OK, NM and AZ), all of whom have been trained by former Vice President Al Gore and his team of IPCC scientists. Meta-Pattern’s professionals routinely conduct workshops on developing historic structures reports, historic landscape assessments, and administering historic tax credits for historic preservation, a critical subject area of sustainability. For information on upcoming presentations, refer to the "News" section of this site.

In 1916, Henri Fayol described planning as “an analytical process which encompasses an assessment of the future, the determination of desired objectives in the context of that future, the development of alternative courses of action to achieve such objectives, and the selection of a course (or courses) of action from among these alternatives. At Meta-Pattern, our assumption is, although the future is uncertain, there are things we can do to make it better than it would be otherwise.

Meta-Pattern’s team of seasoned planners have expertise in land, urban and regional planning at a variety of spatial scales. Meta-Pattern’s service areas include campus and facilities master planning, sustainability planning, climate mitigation / adaptation planning, green infrastructure planning, and military planning-related services. We help our clients and constituents determine where they are going (futures visioning and scenario testing) and what is it going to take to get there (goal setting, programming, scheduling and budgeting).

›› Review Meta-Pattern's approach to land development.

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Aaron Tuley is an independent sales representative for Skyron Systems, Inc., designers and manufacturers of a 3kW vertical axis wind turbine, suitable for a wide range of urban and remote applications. 

For more information on Skyron Systems, Inc. and the SSI5m3, click here.

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›› Review Meta-Pattern's approach to land development

• Atchafalaya National Heritage Area
• LA Highway 77 Corridor Management Plan
• Plaquemine Waterfront Park

A campus master plan is created to give decision makers a broad vision for an institution’s future growth and to establish goals that are open, flexible, and consistent with an optimal college design.  By suggesting the concept of functional zones and urging reduction of traffic and parking near the campus core, the plan offers a realistic, overarching vision that can remain intact regardless of unforeseen eventualities. The master planning process culminates in a long range facilities and land use master plan for the university. The campus master plan reflects the work of a committee and describes the planning context, documents recommended policies, and sets forth a list of program recommendations.

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In response, a growing number of companies and institutions are preparing sustainable climate action plans that contain information on GHGs (GHGPI, p. 12).

A Climate Action Plan (CAP) refers to the collection of recommended policies, programs, and practices that aim to, or have the effect of, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with company or institutional operations.

Development of a comprehensive GHG emissions inventory provides a snapshot of the origins and quantities of GHG emissions attributable to an organization’s operations. Operational data provides the baseline through which opportunities to reduce a company’s GHG footprint can be evaluated, prioritized and measured. Recommended strategies and initiatives are analyzed for emissions reduction potential and operational cost savings.

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Though climate change is a global environmental trend, its impacts will be felt most acutely at the local and regional scales of concern. Climate adaptation planning focuses on three main topical areas: 1) identification of possible climate alterations; 2) analysis of how these climate changes will impact human development and natural systems – vulnerability and risk assessment; and 3) evaluation of alternative methods of addressing the impacts – through mitigation and adaptation. The goal of adaptation / resiliency planning is to engage our clients in determining their vulnerabilities, and help them develop the requisite tools to prepare for impacts associated with climate change and protect their place of business and operations – where they work; and their communities and neighborhoods – where they live; and the landscape and infrastructural systems that support both. During periods of prolonged environmental stress, when key linkages to the larger network have been severed, climate resilient communities can safely decouple from the mother ship, so to speak, while maintaining adequate life support systems through which to carry on business and community operations.

›› For more information on Meta-Pattern's approach to adaptation/resiliency planning and a description of services, click here.

Meta-Pattern assists in the preparation of plans and recommendations to conserve and manage landscape open space systems that are noteworthy for ecological, recreational and transportation benefits provided, particularly in urban areas. Implementation of low-impact development strategies, tools and techniques for stormwater management, erosion control, and habitat value.

• Buffalo Bayou and Beyond Master Plan
  • Summary Document
  • West Sector
  • Downtown
  • East Sector
  • Final Report
• Buffalo Bayou Recreational Trails
• City of Port Allen Greenways and Levee-top Improvements Program
• City of Plaquemine Rails to Trails

Meta-Pattern's planners and architects have extensive military planning experience working with several districts of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Department of the Army planning experience includes real property master planning; installation design guide and long-range component planning in compliance with AR 210-20 and other technical instruction, area development planning, anti-terrorism / force protection compliance, infrastructure demand and issues analyses, Energy Conservation Investment Program (ECIP) funding applications for renewable energy projects in compliance with EO 13514, DD forms 1354 / 1391 support, SERDP funding applications for R & D into deployable renewable energy production, and architectural services associated with historic preservation, facility condition assessments, building renovations and remodeling services. Department of the Navy planning experience includes encroachment action planning and air installation compatible use zone (AICUZ) planning for naval air stations.

• Fort Hood Army Installation
  • Sustainable Installation Guide
  • RPMP Long Range Component
  • ECIP applications for energy infrastructure
• White Sands Missile Range
  • Area Development Plan, Tier Two Facilities
  • Infrastructure Demand and Issues Evaluation
  • Facilities Condition Assessment and Modernization Plan
• NAS Corpus Christi
  • Air Installation Compatible Use Zone (AICUZ) Plan
  • Encroachment Action Plan
• Charleston AFB Recapitalization Plan

By capturing the ideals that motivate form, function, practices and continuing uses of a landscape, interpretation can link intangible ideas with the physicality of the place in order to explain its character, reasons for being and evolution. Meta-Pattern’s approach to interpretation focuses on environmental resources management, where natural and cultural resources are inventoried and analyzed at multiple scales and timeframes; documented and interpreted, using a variety of media communications strategies, tools, and techniques. Meta-Pattern’s interpretation services include interpretation program planning, resource inventories, signage and exhibit planning and design, multi-media program development, and environmental awareness center program development and site selection.

Meta-Pattern assists their clients in managing natural and cultural resources with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life and economic wellbeing for both present and future generations. Natural and cultural resources inventory, mapping and documentation, assessment and management services provided by Meta-Pattern include wetland delineations and habitat surveys, vegetation management plans, Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) research and documentation, environmental resource mapping using geographic information systems (GIS), historic structures/districts surveys, corridor management planning, recording/transcribing oral histories, and cultural landscape interpretation.

• Willow Grove Historic American Buildings Survey
• Old St. Gabriel Church Historic American Buildings Survey
• LA Highway 77 Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan
• Atchafalaya National Heritage Area Environmental Resource Assessment Program

They typically incorporate a range of visual and audio media communications programs in order to convey complex meanings associated with a resource or a place. Meta-Pattern’s interpretation programs artistically and skillfully blend multi-sensory experience with high-quality communications media without losing the environmental and human elements normally strippedfrom computer-based interpretation.

• “Images of Iberville: Place Embodied in Art” multi-media educational program
  • view the project
• Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana Virtual Tour
• LA Highway 77 Scenic Byway Virtual Tour
• Fort Riley Interpretive History