High Desert Community

High Desert is a 1,400-acre mixed-use sustainable community in the foothills of Albuquerque, New Mexico, developed by High Desert Investment Corporation. Planned with strong emphasis on environmentally appropriate, naturalistic landscaping, the community preserved approximately 400 acres of open space. Over a 12-year period, Sites provided master planning, landscape design, research, and management services for the project. Our work included streetscapes, drainage ponds, parks, wildlife drinkers, trails, and open spaces—designed to maximize sustainability. Every drop of precipitation is harvested, cleaned, and redirected for use in the landscape, supporting a closed-loop water system. We designed nearly all the community’s landscapes, served on the design review committee, and authored the High Desert Plant List and Landscape Revegetation Guidelines. Drought-tolerant planting is used throughout, with water collected from roads, rooftops, and other hard surfaces. Materials were chosen for environmental responsibility and sourced within 50 miles, including gravel, boulders, and even plants—many of which were salvaged during road construction. Native landscapes were preserved and enhanced with passive gravity-fed irrigation, demonstrating low-impact, sustainable techniques to residents.
The High Desert Water Harvesting project is intended to serve as an official interactive storm drain distillation and retention facility. Water is collected from the nearby arroyo that drains straight into the kiva as well as from the nearby street in the form of nuisance flows. A formal circular layout of stone-clad banks with walkways and protected seating areas above defines the ponding area. The kiva is designed to accommodate a sizable sculpture that serves as a seasonal guide, similar to a sundial, by utilizing the sun's orientation to commemorate significant occasions like the summer solstice or the start of the rainy season.
Because of the Pino Pond project's natural contours, great care has been taken to preserve the remaining pinon and juniper stands. An additional feature that enhances the project's richness is a trail that describes the geologic events that led to the formation of the Rio Grande rift using interpretive artwork developed by Sites. By precisely creating planting schemes that replicate the ecotone succession that one could encounter while traveling from the summit of the Sandia Mountains to the Rio Grande Valley, the landscaping completes the project's elements.