About the Author
Sue Reed is a registered landscape architect who has helped hundreds of homeowners create comfortable, beautiful, energy-efficient landscapes. She has worked in the landscape design field for nearly 25 years, operating her own practice since 1991. Sue is also a writer and lecturer/workshop leader. Her recent article on sustainable landscape design appears in the Encyclopedia of Sustainability, Volume 2 (2010).
After working for eleven years as a furniture builder and harpsichord maker, Sue earned her Master of Arts degree at the Conway School of Landscape Design in 1987. She joined the faculty there in 1991 and served as an adjunct instructor until 2007. As both a teacher and a practitioner, she excels at conveying complex technical information and subtle design ideas to her students, clients and readers.
Sue lives in western Massachusetts. Growing beside her house is a dogwood tree that she planted when it was a tiny shoot, in the lot behind her first office. Like Sue herself, the tree has been transplanted a few times but now has taken root in its permanent home.
“Before the current age of technology, people all over the world protected themselves from the extremes of weather and climate by working with nature. They shaped their homes and landscapes to minimize nature’s harshness and make the most of its beneficence.
“However, around the middle of the twentieth century, we modern humans adopted a new comfort-enhancing process, one that has continued essentially unchanged since that time. In total innocence, and without any intent to do harm, we ignored basic, well-understood methods to prevent heat from accumulating in our houses. Instead we put our faith in strategies that would remove the heat after it had already accumulated.”