The Dirt

The U.S. Will Soon Look Like California

06/05/2013 by J. Green

“Oh, my god, America has changed,” exclaimed Dr. Manuel Pastor, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California, mock-shocked, at the E.P.A.’s Brownfield conference in Atlanta. And even more change is coming. By 2043, the U.S. will become like California, with whites in the minority and the majority minorities. Currently, white Americans make up 64 percent of the population. By 2050, they are expected to only make up 45 percent.

Over the past ten years, white people have had the lowest growth rates, while Latinos and Asian Americans have had the highest. Pastor said in the past decade the Latino population has grown 43 percent, Asian Pacific population 42 percent, African American population 12 percent, and whites — just 1 percent.

Interestingly, the fast growth in Latinos is not due to increased immigration. “Immigration is no longer defining demographic change.” Instead, it’s actually the rise of “the second generation, those born from immigrants.” Also, immigrants from Mexico may not be as high as many people think. “The Mexican economy is doing well so there’s actually negative immigration. People are moving back.”

The American Latino population is also rising in aggregate number, particularly among young people. “The number of young Latinos is up 4.8 million.” In comparison, there are 4 million fewer young whites than a decade ago. Pastor showed tables that also demonstrated how the white population is relatively older than other groups. The current median age for whites is 42, 35 for Asian, 32 for African Americans, 32 for Native Americans, and 27 for Latinos. The future is literally old white people and younger minorities.

But demographic change isn’t uniform across all parts of the country. “It’s happening most rapidly in America’s suburbs.” It’s also not as much about minorities moving into predominately white areas, but African Americans and Latinos coming into closer proximity. “Latinos are moving more into African American areas.”

Pastor raised a note of caution about the big demographic shifts that are about to occur, arguing that it could lead to broader societal conflict. From 1980 to 2000, when California was becoming non-majority white, “it was a turbulent time for race relations, with riots and conflicts around immigration. We’re just now coming to the end of this process.”

Environmental inequality is also a stubborn problem. Historically, wealthy white populations have received the most environmental benefits. “Brownfields are most often found in communities of color.” Pastor said cleaning up brownfields then wasn’t just about giving more people access to environment benefits, but also “dealing with environmental justice.”

Other sources of tension could be generational differences. It may be that the “older generation increasingly doesn’t see itself in the younger generation,” in part because the younger generations just superficially looks different. The younger generations coming up also faces a very different world. “The educational gap is really generational. The generation coming up has not been invested in as much.” And many aren’t very happy about this.

Beyond the moral issues in inter-race and inter-generational inequality though, Pastor argued that being more equitable and inclusive just pays. “Communities that aren’t inclusive don’t build a base for the economy over the long run.” Looking at the data, he believes that “the places that are more equitable and have less segregation grow more rapidly, sustainably over time.” Cleaning up those brownfields that predominately affect poorer neighborhoods of color then benefits everyone.

While the coming demographic and generational changes that will change the face of the U.S. could lead to increased tensions, Pastor was positive, viewing it as a “huge opportunity.”

He could have been speaking to the design professions and development community when he said new approaches were needed to adjust to a changing country. For example, he said the upcoming generation, which has lost out of many educational opportunities and is loaded with debt, “isn’t fundamentally angry, but aspirational.” They want a better world. He said this generation views “equity and inclusion as essential to any project, not just add-on benefits.” So environmental remediation isn’t viewed as just more economically sustainable over the long-term, but “transformational.”

Image credit: ASLA 2012 Professional General Design Award Winner. Powell Street Promenade, San Francisco, CA, by Hood Design / Image credit: Marion Brenner and Beth Amann

Posted in Policy and Regulation | 1 Comment »

With the Beltline, Atlanta Wants to Become a New City

06/04/2013 by J. Green

A bit more than 10 years ago, Ryan Gravel, a Georgia Tech architecture and urban planning master’s student, delivered a whopper of a thesis. His vision was to transform the mostly abandoned railroad lines that circle Atlanta into a new network of transit, parks, and pedestrian and bike trails. While that vision would have died in other cities, it actually took root in Atlanta and is now becoming a reality. Seven years into the wildly ambitious Atlanta Beltline, a 25-year, $3 billion project, more than 640 acres of land have been acquired and tens of millions raised. By the end of the project, more than 22 miles of modern streetcars, 1,300 acres of new parkland, and 33 miles of bike and pedestrian trails will make Atlanta a far more sustainable, livable, and inclusive place. That streetcar will connect some pretty down-on-their-heels neighborhoods to wealthy ones, creating access to new opportunities for poorer Atlantans. The new infrastructure, parks, and trails will hopefully be the tipping point that will get Atlantans out of all those cars. To make this transformation happen, some $1.8 billion will be spent on the transit, $500 million on parks, and $250 million on trails.

In a bus tour of the Beltline as part of the E.P.A.’s Brownfield conference, Heather Hussey-Coker and Lee Harrop explained how the unique industrial history of Atlanta laid the foundation for the Beltline and how a wide-ranging coalition of organizations, government agencies, and private sector firms have made the project happen.

After he completed his thesis, Gravel formed the Friends of the Beltline and started shopping the idea around Atlanta. Many presentations later, support started to build. The Trust for Public Land came in and did a research study that showed how the Beltline could become Atlanta’s Emerald Necklace. Soon thereafter, then Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin commissioned a study to determine whether the Beltline could be financed with a tax allocation district (TAD). The city found that it would raise more than 60 percent of the total cost so decided to move forward with that approach.

A TAD is basically “tax increment financing.” As Kevin Burke, ASLA, senior landscape architect for the Beltline, explained, imagine the tax value of a property goes up with rising property values. That incremental tax revenue is set aside for specific projects like the Beltline. The problem that came later was that the real estate market in Atlanta crashed, “skewing market projections of how much money the TAD would provide the Beltline.” Burke said this is the main reason “we have only delivered 60 acres” of parkland out of the planned 1,300-acre system of greenways and parks.

On top of that, the use of a TAD for the Beltline was delayed because a local resident sued, arguing that the public school portion of local taxes couldn’t be used to finance the Beltline. The case went all the way to the state supreme court, which just recently sided with the Beltline. Then, in a state-wide referendum, the voters of Georgia decided that school districts could opt in to TADs.

The Beltline is back on track though, largely because of an “aggressive fundraising campaign,” said Burke, which has brought in more than $40 million. Now in year six of the TAD, that measure will deliver money to the Beltline over the next 19 years. In reality, Burke said this will mean about “53-55 acres of parkland should be built each year.”

Hussey-Coker said the original railroad tracks that the Beltline follows were used to circulate industrial goods from manufacturing facilities on the outskirts of Atlanta to the city’s downtown, where they were then moved to other parts of the country. Residential areas then grew up around those industrial centers. “Beltlines were created to avoid the industrial downtown,” which was viewed as not a great place to live. The circular Beltline around the city served to “pause development for a long time.” Within its boundaries, “trolley suburbs” were created.

The parkland that has been added already is pretty spectacular. As the bus drove past, everyone oohed and aahed over the new historic 4th ward park, a Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) pilot project that has spurred $400 million in development around it. In a clever landscape architecture design, the Beltline team created a new basin that doubles as a park. An example of smart multi-use infrastructure, the new park, which cost $50 million, is designed to flood in severe storm events. When not flooding, there are ledges for exercise, with a theatre in the center. “We built a 17 acre park and a new piece of infrastructure for $50 million.”

The park also leaps and bounds through the neighborhood, with additional smaller pieces dotted through the community. The nearby skatepark, which legendary skater Tony Hawk helped finance to the tune of $25,000, looked like a skater’s paradise. Burke said a new space for beginning skaters will be added soon, given what’s there now is for pretty advanced stuff.

Design work has already begun on a number of other parks. James Corner Field Operations, designers of the High Line, and Perkins + Will, originally created the “25 percent-level designs,” said Harrop, creating the basic language of the greenways, parks, and trails. While Perkins + Will is doing more design work, Field Operations is no longer involved. Request for qualifications are going out for each individual park. While Burke said some $75 million has been spent so far – on parks and trails, there’s a long ways to go over the next 10-15 years. He said he’s already working 10-12 hours days getting new parks online.

One exciting park will be appearing soon at the Bellwood Quarry, an old quarry that the city bought in 2006. There will rise a new reservoir, the focal point of the new Westside Reservoir Park. In a unique partnership with the city’s department of watershed management and parks department, the Beltline will develop the park around the reservoir while the city will ensure the security and safety of the water supply. Harrop also told us that a herd of American bison, which are actually native to the area, may be imported and be used to organically amend the soils. The Beltline crew likes to set herbivores on their plant problems: goats were recently let loose on kudzu in some spots and sheep on poison ivy in others.

Still other areas near the Beltline targeted to become parks are currently brownfields. Just west of University Avenue, in the southwest segment of the Beltline, a property next to the former State Farmer’s Market, which is now a wreck, will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and become a new 5-6-acre urban farm. To make way for this transformation, several layers of asphalt were removed, along with old gas tanks, axles, and transmission tanks. Harrop said the area will be restored from an abandoned industrial site to its original use as an agricultural resource for the neighborhood. He remarked on the “poetry” of that transformation.

The transit corridor itself will rise and fall through the city. Burke said it will look much like the St. Charles street car line in New Orleans. There will be grass below and on the sides of the tracks. Like in New Orleans, Atlantans will be able to walk or jog near the tracks. “It will be a porous transit line.” The big challenge, though, is that much of the Beltline isn’t at grade; much of the network will be above or below street level. Every street that crosses the line will offer an access point. The transit line itself will stop every half to quarter mile. While there are 10 at-grade access points, there will be lots of walking up and down stairs and ramps to get to the line. Burke said “it’s an extreme challenge to design access so that people don’t feel like they a deserve a piece of cheese when they reach the end of the ramp.”

Once people find their way to the streetcar corridor, they will find a 14-foot concrete bike and pedestrian trail, said Hussey-Coker. The walking trail will run alongside the streetcar. In most places, there will be enough room between the two networks so that no physical divider between them will be needed. In the case where they are just 7-feet apart, the design team plans to add in low shrubs or fences.

In some parts, interestingly, the trail actually diverges from the streetcar line. “The trail will be nearby but it’s not always side by side.” The trails are in fact designed to meander a bit to “connect isolated green spaces” near the light rail line. To ensure bicyclists can also easily access the trail, entrepreneurs in the city are looking at opening bicycle rental shops at key points. There is a feasibility study underway for a bike share program as well. “Before we can build the bicycle infrastructure, we need to build a bicycle culture,” said Hussey-Coker.

A lighting scheme is being designed to enable access at night and enhance security. The team decided against security call boxes along the trail, but they will be in the transit stations. Harrop said the cost of adding security call boxes along the entire 22-mile line would have been prohibitive, plus “everyone has cell phones these days.” The Atlanta Police department is already putting together the Path Force, a team dedicated to patrolling the parks, trails, and nearby neighborhoods. In the beginning of the planning process, there were some fears that the Beltline could be used as a “criminal corridor, used for bad stuff.” But the market is saying something different. Harrop noted a marked improvement in the housing market in Beltline neighborhoods and said bidding wars for residences right off the line are becoming more frequent. In fact, speculators are buying up vacant properties along the Beltline in some areas, seeing opportunities to make lots of money.

The landscape design itself, which was informed by the work of Perkins + Will and James Corner Field Operations, will be built out in parts by Trees Atlanta, a local tree-planting organization. Some sections will be like an arboretum, while others will be a more straight-forward greenway. In many areas, the landscape itself needs to be cleaned up, with invasive plants removed and basic environmental remediation. Groups in the 45 neighborhoods the line transects are able to Adopt the Beltline and organize clean-up crews. The Beltline seems to have done an excellent job at involving the many diverse local communities in both planning and upkeep. “There have been no protests about the Beltline.”

But the big question may be: Can this new streetcar and set of trails really get Atlantans to move around the city in ways the existing infrastructure has not? The Beltline team is serious about providing other forms of mobility, but will they succeed in uprooting the car culture? Can they get Atlantans to think it’s cool to bike to work, walk trails every day, or take the streetcar to connect to a subway or bus?

The relatively new MARTA subway system (at least in comparison with NYC and Chicago) seemed barely used when this blogger rode it about 10 times, with stations and trains largely empty. Local riders looked like they were among those unlucky enough to not own a car. There were some tourists and business travelers coming to and from the airport. The reality is that the 10-county Atlanta region has some 4.2 million people, yet just 200,000 use the MARTA subway each day, despite the billions that have been spent on the project. Another 200,000 use the bus system, which this carless blogger waited almost an hour for one day. When I went into a store and asked one shop owner how to get back downtown on the bus, she just laughed, saying that “nobody rides the bus.”

As the new infrastructure comes in, the Beltline team, Atlanta city government, non-profits, and private sector firms, will need to work together to change the culture of the city, so that this beautiful re-envisioning of Atlanta’s historic infrastructure is actually put to good use.

Learn more about the Beltline master plan and next steps and see more photos.

Image credits: (1) Beltline map / Atlanta Beltline, (2) Beltline / A is for Atlanta, (3-4) Historic 4th Ward Park / Steve Carrell, (5) Historic 4th Ward Skatepark / Steve Carrell (6) Bellwood Quarry / Tumblr, State Farmers Market / SwatsMatt blog, (7) Irwin Promenade / Atlanta Beltline, (8) North Highland Overpass / Atlanta Beltline, (9) Gateway to the Eastside Trail at 10 street and Monroe Drive, (10) Adopt the Beltline / Atlanta Beltline

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Real Estate Development, Smart Growth, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization | 9 Comments »

New Webinars on Sustainable Landscapes

05/30/2013 by J. Green

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s Ecosystem Design Group, has put together a new webinar series called “Principles of Successful Sustainable Landscapes: Specification, Installation, and Maintenance.” The goal of this series is to train professionals and contractors in the “efficient and successful specification, installation, and maintenance of projects with sustainable features.”

According to the center, the webinar series will teach landscape architects and designers how to successfully design sustainable landscapes, “starting with the foundational aspects of the process and culminating with techniques used to quantify the success of the design.”

The series is based on standards developed by the Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™), a rating system and guide for sustainable land design, construction, and maintenance practices, created through a joint partnership with ASLA, the Lady Bird Wildflower Center, and U.S. Botanic Garden.

Here are details on the webinars:

Webinar 1: Soils for Sustainable Landscapes (10 a.m. CST, June 18th)
“This webinar will cover the concepts of plant-soil relationships and the characteristics of soil that need to be examined for sustainable design, including: compaction, texture, soil biology, types and role of organic matter and soil chemistry. It will also discuss how to interpret soil test results and quantify specifications for soils and soil amendments (fertilizer, compost, etc.) for restoration, plant establishment and growth.” Duration: 50 minutes.

Webinar 2: Site Preparation + Installation (10 a.m. CST, July 9th)
“This webinar session will discuss soil preparation and protection strategies, compost testing and amendments, compaction testing, BMP’s, and developing a preparation schedule. The course also highlights installation timing,
irrigation schedules and site hygiene techniques.” Duration: 50 minutes.

Webinar 3: Maintenance for Sustainable Landscapes (10 a.m. CST, July 23rd)
“This webinar session will highlight maintenance strategies and benchmarks aimed at establishing and maintaining sustainable landscapes. Techniques discussed in this course include irrigation and mowing frequency, plant
succession, monitoring of plant health, and monitoring and treatment of problematic species.” Duration: 50 minutes.

Webinar 4: Master Planning + Stakeholder Engagement (10 a.m. CST, August 6th)
“This webinar will cover one of the foundational aspects of sustainable landscape practices, planning and public facilitation. The session will discuss basic concepts and processes of facilitation, such as how to prepare and run a stakeholder meeting. Additionally, these concepts and processes will be reinforced by providing Master Plan examples which use site assessment information to develop a project vision, measurable objectives, landscape performance goals, and interpretive themes.”

To take one webinar, it costs $90 per person or $115 per group. For the entire series, each is a bit cheaper: $300 per person, or $400 per group. The center says it’s recommended that participants attend all sessions, as “content builds across the series.” Course certificates will also issued to those who finish all four.

Also, ASLA members and other landscape architects can take advantage of a new online learning series hosted by ASLA’s professional practice networks (PPNs). Nine online recordings of webinars are now available, covering topics ranging from 3D modeling to ecological restoration to sustainable water management strategies, all presented by experts in the field. Webinars are either 60 or 90 minutes. They are free to view for ASLA members; non-members must pay $75. To take the test to earn professional development hours, ASLA members can pay $40 and non-members can pay $60. Coming in June are two new live webinars on therapeutic gardens and outdoor learning for school-age children. Another comprehensive set of recorded webinars is also coming in the fall.

Image credit: Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) Pilot Project. BWP Eco Campus / Heliophoto

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Opportunities, Sustainable Design | 1 Comment »

Camden: “We Can’t Widen Our Way Out of This Problem”

05/29/2013 by J. Green

By that statement, Camden, New Jersey, officials mean that the city can’t widen its underground stormwater management pipes enough to carry more water and sewage. Instead, the city is taking a new approach, using green infrastructure to manage stormwater while also dealing with its many toxic brownfield sites. According to Frank McLaughlin, New Jersey Department of the Environment, who spoke at the E.P.A.’s Brownfields conference in Atlanta, Camden has found a new way to work, “greening brownfields” for stormwater management. Their brownfield redevelopment projects are all about capturing and using water to grow and maintain green infrastructure. This is a smart way to take advantage of clean water, because once it hits the built environment in Camden, it basically becomes toxic.

Camden, a small city of 77,000, has two Superfund sites (the places the E.P.A. deems the most dangerous to humans and wildlife) and more than 100 toxic brownfields, making it one of the most polluted places in the U.S. Camden became an industrial hub in the early 1900s, but it has lost much of its industrial base by the 1970s. With that loss, population fell. On top of that, the combined stormwater and sewer infrastructure is aging.

Nearby Philadelphia has shown a new way to do things, though, with its bold green infrastructure program. McLaughlin said Camden has taken up some of those ideas but also made their local green infrastructure initiative, Camden Smart, a “collaborative community benefits program.” The program seeks to reduce flooding in residential areas, but really involve the community in the solutions.

Working with the community, Camden Smart has given out 90 water conservation kits, created 19 rain gardens, two rainwater harvesting systems, and planted more than 230 trees. There are also new rain garden and rain barrel installation training sessions. An old gas station that the community really wanted to see gone has become the Waterfront South Rain Garden Park (see image above). About 12 underground storage tanks were taken out along with thousands of tons of contaminated soils. “The diesel sheen on the groundwater was also addressed.” The new park that has gone in with the help of Rutgers Cooperative Extension Water Resources Program is now filled with native plants and also mitigates street-level flooding and stores 800,000 of stormwater annually. McLaughlin said “landscape architecture is all about integrating stormwater management practices these days.”

Already, this bottom-up-style program has led to the capture of 1.5 million gallons of stormwater annually.

Beyond this program, the city government is also taking on some of the most polluted sites, spending quite a bit of money to turn toxic waterfront drains into environmental resources. Another major project is cleaning up and capping a landfill with “clean, permeable fill.” By the contained vegetation-covered landfill, there will be a new constructed wetland, which together are expected to capture some 25 million gallons of stormwater runoff annually. The city and federal governments, foundations, and the polluters, who have been found and fined, will spend upwards of $100 million to clean up some abandoned toxic sites and restore riparian corridors.

The Metropolitan Sewage District of Cincinnati serves another community that can’t widen its way out of the problem of combined sewage overflows (CSOs). While more than 700 communities have to deal with CSOs each year, Cincinnati has one of the worst problems, spewing 1.5 billion gallons of combined stormwater and sewage overflows into its rivers in just this one area. “This is one of the biggest CSOs in the U.S.,” said Mary Lynn Lodor, Metropolitan Sewage District.

To comply with an E.P.A. consent decree that it clean up its act, the sewage district is creating an ambitious $193 million green infrastructure program in the Lick Run watershed. Just a 5-7-minute car ride from downtown, some 2,700 acres, much of which are brownfields, will become the site of a “designed waterway” and park that will “daylight” the buried Lick Run creek.

The sewage district approached the community with a bunch of different ideas, offering up 150 different photos of all different kinds of green features, asking the community what kind of amenity they wanted. People wanted to see the creek again in a park-like setting. The community “influenced the look and feel of the project.”

The district then worked with a team of landscape architects (local firm Human Nature), and engineers (Strand) to develop a master plan that will create green infrastructure that is attractive and user-friendly and also mitigate the stormwater management problem. “We didn’t want to spend millions on a green infrastructure system that didn’t work, like Milwaukee did,” so the team really did their research. Plans for the newly green area are also expected to lead to additional redevelopment and infill, new trails, and a cultural and recreation center.

The district will use a rate payment increase to pay for the project, but Lodor said the green infrastructure is a lot cheaper than the conventional grey approach. The new functional landscape, which will handle more than 600 million gallons of runoff, is more than $200 million cheaper than the alternative: 30-ft wide pipes running more than one mile underground. To maintain the green infrastructure, the sewage district is partnering with the parks department. “They are doing some of the maintenance work on this because it’s really a park-like amenity.”

Image credit: (1) Waterfront South Rain Garden / Camden Smart, (2) Lick Run Watershed Master Plan / Metropolitan Sewage District of Cincinnati

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Gardens, Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management | Leave a Comment »

Brownfields Are Just Untapped Assets

05/29/2013 by J. Green

President Obama has made revitalizing local communities that have been hit hard by the decline of manufacturing a priority, said Jay Williams, the new White House deputy director of intergovernmental affairs, at the E.P.A.s’ Brownfields conference in Atlanta. Williams should know: He gained a reputation for leading a smart redevelopment program in Youngstown, Ohio, a manufacturing community that has suffered from “years of disinvestment and economic collapse.” At the Brownfields conference, Williams introduced a set of innovative mayors who are all at “the top of their game,” leading ambitious revitalization efforts through “energizing” brownfield redevelopment projects, all with major help from the private sector. As Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator at the E.P.A., pointed out, revitalization means “better communities, stronger economies, and an improved environment. It’s about getting all three.” And if redeveloped correctly, “brownfields can be transformed from eyesores into true assets that spur job growth and reduce air and water pollution.”

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said his city has taken advantage of E.P.A. area-wide brownfield planning grants to turn the City Hall East project from an abandoned site into a success. The City Hall East project is expected to transform an “eyesore” of a 2-million-square-foot distribution center just 5 minutes from downtown into a brand-new mixed-use project, with offices for technology firms, condos, and ground-floor retail. With tax credits, the private sector will put some quarter of a billion dollars into the project. City Hall East builds on a “strong legacy” of brownfield redevelopment in the city, especially the Atlantic Station project, a massive mixed-use community built on what was a highly polluted site near midtown (see image above). The site features loads of shops, condos, canals, and parks. Pretty impressive for an old brownfield site. The key to Atlantic Station’s success was an agreement between the local government, developers, and E.P.A. to co-finance aspects of the infrastructure, including a new bridge, which was viewed as necessary to create enough local connections to the development.

But perhaps the most exciting story coming from Atlanta is the coming transformation of a 22-mile ring of abandoned rail lines that circles Atlanta, running through more than 45 neighborhoods. Those abandoned tracks and brownfield sites are becoming the Atltanta Beltline, which will offer bike and walking trails along with a new light rail network, at a cost of some $2.8 billion over 20 years. Already, the Beltline team, which includes landscape architect Kevin Burke, ASLA, has opened a 7-mile chunk of the park network. Mayor Reed said “it’s been used 300 percent more than we thought it would.” Once the project is completed, some 1,200 acres of new green space will be added to the city, and a light rail will connect neighborhoods that have been historically inaccessible to each other. A truly stunning civic project for a southern city not always known for inclusive public works, the Beltline’s first pieces, like the 4th Ward Park below, are a sign of great things to come.

To show that private sector developers are equally as essential to brownfield redevelopment as the government, Scott Condra, president, Jacoby Development, spoke about how federal and local governments must help mitigate the risks facing the private sector in cleaning up some of these big sites. For example, he said that Atlanta’s Mayor Reed convinced Porsche to move its new headquarters in a former brownfield site near Aerotropolis Atlanta, the broader area around the Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Jacoby Development, which bought the land for $40 million, is now the developer behind the building, which will be designed by HOK. They are making the site work for Porsche “because the government set the stage. The infrastructure investment was critical.” He added that with Atlantic Station and other huge redevelopment projects he has been involved in, the city “narrowed the uncertainty.” For both Condra and Mayor Reed, “public private partnerships are critical.”

Other smart urban leaders also showed how to tap the private sector to make revitalization visions work. Mayor Terry Bellamy, Asheville, North Carolina, was able to convince Kraft Brewery to open a plant and offices in her town by showing them “our existing, coordinated plan” and where they could fit in. There were well-thought-out plans for riverfront revitalization and greenway development projects. She said Kraft wanted to see this first to determine how they could help with the revitalization efforts. “It was very important to them that a plan was already in place they could contribute to.” With neighboring communities, a broader regional development plan was even created to “preserve the local character” of Asheville. Interesting the town knew that to preserve the local character, they had to go think broader and go regional.

Mayor Mark Mallory from Cincinnati, Ohio, is also taking a regional approach to revitalization. He said his city is the base of three states and 15 counties, “some in Kentucky and some in Indiana.” He said this was basically the only way to think because “people don’t limit themselves to political subdivisions. They go where things are.”

In Cincinnati, the focus has been on cleaning up the Ohio River and redeveloping the brownfields along it. With a new stadium coming in, the city created the new Banks project, a 45-acre park along the riverfront, with mixed-used housing, retail, and museums coming in behind. The park and much of the redevelopment is also on top of a huge parking lot. Mayor Mallory said one of the benefits of this is that “if the river floods, it’s only the cars that are hit.” With all the new development, demand is now in place for a new $130 million street car network. “The goal will be to connect the riverfront with other neighborhoods. You need movement for success.”

All these leaders made the case for smart local planning that can only come out of a deep collaboration among the private, non-profit, and public sectors. Stanislaus said the E.P.A., Department of Transportation, and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), through their partnership for sustainable communities, are increasingly financing projects “where smart planning is already happening.” He believes “the level of collaboration really determines the level of success.”

Image credit: (1) Atlantic Station, Atlanta / Cooperation Conservation America, (2) Historic 4th Ward Park / Atlanta Beltline, (3) New Porsche Headquarters, Atlanta / HOK via Dexigner, (5) Cincinnati Banks project / Urban Cincy.

Posted in Policy and Regulation, Urban Revitalization | 2 Comments »

Shaping the City with Horticulture: Parks and Plazas

05/29/2013 by The Dirt Contributor

The Cultural Landscape Foundation and Pennsylvania Horticultural Society just organized a conference on Civic Horticulture in Philadelphia. Three panels of leading landscape architects discussed the organizational, aesthetic, and productive potential of horticulture. They explained how it is shaping contemporary civic spaces. They presented on three major topics: The Street, Productive Gardens, and Parks and Plazas. Through their own projects, these design leaders showed how these types of places are evolving to meet the needs of cities today.

Urban parks were originally conceived to provide an escape from the city. Today, urbanites generally consider the city an attractive and livable place. Green infrastructure is no longer developed in opposition to the urban landscape, but rather as an integrated and meaningful component of it. Panelists discussed how recent projects are rejuvenating existing parks and plazas and creating new ones for the contemporary city. Horticulture is critical to defining the function and experience of these civic spaces.

A New Civic Horticulture

Creating civic spaces for urban residents today may be a more elusive task than it was before. As Keith McPeters, principal at landscape architecture firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), pointed out, previous movements for civic improvement, like the City Beautiful movement, “had centralized definitions that could inform what ‘civic’, ‘beautiful’ or ‘improved nature’ might mean.” Today’s sustainability movement is less definitive. It has taken on many “different meanings expressed through confusing terminologies about nature, landscape, ecology, and habitat.” What then are the standards of a new civic horticulture?

GGN has based their civic projects on a design approach McPeters calls “contemporary picturesque.” This approach respects both the historic principles of the picturesque that are rooted in the creation of scenic spaces and the contemporary need for sustainable, functional, flexible, and community-oriented places. Horticulture is essential to realizing this vision. In their civic projects, GGN explores how plants can both define and organize a space while providing a unique experience, asking “can horticulture create (civic) spaces in the city and be more than pragmatic, like a simple flat green roof?”

GGN incorporates horticulture into civic spaces both as a device to frame and organize space, and as a way to enhance the visitor experience. For Lurie Garden in Chicago, GGN partnered with planting designer Piet Oudolf to create a perennial garden on the waterfront downtown (see image above). An abundance of planting lines the walkways and frames views of both the city and the water. These plantings create a tapestry of color and texture that provides year-round interest. Due to its spectacular quality, the park has become one of the most popular components of the larger Millennium Park.

GGN also employs horticulture in civic spaces as an organizational device for accommodating multiple competing programs within a single site. Centennial Park in Nashville is on the former site of the 1897 Centennial Exposition. In order to account for both historical and contemporary uses of the site as well as new requirements, GGN created a design that would “lend clarity while maintaining complexity.” The space had to be exceptionally scenic as well in order to showcase Nashville’s horticultural heritage. A variety of plantings throughout the site both distinguish and activate various areas and contribute to the park’s overall aesthetic.

Everything Olde is Nouveau Again

In answer to her own question, “Who’s to say what’s civic horticulture?,” Susan Weiler, FASLA, principal at OLIN, said one important manifestation is the rejuvenation of existing major parks and plazas. In Philadelphia, a rich heritage of civic horticulture dates back to William Penn’s Greene Country Towne, which carved five great squares out of the wilderness. The City Beautiful movement and other efforts subsequently led to the creation of several large civic spaces. This existing landscape and horticultural infrastructure has allowed for a “civic renaissance” over the past decade.

Since 2003, OLIN has been working on a redevelopment plan of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Originally conceived as a grand public boulevard in the early 20th century, the iconic parkway devolved into a highway dividing the city after the mid-century. Today, OLIN, in various partnerships with the city and private entities, is realizing a plan that has transformed the parkway into a linear park and sculpture garden that forms the spine of the Museum District and connects to the larger Fairmount Park system. The plan includes several components with a strategy aimed at “transforming a big place a project at a time.”

OLIN has created gardens for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum, and Barnes Foundation. Horticulture plays a major role in integrating these museums into one continuous attractive system. Maintaining and supplementing the old growth trees lining the parkway provides shade and emphasizes the linearity and continuity of the park. Plantings in the adjacent public gardens tie into the parkway’s landscape and provide year-round interest.

Two other manifestations of civic horticulture are the improvement of disadvantaged and decaying areas, and the protection and replenishment of natural resources. Since 2009, OLIN has supported a volunteer effort at the Richard Allen Prep Charter School, helping students express their individual idea of what a garden is. This project creates access to green space and garden cultivation for those who lack it. OLIN also participated in Infill Philadelphia: Soak It Up!, a design competition to re-envision stormwater management throughout the city. Their winning proposal demonstrates how green stormwater infrastructure can conserve resources while transforming neighborhoods.

Civic Horticulture in the World of Wirtz

Peter Wirtz, Director of Wirtz International Landscape Architects, explained why it is still important to know about horticulture despite the fact that European design culture predominantly considers it “old fashioned.” Whereas horticulture used to constitute half of a landscape architect’s education, the majority of schools no longer emphasize training students in the basic knowledge of plants. Landscape architects in Europe are consequently not equipped to address warming climate demands, weakened habitats, and declining bird and insect populations. Nor do they have the knowledge of drought- and salt- resistant plants necessary for designing effectively in cities.

Wirtz himself was inspired decades ago by a trip to the Soviet Union in 1970 where he observed an appreciation for urban green space evident in the abundant plantings in street medians and the mixed use of fruiting and ornamental trees. He subsequently created a design-build practice defined by the “absolute dominance of softscape over hardscape.” Advanced construction knowledge and a respect for horticulture informs creative design at Wirtz International. Planting defines the quality of civic spaces that are created to be escapes from the “bombardment” of city life. These oases deny the orthogonal urban grid and transform bodily space in microcosms or “rooms” secluded with plantings.

The structure of the plantings reflects two main ideas used throughout Wirtz International’s work. The first is that a “simple (planting) palette can create and brand the identity of a park.” This is evident on Albert II laan, a boulevard in Brussels, Belgium, where two different species of evenly spaced trees line the the linear park’s diagonal path system.

The second is that an “organic composition with a robust planting palette can survive time.” This is evident at the Camillo Torres student housing complex in Leuven, Belgium, where a low maintenance scheme with dense plantings is still thriving more than ten years later.

This is part three of a three part series on the Civic Horticulture conference. Read part one, The Street, and part two, Productive Gardens.

This guest post is by Shannon Leahy, former ASLA summer intern and recent Master’s of Landscape Architecture graduate, University of Pennsylvania.

Image credits: (1) ASLA 2008 Professional Design Award. Lurie Garden at Millennium Park. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol / Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, (2) Centennial Park / Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, (3) Barnes Foundation / Design Philadelphia, (4) Infill Design Competition / OLIN Studio, (5) Albert II laan / Wirtz International (6) Camillo Torres / Wirtz International

Posted in Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces | Leave a Comment »

Shaping the City with Horticulture: Productive Gardens

05/28/2013 by The Dirt Contributor

Productive gardens have become increasingly popular components of the urban landscape. Unused green space and vacant land are often repurposed to grow fresh food for urban dwellers. Panelists discussed ways to enhance these efforts and foster other productive uses of civic spaces. New partnerships provide opportunities to examine larger-scale food production, community-based development, and ecological services. The performative qualities of plants make horticulture an essential part of these explorations.

The Productive Garden

Landscape architect Elena Brescia, ASLA, partner at SCAPE/Landscape Architecture, described cities as “environmental and cultural systems where landscape, beyond formal, economic, and aesthetic interests, can generate a critical participatory effect among citizens.” Landscape offers new ways of intervening in city fabric at the local level using stewardship, grassroots participation, and neighborhood identity as generators of community-based change. SCAPE has experimented with projects both imagined and real that explore this dynamic and the broader potential of what it means to be “productive.” For Brescia, productivity stems not only from a horticultural basis but from a participatory and programatic standpoint as well.

SCAPE’s project, Oyster-tecture, part of the MoMA’s Rising Currents exhibition in 2010, proposed a self-generative, multi-layered, and multi-functional system rooted in oyster production for Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal (see image above). Oysters are native to the canal and were once an important food source in the community. They filter water and naturally agglomerate into reefs. They have the potential to clean the canal’s polluted waters and attenuate waves, addressing issues with water quality and rising tides.

With Oyster-tecture, SCAPE proposed to transform a historically relevant food source into a tool for generating ecological resilience and community-based development. The project argues that the reef armature fabricated from a series of piles supporting woven ropes can provide the oysters with an initial place to grow and propagate. They will eventually form a series of new reef islands that will provide food and habitat for other animals as well as areas for work, research, and recreation for the surrounding community.

SCAPE’s work on the 103rd Street Community Garden in East Harlem also expands on notions of productivity. Completed in partnership with the Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project, it’s a positive model for a community garden. The project is both a small-scale agricultural system supported by cultivation plots and rainwater capture and a series of play spaces that accommodate a variety of age groups and activities within a small site. It was a productive catalyst for block revitalization and community participation and has become a neighborhood asset. SCAPE also conceptualized and designed the project so it could be built mostly by local volunteers.

Re-imagining Victory Gardens

Mia Lehrer, FASLA, landscape planner and principal at Mia Lehrer + Associates, provided a definition of “civic horticulture” as “community gardening.” For Lehrer, who focuses much of her work on food production, horticulture is about education and empowerment. Productive gardens and their related systems and infrastructure have the potential to rectify the disconnect between disadvantaged urban communities and their food sources.

The prevalence of food deserts in urban environments has been growing. These food deserts have contributed to the escalating obesity epidemic. Unsettling statistics show the rate of U.S. children contracting chronic health conditions related to obesity more than doubling, from 12.8 percent in 1994 to 26.6 percent in 2006. A majority of these children are located in impoverished parts of the inner city, which lack access to fresh food. Many of them do not know where their food comes from or how it is made. Lehrer believes that education and empowerment are imperative to addressing this “Does ketchup grow on trees?” scenario. Landscape architects can play an important role in designing places and systems that help people better connect to their personal health because their “work is about many things, including place, making, healing, beauty, people, cities.”

Lehrer’s practice is experimenting with the “S, M, L, XL” scales of productive gardens, from residential to commercial farming, in Los Angeles. Urban agriculture in the city is moving beyond the scale of the traditional victory garden to consider the larger urban environment and regional food distribution systems. Though the vast surrounding agricultural region produces 50 percent of the fresh fruit and vegetables for the United States and Canada, the city keeps only 1 percent of it and imports the rest. Transforming this “outside-in” strategy to an “inside-out” one requires a reevaluation of the policies that currently structure food distribution, including everything from large-scale agricultural systems to zoning regulations for residential productive gardens and provisions for bartering and selling homegrown food. Lehrer’s “Small” projects include a community garden for the Jordan Downs Housing Project with enough acreage to successfully meet the needs of the entire neighborhood. MAS (“more”), an “extra large” project, is a non-profit food distribution service that designs farmers markets with a focus on providing equal access to fresh local food.

Regardless of the scale and intention, horticulture is an important feature of each project. Fresh food production brings people into contact with the plants that support their basic health. However, not all of Lehrer’s interest in civic horticulture is explicitly about food production. Unique and performative aspects of plants are utilized in other projects. A five-acre “outdoor collection” for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles features a growing wall and an abundance of both native and non-native plants chosen to attract the most species possible. At Orange County Great Park, lima bean fields are remediating a disturbed portion of land. These “medium” and “large” projects demonstrate some of the other productive potential of plants in civic spaces.

From City Beautiful to City Functional

Thomas Woltz, FASLA, landscape architect and principal at Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW), believes that “horticultural acts are civic acts.” Attitudes toward gardening and plant cultivation vary dramatically and the methodologies used can have significant implications, both positive and negative, for communities, wildlife, and public health. It’s critical to the contemporary practice of landscape architecture to cultivate responsible management strategies, plant choices, and design goals. These can help establish new definitions of productivity that can in turn create “hybridized concepts of gardens, agriculture, and restoration ecology.”

The projects of NBW reflect a desire to respect aesthetic quality while establishing valuable habitat in order to engender a public sense of stewardship and investment in the landscape. Projects are developed with the purpose of fostering a “new form of civic horticulture combining pleasure with responsibility.” Woltz sees civic horticulture as having developed from the City Beautiful to the “City Functional.” He posits that “the next step might focus on productive gardens that operate at the scale of performative urban landscape systems.” NBW has been working with scientists, ornithologists, and conservation biologists to develop rigorous designs that are not only beautiful but also “envisioned with an idea of productivity with an ecological resonance.”

For Woltz, ecological services are a critical part of any landscape’s productivity, regardless of scale. NBW designed a small biodiversity garden for a Manhattan residence that emphasized the creation of bird habitat. Planted with pollinator attractors and nesting and feeding niches, the garden at the Carnegie Hill House is a haven for several species of birds and butterflies. It meets the family’s needs as well with features like a secluded seating area, a sandbox for children, and a green wall for herbs. The design won an ASLA Professional Design Honor Award for successfully creating “a tiny outpost of a much bigger adjacent landscape.”

A larger project at the Medlock Aimes Winery and Tasting Room in Sonoma, California combines ecological services with larger-scale food production. For the biodynamic, organic, solar-powered winery’s outdoor tasting room, NBW designed a productive garden tailored to pairings for tastings. It’s coupled with a stormwater management system. The variety of plantings include native rushes in the swales and an old-growth olive grove transplanted to the site for conservation.

NBW also designed a more traditional productive garden for a public housing complex in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Urban Farm engages residents in growing organic vegetables in the underutilized green space in their community. Residents work by the hour in exchange for tickets they can trade in for fresh produce. The surplus is sold at farmers markets. One extraordinary feature is that the plots are maintained entirely through rain harvested water capture.

This is part two of a three part series on the Civic Horticulture conference. Read part three, Parks and Plazas.

This guest post is by Shannon Leahy, former ASLA summer intern and recent Master’s of Landscape Architecture graduate, University of Pennsylvania.

Image credits: (1) Oyster-tecture / SCAPE/Landscape Architecture, (2) 103rd Street Community Garden in East Harlem / Melissa C. Morris blog, (3) Jordan Downs Housing Project Community Garden / Mia Lehrer + Associates, (4) Orange County Great Park Urban Farm / Mia Lehrer + Associates, (5) Carnegie Hill House by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects / Eric Piasecki, (6) Medlock Aimes Winery and Tasting Room / Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects

Posted in Gardens, Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Residential Design | Leave a Comment »

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