LESS (Local-area Envisioning and Sustainability-scoring System), developed by HASSELL, has been recognised in the 2012 Australian Institute of Landscape Architecture (AILA) national awards for its excellence in research and communication.
LESS is a design decision-making framework developed to generate sustainable design solutions that lessen emissions, use of resources, and social disparity. It enables integrated mapping, measuring and monitoring of sustainability in urban areas across the four domains: social, infrastructure, governance and environmental. This allows for a triple bottom-line assessment in both the built environment and society, along with diagnosis of problems, and identification of strengths, weaknesses and successes in policy and planning.
HASSELL Spatial Technologies Leader, Dr Arvind Varshney, has led the LESS design and development program since mid-2008. The system has been applied to several projects to elicit vital information from existing data, ranging from creating new indicators of sustainability and indices that inform strategic decision-making, to comprehensive analysis of sustainability of existing precincts and their renewal design solutions.
LESS is an invaluable decision-making tool for landscape architects, urban planners and designers, and all levels of governance. It is scheduled for public release in December 2012
More information is available from Arvind Varshney Spatial Technologies Leader
E [email protected] D +61 2 9101 2096 – HASSELL
