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Wilderness South of Chicago: Beauty Amid Industry

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Environment, Water Management, Wildlife on 05/08/2013 | Leave a Comment »

The Calumet region surrounds Chicago and includes Lake Calumet and the Calumet river system. Here, an amazing alliance of nearly 270 organizations, which have banded together under the name Chicago Wilderness, are working towards improving green infrastructure, creating access to nature for children, devising plans for mitigating and adapting to climate change, and preserving and restoring wildlife habitat. In a full-day tour organized for the American Planning Association (APA) conference by The Field Museum, one of Chicago Wilderness’ members and one of the world’s great natural history museums, pockets of nature were uncovered amid the industrial suburbs and bleak, isolated public housing communities far south of Chicago. The tour was led by Mark Bouman, Chicago Field Director; Laurel Ross, Urban Conservation Director; Alaka Wali, curator of North American anthropology; and Doug Stotz, Senior Conservation Ecologist at The Field Museum.

Green Infrastructure in the Burbs

The first stop on the tour was Blue Island, Illinois, a “free standing industrial community” of 25,000 spread over 45 square miles, where city leaders are working with Chicago Wilderness to protect green infrastructure. There, the “stormwater management issue is huge,” said Mary Poulson, community relations director for Blue Island. Currently, the community can’t deal with the issue well, but aims to use “distributed reservoirs and green infrastructure” to handle the problem. To address the broader challenge of water management across the region, the community has joined with 33 other municipalities in the area to create the South Suburban Green Infrastructure Vision.

The town is also working on creating a “more sustainable watershed” around its Midlothian Creek, which runs through part of the community. Part of this effort is to “protect fragmented natural areas.” While they may not be impressive to look at, “they are valuable” from a stormwater management point of view. They are also valuable habitat. Stotz said this place attracts “early bird migrants.”

To make this green infrastructure more accessible to the community, a new bicycle trail will be going in along the creek. In another part of town we saw a boat launch.

Planning efforts were supported by workshops around geography and green infrastructure, which led to a map down to the parcel level. One result is that residential areas are now included in these plans. The city encourages homeowners to install rain barrels. To date, more than 1,000 have been installed and there’s now a waiting list. The city government is pushing for the use of native plants in favor of lawns. Connected with all this green work is an economic development planning process that was started by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) a few years ago.

Learning about Nature in a Restored Landscape

The Beaubien Woods have been set aside for environmental education purposes, not recreation, but that hasn’t stopped locals from Altgeld Gardens public housing, where President Obama got his start in community organizing, from fishing at the Little Calumet River that runs through the area. At its peak, the housing project had 10,000 people living in more than 2,000 units. Now, there are around 2,500 people in this extremely isolated community. Much of the housing seemed to be falling apart. There seemed to be few shops or services nearby. On top of the isolation and limited opportunities, there are also major odor issues caused by the nearby plants that deal with sewage. “Methane gas is a big problem here,” said Bouman.

The 135-acre Beaubien Woods, which is made up of prairie, woodland and wetland habitats, is part of Cook County’s forest district, which makes up around 11 percent of the total land area. Over the last twenty years, the site has undergone intensive ecological restoration. The site is beautiful. There’s woodlands, a river, and rolling hills in the background. Interestingly, those hills are actually covered garbage dumps, so the woods themselves form the hole in the “toxic donut,” said Bouman.

While the river is so polluted that pamphlets are distributed outlining the dangers of eating fish caught there, Ross said that the river is actually stocked with fish by the Illinois department of natural resources so they are “relatively OK to eat given they aren’t there long.”

Stotz said the site is really rich bird habitat. The area attracts more than 180 bird species, perhaps because there are 209 species of native plants. The local Afro Birders group uses the landscape to teach kids from Altgeld and other communities how to spot different types of birds. The Field Museum along with the Calumet Stewardship Initiative are also doing “place-based kids education” to teach locals about “where they are living and connect them to their landscape.” There are volunteer days organized for removing invasive species and cleaning and restoring the ecosystem. Each June, there’s a “family-friendly free nature festival.” Wali said “African Americans are as concerned about preserving nature as any other group of people, perhaps even more than others.”

Getting out in Front of Climate Change

Chicago has created a climate change action plan, but it’s not for nature, said Stotz, so Chicago Wilderness has done their own plan that addresses the possible impacts to local flora and fauna. They created a “biodiversity recovery plan,” which aims to restore nature in the region to make it more resilient and create a network of green and blue corridors to help species migrate.

The organizations involved have been collecting observations about what has changed. For example, the prairie burn season is now “much, much longer,” said Ross, because it’s gotten warmer. She said this opens up windows of opportunity because “there’s less snow on the ground. Things green up earlier.” Communities don’t burn prairies in the summer anyway because it just adds to the “ozone and particulate matter,” which is already high in hotter months. Prairies, just to explain, are “adapted to fire.” Native Americans burned these ecosystems to drive out wild game during hunting. Now, these landscape need to be periodically burnt to maintain their health. Burning also keeps woody invasive plants out. “These are landscapes by fire.”

The Field Museum and other Chicago Wilderness partners are also looking at “carbon storage in protected areas.” Stotz said there are a variety of projects underway to measure the carbon stored in above-ground trees, but more work is needed to measure the carbon storage value of herbaceous plants as well as carbon in soils.

One goal of the alliance is to engage the local community in climate planning and natural restoration work. Wali said they used an “asset mapping” approach, which is a methodology created by urban planners, to discover “the strength of individuals and their capacities” in the communities involved and create a climate community action toolkit local organizations can themselves use to spur action. In six communities, “we mapped the social strengths, including churches, local gardens, and other networks — the intangibles,” to see how to form bottom-up support networks for biodiversity preservation. This approach is needed because “we have to take an integrated view of nature.”

While the communities that will support these natural areas all depend on industrial work for their livelihoods, the process also showed “these people care about nature.” Their asset mapping work has shown the group that “there are interesting local environmental practices.” People are “actively recycling” even though there are no formal recycling programs. “Junkeros, local recyclers in the latino community, tap their kinship networks to recycle materials.”

Now, the toolkit, which was actually financed with a $100,000 grant by Boeing, is being used by local organizations to tap their networks.

Restoring Nature to Health

Perhaps saving the best for last, the Field Museum scientists then took us to the Powderhorn Prairie Nature Preserve, a deeply rich landscape where prairie, woodland, and oak savannah ecosystems meet. Just a few miles from skyscraper-sized oil refineries owned by BP, there are undulating dunes and swales create a set of “niche habitats.” Bouman said this is the “most biodiverse site in Chicago.”

A recent Bioblitz, an intensive biological survey that involves counting as many species as possible in a 24 hour period, yielded more than 250 species. “This is a rich edge area,” said Stotz. A volunteer program helped bring the area back.

Invasive plants and shrubs were crowding out the rare native species, including Illinois’ only native cactus.

Ross said there was an intensive “reseeding process” to restore the fragile prairie grasses. Then, they were set on fire to remove the invasive plants.

The hydrology of the site was also restored, undoing the damage from nearby drainage projects.

The ecological restoration brought up many questions, said Ross. “Can the damage be undone? What should we restore to?” She said ecological restoration is “creative, challenging work. No one size fits all. You have to know the local areas intimately.”

Stotz said the effort was important. “These are just little patches, but there are worthwhile things here. That’s why I do this.” Nature is amazingly resilient but sometimes just needs a hand.

Image credits: Jared Green / ASLA

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The Goal: Truly Sustaining Landscapes

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Landscape Architecture, Wildlife on 02/06/2013 | 1 Comment »

The author of Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, Travis Beck, ASLA, landscape and gardens project manager, New York Botanical Garden, offers a daunting proposition in his introduction: “From now on, the ecological function of our planet can only come from a network of preserved, restored, managed and constructed landscapes.” This is based on the premise that human interventions have substantially altered the natural balance of our ecosystem to the point where their ability to function will not endure without our conscious assistance. He continues: “To maintain the function of this network and the quality of life that it offers, we will have to change the way we think about landscape design.” This call to arms sets the platform upon which the book is based — to integrate ecology into landscape design and address the mounting environmental crisis.

Beck defines an ecological landscape as a “designed landscape based on the science of ecology.” He further quantifies them as “constructed landscapes,” which may incorporate the restoration of a degraded ecological system, but do not seek to “put things back the way they were.” Rather, the goal is to apply our knowledge of nature to create high performance landscapes in which our design goals and natural processes coexist symbiotically. The author advocates a change in landscape design within the context of environmental change (or impending crisis). This requires assessing landscapes based on a set of ecological and performative criteria.

The book presents a well-researched and scientific explanation of ecological concepts. Beck suggests theoretical approaches to ecological landscapes and offers case studies. In chapters on biogeography, plant selection, microclimates, plant populations, and natural competition within plant communities, the author distills what could have been volumes of technical data into clear explanations of key botanical processes that are critical to establishing symbiotic plant communities, one of the basic elements of a sustainable landscape. Going a step further, he provides general suggestions and guidelines for integrating these concepts into actual designs.

However, this is not a landscape manual with step-by-step instructions. The information is intended for experienced landscape architects, designers, and ecologists who can interpret and apply this data to infuse complex landscape designs with increased ecological value and biodiversity. The wealth of information presented provides a deeper understanding of plant function and community, from which the designer is then expected to make more informed decisions appropriate to the specific conditions of a particular project and site.

The chapters on the design and management of ecosystems and biodiversity present these broader topics clearly, while illustrating the critical link between them. Beck emphasizes that biodiversity is essential if landscapes are to provide increased ecological function. The chapter on soils is particularly relevant to the landscape architecture profession as consulting with a soil scientist is commonplace, if not the norm. He presents an in-depth breakdown of soil formation, properties, and criteria relative to landscape performance. Since soils are the foundation of all landscapes, the information in this chapter should be mandatory reading for all designers.

The final chapters delve into applied landscape ecology and creating landscapes in an era of change. By integrating ecological principles within design, landscapes can be high-performance and adaptable, qualities critical to sustaining an ecological balance sufficient to support the planet’s growing needs.

Overall, Beck provides clearly-presented science, ecological concepts and processes, and suggested strategies for implementation. These are not ready-made solutions but provide a solid foundation for designers to broaden their understanding of the ecological principles in nature that can be factored into landscape design.

If landscape architects are to expand their role in the design process and attain truly sustaining landscapes, the ideas in Principles of Ecological Landscape Design provide an additional layer of technical information to help us achieve those goals.

Read the book.

This guest post is by James Royce, ASLA, LEED AP, Principal, Studio2112 Landscape Architecture.

Image credit: Island Press

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Kongjian Yu: China’s Olmsted

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management, Wildlife on 01/29/2013 | 2 Comments »

Designed Ecologies: The Landscape Architecture of Kongjian Yu, a new book on the ideas and work of Kongjian Yu, FASLA, put together by former Harvard Design Magazine editor William Saunders really enriches our understanding of a landscape architect many consider to be China’s Frederick Law Olmsted. Unlike some other design monographs, there’s a lot to read and understand here because Yu’s life has been so rich and his journey so interesting. Nestled among 21 case studies of projects by Yu and his firm Turenscape across China and the U.S. are a set of essays by leading Western landscape architecture practitioners and thinkers like Peter Walker, FASLA; Professor Frederick Steiner, FASLA, at University of Texas, Austin; Professor Kristina Hill, Affiliate ASLA, PhD, at the University of Berkeley; Harvard University landscape architecture department chair Charles Waldheim, Affiliate ASLA; and Dumbarton Oaks’ John Beardsley, who each examine an aspect of this world-changing designer and place Yu’s work and ideas in global contexts.

The most personal (and perhaps finest) article in the book is by Saunders himself. He interviews Yu, tracking his path from life in a small village to university in China to Harvard Graduate School of Design (where he did his PhD) to teaching and starting his own firm, which now has more than 600 employees. It’s an amazing story that Saunders relays beautifully. Yu was born in 1963, “growing up communally raising crops and livestock.” As a boy, Saunders writes, Yu saw his parents stripped of their dignity and possessions during the Great Cultural Revolution, which Mao Ze Dong unleashed on China in an effort to upend the traditional patterns in Chinese society and instill collectivism. Yu parents had been a “well-off, land-owning” family — exactly the kind of family Mao targeted. Saunders says seeing his family undone gave Yu a powerful ambition.

Coupled with this ambition was a deep love of nature. Within the poverty of rural China, there was also natural splendor. Yu grew up in a kind of Arcadia, with a “an enchanting forest and a fish-filled creek.” He spent his time away from his farming duties exploring nature. Over the years, he saw the forest cut down and the river totally polluted. “This explains the depth of his commitment to recreating and protecting natural abundance.” In fact, Yu is now one of the most potent advocates for the environment in China. Like Olmsted, he’s also a prolific writer, creating books aimed at convincing both policymakers and the public about the dangers of environmental degradation.

Yu beat incredible odds just to make it to high school. He had to overcome the political stigma associated with his family. Riding a water buffalo, tending his duties in the fields, Yu studied hard and passed the national entrance exam to get into high school. Then, he had to walk 6 miles to get to his high school and then back, each week. Yu moved from the bottom of the class to the top, eventually beating out 600 of his class mates to become the only one in his district to get into university. In comparison, getting into Harvard years later must have been a walk in the park.

At university in Beijing, Yu was a “country bumpkin,” but he quickly got over the shock and buckled down, learning how to speak and draw for the design courses he wanted to take. He ended up studying forestry and then completing a master’s degree in landscape architecture. With great English language skills, which opened many doors for him, he became a translator for a series of speeches by Carl Steinitz at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). In 1992, he began the PhD program there. He once again felt like a bumpkin, having never interacted with computers. He became a GIS master. Upon graduation, he worked at SWA Group for two years in California before returning to China in 1997, where “his confidence and sense of personal mission emerged full blown.” Seeing how China was destroying its environment with its rapid urbanization, Yu started a firm and won his first design competition in 1999. More than ten years later, he has an amazing body of work, winning ASLA professional design awards year after year. He is now among the top tier of landscape architects in the world.

Yu’s work is based in a deep-rooted philosophy about nature and society. His essay, “The Big Foot Revolution,” explains how ornamental gardens are about as useful as binding a woman’s feet. These ornamental approaches were created by an urban elite that saw sophistication in a lack of functionality, in rebelling against nature’s “inherent goals of health, survival, and productivity.” Yu instead offers a new landscape aesthetic based in incorporating the rural, the messy, the functional landscape into the urban realm. Yu says he’s not opposed to beautiful art that doesn’t really have a productive function — like art, dance, or music — but “that in our resource-depleted and ecologically damaged and threatened era, the built environment must and will adapt a new aesthetic grounded in the appreciation of the beauty of productive, ecologically-supporting, survival-enhancing things.” This is revolutionary landscape architecture, rooted in part in Communist ideas about elevating practicality and productivity for the common good, even though, in practice, the Communists themselves were the ones who have wrecked havoc on nature (see the current state of nature in China, Russia, the former Soviet Union states, and North Korea).

The rural, peasant aesthetic is now center stage. “We need a new aesthetics of big feet — beautiful big feet.” Productive rural landscapes (like those productive big feet) are what’s needed to fight today’s problems. There are ecological reasons for doing this, too. Those old-school rural landscapes, while productive, are highly in tune with nature and reflect a farmer’s sense of balance with the environment.

Yu sees the extent of China’s massive urbanization as a form of excess, with all those big gaudy new buildings in Beijing as “meaninglessly wild forms with exotic grandeur.” China and the rest of the planet can’t afford things like these while “anthropogenic climate change” brings “additional floods, storms, droughts, and diseases, along with the extinction of many plant and animal species and other threats to survival.” Yu then translates this ethos into an ambitious, ecologically-minded program for remaking the whole of China, and guiding cities still in the wilds of explosive and often destructive development. This is because “the Chinese urban landscape must not repeat the mistakes of past European and American methods of city beautification.” Beautification for beautification’s sake alone is a crime in today’s world, with all our problems.

In other places, Yu remakes what is past its prime, degraded into new landscapes. This may involve remaking degraded environments into new ecologically-sound ones, but also making them publicly accessible so that people benefit, too. Yu was also one of the first in China to see the beauty in modern Chinese ruins — remaking a shipyard park built by the Communists into a park, creating an urban haven out of the revolution’s past.

His other projects certainly weave in aspects of Chinese culture, creating contemporary works that also feel classic, timeless.

The fine contributions by the Western practitioners and thinkers add another interesting layer to the book. Most zoom in on a few projects; others offer multifaceted critiques of Yu’s ideas and work. They all show how Yu was also inspired by ideas he found in the West, and how his work can be appreciated in a global context. Peter Walker writes that Yu “frequently integrates sculptural references in ways reminiscent of Andre Le Notre’s huge Baroque seventeenth century gardens, which were also based in agricultural images.” John Beardsley notes that “Yu’s approach might be challenging in any context. But in the West, there is a precedent for his messy aesthetics in the tradition of the wild garden, which date back to at least William Robinson. Moreover, there are contemporary designers with whom he shares some notions of nurtured wildness.” Frederick Steiner explains Yu’s equally important role as an educator in China, how his research to “identify nationwide ecological patterns with GIS technology” is rooted in work by Ian McHarg and other Americans in the 1990s to create a “prototype database for a US national ecological inventory,” which was based on an earlier effort by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) in the 1970s. Kristina Hill, a fellow PhD student with Yu at Harvard GSD, delves into how landscape planner Carl Steinitz’s approach to spatial analysis also influenced Yu. “In Yu’s plans for metropolitan Beijing’s ecological infrastructure, several patterns emerge directly from Yu’s exposure to the ideas of Steinitz and [landscape ecologist Richard] Forman.” Other essays by Kelly Shannon, Peter Rowe, and Antje Stokman also examine his approaches to urban ecological design.

It’s Hill in the end who also writes that “Yu’s practice model and ideas have a historical analog in the exemplary writings and practices of Frederick Law Olmsted.” And as Charles Waldheim writes in the afterword, Yu takes on the mantle of publicly promoting a sophisticated approach to landscape planning at not a moment too soon: “The first generation of Chinese professionals trained in landscape ecology and planning in the United States now embody the greatest hope for the renewed relevance of of a tradition of planning that has all but been eclipsed in the United States.”

Read the book.

Image credits: Birkhauser Press

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Why We Need Cities in Tune with Nature

Posted in Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Wildlife on 11/22/2012 | 3 Comments »

In a session on a new planning and design theory called “biophilic urbanism” at the 2012 Greenbuild conference in San Francisco, Judith Heerwagen, a professor at the University of Washington; Timothy Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities at the University of Virginia; and Bert Gregory, head of Mithun Architects + Designers + Planners argued that cities can be in tune with nature, actually embody nature in physical design, and foster deeper connections with natural systems.

For Professor Heerwagen, biophilia is best defined by the amazing biologist E.O. Wilson, who came up with the actual concept. It relates to the “innate emotional connection of humans to all living things.” In cities, for example, this means that people are attracted to trees and will pay more to live in areas with them. People will pay more for hotel rooms with views of nature. “These are things we intuitively know. We chose places that are greener.” Dr. Richard Jackson, former head of environmental health at the CDC, also made a similar point but connected nature with physical and mental health. Heerwagen quoted him: “In medicine, where the body is really matters.” Health is essentially place-based.

Research on the Benefits of Nature

Heerwagen outlined some fascinating recent research: In a recent study that examined the impact of exercising in nature vs. working out in areas devoid of nature, researchers found that “green exercise” in natural spaces “lowered tension, anxiety, and blood pressure,” beyond the benefits of exercise itself.

For kids, playing out in nature also has big benefits: “nature play is more imaginative.” Kids playing in nature play longer and more collaboratively. In contrast, in a closed-off playground, the play was “more aggressive and shorter.” While playing in nature, kids are “particularly attracted to spaces that offer protection and safety,” or “prospect and refuge.”

Researchers in the Netherlands recently looked at the benefits of what they call “Vitamin G.” Examining 10,000 residents in a massive study, the researchers found that the amount of green space in a 5-km zone around a person really impacts their health. “A 20 percent increase in nearby green space was effectively equivalent to another 5 years of life.”

Nature, said Heerwagen, also promotes positive emotions, psychological resilience, and wellbeing. Pleasant environments, researchers have demonstrated, stimulate opioid receptors so we actually feel a sense of pleasure.

How Do We Create Biophilic Urbanism?

For Professor Beatley, who not too long ago wrote a very smart book, Biophilic Cities, it means building nature into our daily lives, not just accessing nature once or twice a year on vacation. In fact, Beatley showed off a novel concept: minimum daily requirements for nature, based on the famed food pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, “we need hourly, daily foundational experiences in the city.” At the top of the pyramid are intense vacations in nature, while the mid-level are regional experiences, such as hikes.

To show why minimum daily requirements are needed, Beatley shared results from surveys he does across the country, in which he shows a set of corporate logos and then a set of birds. “There’s 100 percent identification for the logos, and just about 0 percent identification for the birds.” People have even confused butterflies with hummingbirds. He said that these people aren’t just missing out on visual knowledge, but also aural experiences. Knowledge of bird song has also nose-dived.

Beatley’s new Center for Biophilic Cities at the University of Virginia, which is financed by the Summit Foundation, is also now studying best practices for improving access to nature that can be implemented anywhere. For example, he pointed to Japanese “forest bathing” treatments that relieve “stress and improve immune systems.” Amateur wildlife trackers studied were found to have “higher natural social capital,” while a 90-year old working in a Scottsdale, Arizona nature conservancy, is out every day, being a steward of the environment.

As for existing cities that are doing well, Beatley pointed to Helsinki, where “there is an integrated network of green spaces,” and Askerselva part of Oslo, in which two-thirds of its land is protected forest. In Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque region in Spain, a ring of green surrounds the city, and is now being brought into the center. In Germany, the famous, almost-entirely car free city of Vauban, near Freiburg, is highly biophilic, while Eva-Lanemeer in the Netherlands is also among the most nature-loving.

Singapore is also dramatically expanding its residents’ access to nature in a dense urban area, with Bishan Park. The city-state has created 180 kilometers of ”park connectors,” much of which are elevated and dramatically cut through the tree tops. The city is also incorporating nature into its buildings: The Solaris building is wrapped in a 1.4 kilometer forest. A new hospital may be perhaps the greenest in the world, with garden window boxes and 140 fruit trees in the lobby and roof. Apparently, a survey demonstrated that patients actually love watching farmers within the hospital pruning and managing the fruit. The hospital is now using the number of birds and butterfly species as an indicator of success. (To learn more, Beatley recommended watching this 45-minute movie on biophilic design in Singapore).

Why Biophilic Urbanism Is Important

According to Gregory, humans, as a species, can’t afford to not live in a low-density world. Biophilic urbanism can help ensure people live closer together, in less carbon-intensive environments. With nature built into cities, “the tensions between the natural and built environments” can be reduced and the “sins of poor planning” can be undone.

Cities should follow nature. As an example, Gregory showed Paris wrapping itself around the Seine river, organically responding to the shape and flow of the river. “This shows that cities can respond to something other than the car.”

In a flash of images, Gregory said how biophilic urbanism is about “sensory richness, variation of themes, prospect and refuge, serendipidity, motion, resilience, and creating a sense of freeness.” Materials facilitate haptic, tactile or kinesthetic learning. “There’s a real connection to place in the materials.”

“Light, air, water, sound, temperature, humidity, order, harmony, and fractal geometries” are central. But the “unexpected within the order also serves as a counterpoint.” These biophilic urban spaces “capture human movement, but are flexible and adaptable.” Imagine a street grid with durable central spaces. “We can let nature be our guide. A walk through the city can be like a walk on the beach or through a forest.”

Image credit: ASLA 2009 Residential Design Honor Award. Crack Garden, San Francisco / CMG Landscape Architecture

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Designing Neighborhoods for People and Wildlife

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Ecosystem Services, Landscape Architecture, Residential Design, Sustainable Design, Water Management, Wildlife on 10/31/2012 | 3 Comments »

Watch a new animation from ASLA’s “Designing Our Future: Sustainable Landscapes” online exhibition that explains how to transform your property into a real wildlife habitat. Learn how native plants and designed structures provide what nature needs.

Wildlife habitat can be destroyed by development, farms, or mines; or degraded by invasive species, climate change, or pollution so it no longer supports native wildlife. Sprawl has increased the rate of habitat loss. One estimate says U.S. forest land the size of Pennsylvania will be consumed by expanding cities by 2050. But insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals still all need habitat: food, water, cover, and places to raise their young. Unfortunately, with sprawl, native wildlife now has fewer places to call home. (Sources: Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Doug Tallamy, Timber Press, 2009; “Sustaining America’s Trees and Forests,” David J. Nowak, Susan M. Stein, Paula B. Randler, Eric J. Greenfield, Sara J. Comas, Mary A. Carr, and Ralph J. Alig, U.S. Forest Service; and “Habitat Loss,” National Wildlife Federation)

Many natural areas are now too small to sustain native species for long. The long-term survival of many species depends on recreating connections. Birds, turtles and reptiles, frogs and other amphibians, foxes, and other mammals all need safe passage through neighborhoods and places to raise their young within them. Corridors need to be protected where species are already using them. Wider, more continuous corridors work for a greater range of species. A recent study argues that organically-formed corridors are more successful than easements along a street or utility line. (Sources: Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Doug Tallamy, Timber Press, 2009; “Interview with Kristina Hill, Ph.D., Affiliate ASLA,” American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) interview series; and “Designing Wildlife Corridors: Wildlife Need More Complex Travel Plans,” Science Daily, 2008.)

Habitat loss, and the corresponding loss of biodiversity, doesn’t have to continue. Communities can connect their properties into networks of attractive, wildlife-friendly neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Starting with homeowners’ properties, fragmented habitats can be rewoven together, creating neighborhoods that are not only healthier for wildlife but also for people. Many residential landscape architects are helping to stem the losses by creating beautiful neighborhoods that provide habitat for many species. (Sources: Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Doug Tallamy, Timber Press, 2009; “Garden for Wildlife,” National Wildlife Federation; and Audubon At Home, Audubon Society)

Increased biodiversity has its own benefits: These landscapes maintain themselves without fertilizers or water that lawns need. Also, biodiverse residential landscapes are not only beautiful, but help families see the wonder of nature close to home. As scientists are now proving, just being out in nature, seeing plants, and hearing bird song reduces stress and improves mood. (Sources: Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES). “Research Shows Nature Helps with Stress,” The Dirt blog; “Does Looking at Nature Make People Nicer?,” The Dirt blog; and “The Restorative Effects of Nature in Cities,” The Dirt blog)

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Petrochemical Industry Has Left Deep Marks in the Landscape

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Landscape Architecture, Policy and Regulation, Water Management, Wildlife on 10/17/2012 | Leave a Comment »

Delivering the 2012 Howland Memorial Lecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, Kate Orff, ASLA, founding principal of SCAPE, discussed her recent work mapping the landscape dynamics of southern Louisiana in what she has deemed “Petrochemical America.” The design research project, published as a book in collaboration with photographer Richard Misrach, follows the petrochemical industry and the deep marks it has left on the landscape of the lower Mississippi region across seven chapters: oil, infrastructure, waste, displacement, ecology, food, and landscape.

Orff, a New-York based landscape architect and assistant professor at Columbia University, began the lecture pointing to a time line of fossil fuel use, emissions, and population, pausing to highlight our current moment, where crises in energy, climate, settlement and biodiversity are converging. Orff sees landscape as the space where patterns of fossil fuels use, production, and settlement intersect to produce these crises, and, in turn, the space where these interactions can begin to change. In Petrochemical America, she applies her view of landscape architecture as a way of understanding and intervening at micro-scales to produce macro-scale effects, to map the rich and complicated history of the southern Louisiana landscape.

Petrochemical America maps the cycles of petrochemical production and consumption, energy extraction and waste, in order to show how those cycles can break. Through mapping, we can begin to understand southern Louisiana and how it reached its current state of degraded wetlands, socioeconomic disparity, and petrochemical dependence. Orff points to geological, ecological and social processes and connections that go beyond the scales of our comprehension, and come to rest in the landscape of Cancer Alley, the infamous 100-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. With that comprehension, the application of a glossary of terms and solutions starts to piece together the ingredients for positive change, from grassroots organizations to public institutions to design options.

The method consists of intricate and layered maps and sections, which she calls “timescapes,” as well as diagrammatic presentations of different drawings on the same theme that pulls out flows and connections, across scales and systems. Misrach’s photographs, taken in 1998, are interwoven and interpreted within Orff’s drawings, serving as the “site” to analyze, sequence, and build into a narrative in her project. The photos are “grenades” or “Braille,” which she reads with a landscape architect’s eyes, appreciative of the beauty of a photograph of a pipeline running through a degraded bayou, but also outlining what’s in that pipe, how it got there, and where it’s going. For Orff, a landscape architect’s perspective is critical to these questions inherent in the photographs. This perspective allowed her to draw connections between the moment in time represented in Misrach’s image and the dynamics, natural and man-made, that produced those conditions.

One such series explores the complex and diverse ecological cycles and interactions of a healthy bayou, and arrives at the truncated, linear pathways, and declining biodiversity that characterize many of Louisiana’s bayous today. The effects of the loss of “looped and living” ecological systems in the bayou are traced outwards, from the contribution of these organisms, such as brown shrimp, oysters, and blue crabs to the economy and history of the region. In mapping “America’s wetland” at this pivotal moment, Orff is also looking at what may soon be lost from the region, with the erosion of the coastal wetlands, changing salt, and freshwater levels, and the fragility of these systems in a place where Deepwater Horizon is only one of many industrial accidents seen on a yearly basis.

In addition to representing the landscape within Cancer Alley, Orff tracks the ways that the conditions along the lower Mississippi cycle through the rest of America and the world, often returning to their place of origin, the Louisiana Delta. Whether it is in the form of fertilizers produced in factories along Cancer Alley only to return as agricultural run-off from the upper-Mississippi River watershed, or the industrial waste stored in the delta’s salt dome formations, the waste of Cancer Alley and of much of the country, they live in the Louisiana landscape. Beyond the waste we can see, she also explores the ways petrochemical products and by-products live in us, from the vitamins and household products we use all over the country to the exposure communities experience from living side-by-side with refineries. In both cases, there are consequences we still do not fully understand how to measure, control, or treat.

Orff concludes the book and her lecture with a map of the United States, expanding her analysis to understand how our national map is also being redrawn. She argues that we are all part of the problem, and that is inspiring, rather than defeating, since we are then all part of the solution. Hopefully, then, Petrochemical America can serve as a call to action to “consciously, creatively and collaboratively redraw the map” of the landscape we have made. In the “Glossary of Terms and Solutions for a Post-Petrochemical America,” scenarios for action and spotlights on organizations show how people are already taking charge of the map of Louisiana, providing a toolkit for leveraging Orff and Misrach’s analysis into action in the landscape.

Read the book.

This guest post is by Rachel Stevens, Student ASLA, Master of Landscape Architecture and Master of Urban and Environmental Planning candidate, University of Virginia.

Image credits: Petrochemical America / Aperture Books

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Interview with Jinny Blom on the Therapeutic Effect of Gardens

Posted in Gardens, Land Art, Residential Design, Wildlife on 10/17/2012 | 2 Comments »

Jinny Blom is one of the leading garden designers in the United Kingdom. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, The Telegraph, Gardens Illustrated, House & Gardens, Vogue, and other publications. Blom is on the board of the U.S. Therapeutic Landscapes Network.

You’re just about a household name in the UK for your gardens, which go from the seemingly wildly romantic to somewhat intellectual and contemporary. You’ve said design is “more a matter of intelligence and appropriateness than reflecting a style.” So there is no Jinny Blom style? And if not, is there a set of principles or ethics that guide your work?

I don’t think I have a style. I am me and I like certain things. They’re probably all things that repeat like certain plants but I wouldn’t say that was a style. I think it is much more about having a philosophy. It sounds terrible when you say it, but it’s about local appropriateness. In England, certainly in British Isles, we’ve got very strong architectural precedent in each county. The land changes so distinctively as you move around from flint to limestone to clay. I like to use the materials that come up out of the ground. Things feel comfortable if they look as though they’ve been generated from their point of origin. In London or in other cities, you can do something more contemporary and abstract, but it would still follow those principles. I always think: good materials, good thinking. I’m a real sucker for good thinking.

In an interview with Garden Design Journal, you said, “it’s vital to my own happiness that birds, insects, mammals, fish, and humans can coexist in the environment I’m creating.” How do you design spaces to ensure this will happen?

That’s just linking what one does with the surrounding environment. If you feel like you’re blocking animals, don’t do it. I live right in central London and we’ve got a huge fox population. Animals have very specific routes that they like to take. They were taking a route that I didn’t really want them to take across my garden. So, I just redesigned the garden to accommodate the fox route and then it seems to work. Instead of like, oh the foxes, they’re driving me crazy running through my flower beds, you go, there goes the fox on his little fox route.

You can use that principle if you study the landscape reasonably well. I plant a lot of hedges so that animals can conduit their way easily from one way place to another. Nobody would know that I was doing it. It’s a subliminal thing. I always put water in if I can. I just think it’s rude not to allow space for other creatures to be. If they can be, then everybody’s happy. A lot of my clients will say things like, look the birds are back. They notice. If you take away where the birds can live, then they won’t come.

For one of your large-scale projects, Corrour in the Scottish Highlands, you created an “anti-garden,” an “experimental approach to non-interventionist gardening.” What does that entail? How did that work at that site?

The Highlands of Scotland are really interesting. That particular estate is 1,300-foot above sea level. It’s completely overpopulated with deer because people mainly go up there to hunt. The deer management has taken a turn for the worst so there are more deer than there is land to support them. It’s a very fragile land so they just graze everything off. When I first went up there, people said nothing will grow here. And I thought, well, of course, it will grow. The first thing we have to do is really release grazing pressure to see what would happen.

The whole project was interesting. I was working with the architect on the project, a guy called Moshe Safdie, who’s very well known over here or all over the world perhaps. He built such a strong Moshe building in this landscape. In a way, that made me want to rebel against doing anymore landscaping — hard landscaping. So, it was a combination of studying the land and this over-grazing issue and how to address a response to this really anachronistic building in that environment. The best way to do it was to maroon the building in pure landscape, pure highland landscape. So, that’s really how it came about. And then my client and I just thought it was hilarious because we’re both women and instead of growing a set of balls to compete with Moshe’s house, we just decided to subvert it.

You’ve done lots of memorable public projects, which appear at garden shows and even as temporary installations. One I was really struck by was the Laurent-Perrier Garden, which is actually really deep, too. How does the garden represent the journey of life?

I made that for Chelsea Flower Show for Lauren Perrier in 2007. Apparently everybody’s sick of gardens having a journey theme now. I didn’t realize I’d tapped into some zeitgeist there. I’m a transpersonal psychotherapist so I’m interested in people’s evolution and growth. The thing is we’re all on a one way trip. At that point my niece had just become very ill and nearly died, and then she didn’t die, and then she got pregnant and had a baby. It was all just very, very quick. I just thought this is amazing. There are these highs and lows in life, literally.

I love the architecture of Carlo Scarpa. I just thought I’m going to swipe one of his nice details. He did a very nice gallery in Venice and just made these panels that allow the canal waters to rise and fall. So I made the journey quite solid. It was travertine marble on concrete bases. All the planting is more emotional, intuitive, perceptive, with a moving aspect. Our journey is really sort of structured by huge events that sort of change your direction, so the panels all flip direction. One of them was a dead end, so it was like a maze. It was also a metaphor for my marriage (laughs). We went down the dead end bit. You have to retrace your steps and go down the other bit.

One of your small scale projects I really like is the Notting Hill Garden. How did you make this small space work?

City gardens are really a discipline. It’s like designing jewelry. I always think they’re like jewelry. My client had just put in some beautiful glazed doors that ran the full width of the house. The garden is probably 30 by 30 foot. They’re Australian and entertain a lot and wanted to cook outside. And I said, “yeah but you don’t want to be sitting in your beautiful house looking out at a kitchen.” I just found a way making a very simple language of blocks that I built up. I found a barbecue that is amazingly discreet. It’s very high tech and very beautiful but it’s very discreet. It can disappear. It has no profile because normally they have huge great hoods, wheels and tongs, and god knows what. So, I just turned it around so it didn’t face the house. If you’re sitting inside and you’re looking out, you don’t want to be looking at it. So, really, the whole garden is a series of monolithic blocks, one of which, hey presto, has a fridge and plate rack.

You’re now on the board of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network. In one of your past lives, you were actually a psychologist. How are the practices of landscape architecture and psychology converging? What can landscape architects and designers learn from the latest psychological research? Conversely, what can the psychological community learn from landscape architects and designers?

Well, this is a subject very close to my heart, but I wouldn’t say I’m the go to person for the technical information. I think the Therapeutic Landscape Network web site itself has incredibly good research. Naomi Sachs, ASLA, who set it up, has just put together such a good board and such a good collection of contributors that I just point people to look at the site for those specific answers. But there’s no question in my mind that good landscaping has a good effect on human beings. A lot of urban architecture, landscape architecture needs to soften up. We’re still building too much.

The half French side of me says look at the Jardin des Tulieries in the middle of Paris. Paris is a very, very built up city, but the fact that they use soft finishes changes everything about the feel of the place. You know, it’s graveled throughout instead of paving. You look anywhere in the Mediterranean, in Europe: they’re much softer in their approaches to urban space. That just has an effect on how one feels. You feel like you’re on holiday. You feel more relaxed. I just feel that we could soften it all up again. Make urban landscapes gentler and more human. Less stuff, less product.

You’ve also said gardens and gardening should be described as being therapeutic as opposed to healing. What’s the difference? How are these gardens therapeutic for war veterans and those suffering from post traumatic stress disorders?

Therapeutic doesn’t imply that you can fix it. It implies that you can make some environmental improvements and give somebody an engagement that’s going to bring them some benefit. Whereas the word healing kind of implies that you’re going to put on your long white robe and touch somebody with a wand and make everything better. I just think there’s a big difference in assumption about what you can do with somebody who’s very damaged. I worked for a long time with very damaged people and know that environmental engagement has a huge benefit.

I’m trying to work at the moment with a colleague of mine on setting up a maintenance company using guys coming back from Afghanistan. Well, for purely mercenary reasons because it’s so hard to find good workers! They’re trained. They’re competent. They know how to follow orders. They know how to turn up on time. They know how to tidy up after themselves. They want to work. And they’re not all suffering post traumatic stress, but they are nevertheless traumatized by their experience. It’s very difficult to leave the army, which is an incredibly structured environment, and go into an unstructured civilian environment. The great thing about gardening is that you’ll become sucked into the diurnal motion of the earth. If you’re having to dig and dig and dig, you have to be connected to earth and seasons. If you’re growing food for yourself, you want your potatoes to do well, so you create a relationship with your potatoes. You might not be able to have a relationship with your wife or your kids, but you can create a relationship with your spuds because you want to eat them at the end of the week and you don’t want to see them shriveling up in the sun. It’s a different emotional bonding.

There’s a really, really good book by Kenneth Helphand, FASLA, an American professor of landscape architecture, about war trauma and gardens. He did a whole thesis on it. It’s very interesting reading because people garden. They garden at the front in first World War. They garden in Chechnya now. There are people gardening in the ruins of that town just shot to bits. It’s a very primal urge somehow. The earth does neutralize a lot of human anxiety.

And I used to do it myself in my past. It’s worked for me. I was very troubled when I was younger and I’m not now. I’m a gardener so I do know about it firsthand as well. I know through working with the schizophrenics I used to work with, when I was director of the charity, that gardening was a massive help. Massive. I don’t say help in an over-weaning sort of way. It just made a difference. I don’t overstate it. I just think, go, and do it. It’s a simple thing that you can do on your own to alter the balance of your life.

Interview conducted by Jared Green.

Image credits: (1) Jinny Blom / N. Jouan, (2) Temple-Guiting / copyright Andrew Lawson, (3-4) Corrour / copyright Allan Pollock-Morris, (5) Laurent-Perrier Garden / copyright Gary Rogers, (6-7) Notting Hill Garden / copyright Robert Straver

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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ode to the Desert

Posted in Gardens, Historic Preservation, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Wildlife on 09/29/2012 | 1 Comment »

Beginning in 1937, Frank Lloyd Wright began creating his winter studio and architectural campus Taliesin West, his ode to the majestic Sonoran desert. Still a working architectural college to this day, the place is dramatically different from his urban masterpieces like the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and Robie House in Chicago. The buildings are unassuming and seem to purposefully nestle into the cacti-filled landscape.

The campus’ main buildings took four years to build. During that time, Wright, his 3rd wife, and 25 apprentices all slept in tents under the stars. During the first years, there was no well, so water had to be brought in from miles away. On the 640 acre site, Wright left his tent to first build a document vault, then the studio, kitchen, dining and bedrooms. Using wood from local trees to build the frames and quartzite boulders to establish the foundation, the buildings are very low to the ground, and were originally filled with open window frames covered only in canvas. It was only after many years of protest by his wife that glass windows were put in.

Wright thought the glass wasn’t needed because he oriented the spaces to maximize solar and heat gain in the winter and minimize the sun’s glare in the summer. However, he eventually discovered that the glass windows only enhanced the passive solar capabilities of the buildings. Ever careful about how light interacted with interior spaces, Wright used his windows and canvas shades to further control the interplay of light and dark in the interior spaces, diffusing light and bouncing it off the interiors to create more comfortable spaces. So Wright was not only an early innovator in the use of solar passive technologies but also controlling light through shades.

The patios, gardens, building were all set in patterns of 16-foot-square grids, said our tour guide. The interior frames are also all standard sizes so once a visitor figures out the size of the grid and frames, they can quickly figure out total square footage.

Outside, the gardens were meant to deeply complement the buildings and work together as one. Like Richard Neutra’s work, Taliesin West is rooted in its native landscape. You can’t really imagine it elsewhere.

In the gardens that provide middle-grounds between the home and the desert and mountains, Wright’s original landscape architecture, one of his few works of landscape, has been faithfully preserved. In between the view of the home and Papago mountains, there’s a triangular pool, which was created as an amenity, source of comfort in the hot months, and security measure in case of fires. The triangular pool, which also mirrors the triangular shapes of the mountains, is dramatically juxtaposed with a bright red door into the studio and 75-year old Joshua trees. In this space in the early 1950s, the gravel came out in favor of grass.

The desert views Wright, his wife, and workers enjoyed are made even better by the flora and fauna: grand Sagauro cacti and fuzzy Jumping cacti make a dramatic statement and we even saw wild Gambel’s quails running together in the campus. But this landscape is no cultural desert either – it’s been used for thousands of years by the Hohokam indians. Their dense network of canals were basically copied by the settlers who took over their lands.

Wright also oriented the home so that there were distinct breezeways, which provided comfort for those living there. The breezeways double as spaces to enjoy certain perspectives of the mountains. Wright set up a few views of the mountain peaks he loved best.

Moving through one of those breezeways, there’s a central plaza, with gardens filled with native cacti set out on grids. While the space seem designed to be moved through as opposed to inhabited, the guide said Wright constantly used the space for events, reconfiguring the outdoor spaces for garden parties. The guide said Frances Nemtin, one of Wright’s original apprentices from the 1940s is still managing the gardens in keeping with Wright’s original design. The only major change: there had been a set of palm trees but they grew so large architects in residence thought they were messing with the proportions of the site. They were dug up and given to a nearby resort.

According to our tour guide, Wright knew that sprawl would eventually surround his beloved Taleisin West. Until the 1960s, they managed to keep development at bay. Now it’s basically found at the end of a cul-de-sac. Sadly, it’s one of the few remaining intact desert habitats in the broader Phoenix region, which sprawls out some to a gargantuan 1,650 square miles. Our guide said developers are ever swarming over their parcel of nature but always let down when they hear that the entire 550 remaining acres are a National Historic Landmark. Let’s hope it stays that way forever.

Image credits: Ben Wellington, Student ASLA

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SITES Certifies Eight Projects

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Water Management, Wildlife on 09/17/2012 | 1 Comment »

The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) has announced eight projects that have achieved certification under the nation’s most comprehensive rating system for the sustainable design, construction and maintenance of built landscapes. These projects, as part of a group of 150 projects participating in an extensive, two-year pilot program, have applied the SITES guidelines and met the requirements for certification.

The newly certified projects include the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden in Durham, NC; Cleveland’s Public Garden, Cleveland; Cornell University’s Mann Library Entrance in Ithaca, NY; Hunts Point Landing, an urban park in the Bronx, NY; Meadow Lake and the Main Parking Lot at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle IL; the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido, CA; the commercial SWT Design Campus in St. Louis; and the residential Victoria Garden Mews in Santa Barbara, CA.

SITES is a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden. SITES was created in 2005 to fill a critical need for guidelines and recognition of sustainable landscapes based on their planning, design, construction and maintenance. The voluntary, national rating system and set of performance benchmarks applies to sites with or without buildings.

“This new group of showplace projects represents a tremendous amount of work toward making the built landscape more sustainable and adding to ecosystem services,” said Holly Shimizu, executive director of the U.S. Botanic Garden.

Since June 2010, pilot projects have been testing the 2009 rating system created by dozens of the country’s leading sustainability experts, scientists and design professionals. The diverse projects represent various types, sizes and locations as well as stages of development.

The SITES 2009 rating system includes 15 prerequisites and 51 additional, flexible credits to choose from that add up to 250 points. The credits address areas such as soil restoration, use of recycled materials and land maintenance approaches. One through four stars are obtained for achieving 40, 50, 60 or 80 percent of those 250 points.

“The pilot program has informed and helped us refine the next iteration of the SITES Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks, which will be published in 2013. Many additional projects are continuing to work toward certification while we proceed with our preparations for open enrollment next year.” said ASLA Executive Vice President and CEO Nancy Somerville.

The eight newly certified projects include two commercial ventures, one residence, one park, three public gardens and one educational institution. Each project incorporates sustainable features and practices which enabled them to achieve a star rating:

The Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden at Sarah P. Duke Gardens. Two Stars. Duke University, Durham, NC. (see image at top). This garden is a demonstration center intended to help school groups, families and camp participants understand and apply sustainable landscaping ideas at home. Salvaged materials were used throughout and a cistern, a bioswale and a rain garden collect rainwater. Teaching elements include organic vegetable gardens in raised beds, an orchard, bee hives, a compost bin and a “Food Forest” of native plants.

Cleveland’s Public Garden: Modeling Sustainability in the Rustbelt. Three Stars. Cleveland. Cleveland Botanical Garden’s goal was to demonstrate best conservation practices its visitors could apply at home. Among the sustainable features are a low-maintenance lawn that does not require weekly mowing, additional irrigation or fertilizer; a rain garden that captures runoff; native plants; and a green roof that reduces energy costs and slows stormwater runoff.

Cornell University’s Mann Library Entrance. One Star. Ithaca, NY. The Mann Library, which houses the agriculture and horticulture collection, had been a construction site. A Landscape Architecture/Horticulture class took on the renovation, including site assessment, design and plant installation as well as preparing documents for the certification. Sustainable features include better soil health resulting from organic additions and percolation; a diversified selection of plants more suitable to local conditions; the removal of invasive plants; and preservation of all trees on the site.

Hunts Point Landing. Two Stars. Bronx, NY. This 1.5 acre project converted a roadway dead-ending at a debris-strewn river bank into a recreation area in a densely-populated part of New York City. This public waterfront allows visitors to bicycle, fish, kayak or enjoy the panoramic view. Among the sustainable features are recycled bridge stones and roadway materials used in the construction and habitat restoration and protection from storm winds provided by newly planted evergreens, flowering trees and shrubs.

Meadow Lake/Main Parking Lot at The Morton Arboretum. One Star. Lisle, IL. This project turned a man-made retention lake with eroded banks into an attractive, natural-looking waterway with wetland plantings. It also added stormwater and water pollution controls to the main parking lot. Sustainable features include the first large-scale permeable parking lot installation in Illinois and a bioswale that captures and filters rainwater that would entered storm sewers.

Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens. One Star. Escondido, CA. The outdoor patios and gardens at this craft brewery and restaurant feature a palette of climate-adapted plants. The gardens are located in a stormwater retention basin for a surrounding industrial park, and plantings are adapted for water and drought-tolerance. The gardens include edible plants such as avocados, olives and pomegranates as well as Chinook Hops used in making beer. Most of the boulders and rock utilized in the garden came from the site itself and many of the patio materials were made from reused salvaged materials.

SWT Design Campus. Two Stars. St. Louis. This adaptive-reuse project grafted a contemporary design office and studio addition on an existing Victorian house. The outdoor area modeled a number of sustainable practices, including managing 95 percent of rainwater on-site using a rain garden, roof garden, native Missouri plants, and pervious cover for 75 percent of the hardscape.

Victoria Garden Mews. Two Stars. Santa Barbara, CA. Three couples who are green building professionals converted a derelict Victorian house into four highly efficient urban units that share habitat-friendly open space. Almost all home energy needs are met onsite. Sustainable features include rainwater collection in a 14,000-gallon system, a construction waste minimization program that diverted 13 tons from landfills and the use of recycled materials including redwood siding from the Victorian house.

“Perhaps the greatest impact of the two-year SITES pilot program has been the tremendous interest it has created among people who design, create and maintain landscapes of all types and sizes in creating outdoor spaces that use the benefits of nature – ecosystem services—to benefit people and the environment. Landscape professionals and home gardeners alike are really looking for ways to make what they do sustainable,” said Susan Rieff, executive director of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

About 80 of the initial 150 projects in the two-year pilot program have indicated they will continue to pursue certification. The draft 2013 credits will be available for public review and comment starting September 26.

See more images of all the projects.

Image credits: (1) Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden / Rick Fisher, (2) Cleveland’s Public Garden / Cynthia Druckenbrod, (3) Cornell University Mann Library Entrance / Nina Bassuk, (4) Hunts Point Landing / Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects, P.C., (5) Meadow Lake at Morton Arboretum / Staff at Morton Arboretum, (6) Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens / Aerial Advantage, (7) SWT Design Campus / SWT Design, (8) Victoria Garden Mews / Holly Lepere Photography

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Another Winner: The London Olympics’ Landscape

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management, Wildlife on 08/22/2012 | 4 Comments »

While the architecture of the London Olympic games certainly won the U.K. a lot of press, there seemed to be a real dearth of coverage on the Games’ highly successful landscape architecture. Nearly 250 acres were turned into a spectacular setting. According to John King, Hon. ASLA, architecture critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, that success was due to a team of landscape architecture firms, including U.K.-based LDA Design and U.S.-based landscape architecture firm, Hargreaves Associates, who came in at the proverbial last minute to update the master plan in key spots, along with English planting designers Nigel Dunnett, Sarah Price, and James Hitchmough.

King reports that the Olympic Delivery Authority in the U.K. “wasn’t happy with the open space elements” of their master plan. George Hargreaves, FASLA, said to King: “The client told us, ‘We’ve got this product, we don’t like it, we’re not sure why.’”

Working with LDA Design, Hargreaves changed the planned river, creating “wider and more natural banks,” which were then cloaked in a sea of greenery, including a wildflower meadow planted by Dunnett and his colleagues. (The meadow, an iconic English landscape, is said to be the largest ever planted in the U.K).

Also, King reports, the plazas in the master plan were reduced in size in order to create space for new hillocks, or what Hargreaves called “sculptural tectonic forms.” These hillocks provide a platform for visitors to see the city, beyond the Olympic Village, and also help create a “softening” of the transition from the busy avenues packed with throngs of visitors.

On their Web site, Hargreaves says the plan developed with LDA Design “restores a river and transforms former industrial land, much of it contaminated through years of industrial neglect” into 100 hectares of parklands. Furthermore, the design was inspired by “the Victorian and post-war pleasure and festival gardens.”

LDA Design says the masterplan provided a solid foundation for the entire site, helping make the London Olympics one of the more sustainable ones to date. “The hour-glass shape of the Olympic Park naturally divides the park into a ‘wilder’ green northern half, The North Park and a more urban South Park. The previously canalised River Lea has been transformed into a three dimensional mosaic of new habitats – wetland, swales, wet woodland, dry woodland and meadow – that together form an absorbent flood-control measure. Specific habitats and wildlife installations have been integrated into the design to support key species identified in the Olympic Park Biodiversity Action Plan, such as Kingfisher, Sandmartin and European eel.”

Dunnett, one of the planting designers, added more about the specifics of the planting approach: “The Olympic Park comprises two different character areas: the North Park which has a more extensive and informal character, and the South Park, which includes the main Olympic Stadium and has a more urban character. Plantings in the North Park largely represent designed versions of native habitats and celebrate native biodiversity. They include species-rich meadows of different types; wetland plantings, including rain gardens and bioswales; woodland underplantings, and dramatic perennial ‘lens plantings.’ Plantings in South Park focus on visual drama and have a strong horticultural basis. They include the 2012 Gardens, Display Meadows and the ‘Fantasticology’ art installation.”

King says the city, at least the local design press, was thrilled by the park. LDA Design’s Web site lists a whole set of positive critical reviews, including one by Kieran Long, Evening Standard: “The real star of the Olympic site is the landscape design. It’s simply beautiful, with borders packed with mixed wildflowers, all blooming gaily thanks to the wet weather. Its hillocks and valleys, ordered by the waterways that run north–south through the park, make it a unique place, and give a flavour of what will be a wonderful public space after the Games.”

The London Olympics just ended with a bang so the landscape will now become public parkland. According to LDA, the park will be expanded, reopening as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2014. A 55-acre piece of that bonanza of a project will go to who else but James Corner Field Operations, designers of the High Line and winners of the Chicago Pier design competition.

See lots more photos of the Olympic landscape.

Image credits: (1) Nigel Dunnett, (2) Andy Harris, Hargreaves Associates, (3-4) Nigel Dunnett, (5) Peter Neal, Hargreaves Associates, (6) Master plan concept, LDA Design, Nigel Dunnett, Hargreaves Associates, (7-8) Nigel Dunnett.

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