‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

Question ‘project’ boundaries [Chapter 2]
Rather than a development ‘site’ becoming a boundary for design, a development project should 
become a leverage point for disseminating sustainable design throughout the wider area. Buildings can 
be re-conceptualized in relation to environmental flows through cities and regions. For example: 
•
The neighbours of the site (and potential objectors) could be consulted regarding their future

---

263
The SmartMode Process
needs and interests with respect to the preferred site. Their active collaboration could be enlisted.
This would also foster design and sustainability education.
• 
The boundaries of the building itself should be questioned. For example, we have seen that
roofs and walls can become ecosystems (terrariums, aviaries and/or aquariums) that produce
clean air, water and soil as well as heating, cooling and ventilating.
• 
The site boundaries should be questioned. To increase housing, for instance, we can eco-
retrofit existing buildings, or convert some suburbs into more intense co-housing
developments, where some facilities and garden areas are shared.
• 
Ensure the development creates the widest variety of positive off-site impacts (eg reducing
the heat island effect, generating cool breezes, creating nature corridors, recycling water from
nearby buildings, and/or providing habitat for endangered birds, butterflies, frogs, etc.
Step 6: Select Appropriate Methods and Tools
Appropriate tools [Chapter 10]
It is important to select appropriate analytical tools and decision aids that align with the contextual 
issues and critical flows identified in the above processes. We need to be aware of the pros, cons and 
limitations of available methods. Community groups or partnerships need to ensure that government 
agencies conduct studies relevant to sustainability, and also that appropriate methods are used. These 
tools are subsidiary, however, and should not be allowed to supplant design processes. In the selection 
and/or design of analytical tools, some considerations include:
•
LCA assesses the efficiency by which resources are used, but can tend to limit solutions to
incremental design improvements. It can be too complicated for complex systems problems.
It can also influence design by reducing living nature to inputs and outputs.
• 
MFA can help to identify the scale and ramifications of waste. However, it has not yet
been used to chart transfers of resources, land or space among sectors, classes, regions or
special interests. Where applied as an input–output method, it can lose its potential
as a systems thinking tool.
• 
Futures thinking tools can assist group design processes. However, these tools are geared
towards enhancing a group’s relative position in a given context, rather than re-designing the
development context to make all parties better off.
• 
GPIs, unlike GDP, may record externalities, defensive expenditure and loss of natural capital
as ‘negatives’, but they do not record the loss of substantive democracy, the public estate or
the ecological base over time. They are mainly useful for perceptions and preferences. 
• 
EF analysis links consumption to land, carrying capacity and global equity issues. It conveys 
the spatial and resource limits of development. In practice, however, it tends to focus on
aggregate consumption, as if it were evenly distributed among groups of people.
• 
EIA methods predict the collateral damage of designs in order to mitigate or offset the future 
risks that the project will create. However, they do not assist in adding ecological value, or in 
guaranteeing performance and ongoing improvements in built environments. 
The above tools can be seen as potential subsets of SmartMode, as they are subsidiary to 
design
for 
democracy and ecology. SmartMode starts from the perspective of improving public ‘health and 
wellbeing’ and works to change the underlying physical and social structures that prevent whole 
systems health. It is analogous to focusing on healthy food instead of dieting.

---

264
Positive Development