Domino Park, Brooklyn, New York / Marcella Winograd, ArchDaily
Gardens Have Pulled America Out of Some of Its Darkest Times. We Need Another Revival — 05/28/20, Mother Jones
“Google Trends reports that US searches for ‘gardens’ have spiked this spring to their highest level ever, and vegetable seed sales are way up as well. Nearly 20 percent of adults surveyed in April said they had gardened more than usual in the past month.”
Landscape Architect Left Distinct Mark on City — 05/28/20, The Republic
“The memory of a nationally known landscape architect who died earlier this month will live on in his major projects in Columbus. John ‘Jack’ Curtis, 77, died May 2 of COVID-19 complications in Easton, Connecticut, near where he led his firm of Jack Curtis + Associates for more than three decades.”
A Conversation with Mia Lehrer on Her Origins, Civil Service, and Design Leadership — Archinect, 05/27/20
“I think we’re modernists. But we’re also solving problems. I would say that I get inspired, not just by the place and the community and the landscape around this genius loci. But we get inspired by people’s dreams and aspirations that are engaged meaningfully in these project processes and what they want.”
Domino Park Introduces Social Distancing Circles to Adapt to the COVID-19 Crisis — 05/25/20, ArchDaily
“While all public spaces around the world are trying to innovate and implement safety measures to open during the coronavirus pandemic, Domino Park has introduced a series of painted social distancing circles. This strategical urban design intervention ensures that people are “following proper social distancing procedures recommended by the CDC and government”.
Last Piece of Brooklyn Bridge Park Approved by Landmarks Preservation Commission — 05/21/20, The Architect’s Newspaper
“At a virtual public hearing on Tuesday, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a small but consequential section of Brooklyn Bridge Park that will be located directly at the foot of the 137-year-old landmarked bridge’s eastern tower; the eponymous Brooklyn Bridge Plaza.”
Suburban expansion into remnant habitat / La Citta Vita, Flickr
By Michael Grove, ASLA
The export of American culture is one of the most influential forces in our interconnected world. From Dakar to Delhi, American pop music, movies, and artery-clogging cuisine is ubiquitous. However, one of the most damaging exports is the American suburb. When the 20th century model for housing the swelling populations of Long Island and Los Angeles translates to 21st century Kinshasa and Kuala Lumpur, the American way of life may very well be our downfall.
In our pre-pandemic ignorance, most urbanists pointed to climate change as the most dangerous impact of our cherished suburban lifestyle. To be sure, the higher greenhouse gas emissions and rise in chronic health problems associated with living in subdivisions aren’t going away, but COVID-19 has exposed another threat we’ve chosen to ignore. The next pandemic may very well result from our addiction to—and exportation of—sprawl.
Vilifying Density and Disregarding Equity
The increasing traction of the anti-density movement in the wake of the current outbreak is alarming. Headlines proclaiming how sprawl may save us and that living in cities puts citizens at higher risk for contracting the novel coronavirus are deceptive.
Recent studies have debunked these myths, finding little correlation between population density in cities and rates of COVID-19, instead attributing the spread of the virus to overcrowding due to inequity and delays in governmental responsiveness.
Mounting evidence suggests that COVID-19 is primarily transmitted through close contact in enclosed spaces. Internal population density within buildings and, more specifically, within shared rooms inside buildings is what drives this, not the compact urban form of the city. In New York, for example, COVID-19 cases are concentrated in the outer boroughs, and suburban Westchester and Rockland counties have reported nearly triple the rate per capita than those of Manhattan.
The real issue is the systemic economic inequity that forces lower income people to live in overcrowded conditions, regardless of location. Innovative approaches to urban planning, equitable housing policies, and a reversal of over a century of environmental discrimination in our cities are absolutely necessary. Vilifying the city is counterproductive.
Moving out of dense cities into the open space and social distancing afforded by the suburbs is exactly the type of knee-jerk reaction that we must avoid. Cities are not at fault.
Habitat Fragmentation and Biodiversity Loss
In fact, cities are the answer if we plan them carefully. Among the many human activities that cause habitat loss, urban development produces some of the greatest local extinction rates and has a more permanent impact. For example, habitat lost due to farming and logging can be restored, whereas urbanized areas not only persist but continue to expand.
The Atlas for the End of the World, conceived by Richard Weller, ASLA, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the best sources for documenting our collective risk. Mapping 391 of the planet’s terrestrial eco-regions, this research identified 423 cities with a population of over 300,000 inhabitants situated within 36 biodiversity hotspots. Using data modelling from the Seto Lab at Yale University, the Atlas predicts that 383 of these cities—about 90 percent —will likely continue to expand into previously undisturbed habitats.
Biodiversity hotspot map of the Indo-Burma ecoregion / Atlas for the End of the World
When we assault the wild places that harbor so much biodiversity in the pursuit of development, we disregard a significant aspect of this biodiversity—the unseen domain of undocumented viruses and pathogens.
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, meaning that they are transmitted to us through contact with animals. The initial emergence of many of these zoonotic diseases have been tracked to the parts of the world with the greatest biodiversity, both in the traditional and man-made sense. Traditional locations include tropical rainforests where biodiversity naturally occurs. Human-influenced conditions include places like bushmeat markets in Africa or the wet markets of Asia, where we are mixing trapped exotic animals with humans, often in astonishingly unsanitary conditions.
However, degraded habitats of any kind can create conditions for viruses to cross over, whether in Accra or Austin. The disruption of habitat to support our suburban lifestyle is bringing us closer to species with which we have rarely had contact. By infringing on these ecosystems, we reduce the natural barriers between humans and host species, creating ideal conditions for diseases to spread. These microbes are not naturally human pathogens. They become human pathogens because we offer them that opportunity.
This is already evident in the fragmented forests of many American suburbs where development patterns have altered the natural cycle of the pathogen that causes Lyme disease. When humans live in close proximity to these disrupted ecosystems, they are more likely to get bitten by a tick carrying the Lyme bacteria. When biodiversity is reduced, these diluted systems allow for species like rodents and bats—some of the most likely to promote the transmission of pathogens—to thrive.
This essentially means that the more habitats we disturb, the more danger we are in by tapping into various virus reservoirs. COVID-19 is not the first disease to cross over from animal to human populations, but it is likely a harbinger of more mass pandemics and further disruptions to the global economy. The more densely we build, the more land we can conserve for nature to thrive, potentially reducing our risk of another pandemic from a novel virus.
Increase of infected tick populations in fragmented forests / National Science Foundation, Nicolle Rager Fuller
Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary
In the United States, over 50 percent of the population lives in suburbs, covering more land than the combined total of national and state parks. Our urbanization is ubiquitous and endangers more species than any other human activity.
In 1979, Portland, Oregon offered a pioneering solution with the creation of an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). Devised by a 3-county, 24-city regional planning authority, the intent was to protect agricultural lands, encourage urban density, and limit unchecked sprawl.
Forty years into this experiment, Portland’s experience is a mixed bag of successes and missed opportunities. Investment in public transit and urban parks has certainly bolstered the city’s reputation as a leader in urban innovation, sustainability, and livability, with statistics to support its efforts.
On the other hand, two of Oregon’s fastest growing cities are situated just beyond the boundary’s jurisdiction, underscoring the limitations of the strategy. Again, inequity rears its ugly head, with higher prices within the UGB caused, in part, by an inability to deregulate Portland’s low density neighborhoods. This has driven much of the regional population further afield to find affordable housing in the form of suburban sprawl beyond the UGB’s dominion and into even more remote areas.
Another consideration that was overlooked when the original plan was established was the adequate protection of remnant habitat within the UGB. This lack of a regional plan for biodiversity protection has underscored the need for a more ecologically-focused, science-based approach to inform planning decisions.
Suburban development approaching agricultural land and remnant forest in Portland, Oregon / Google Earth
Brisbane’s Bird Population
Unfortunately, anticipating outcomes of urbanization on species diversity is not as pervasive in urban planning agencies around the world as it should be. A lack of detailed modeling specific to individual regions and cities with clear recommendations for how to minimize ecological devastation is absent from planning policy around the world.
However, researchers in Brisbane, Australia have attempted to quantify which development style—concentrated urban intensity or suburban sprawl—has a greater ecological consequences. By measuring species distribution, the study predicted the effect on bird populations when adding nearly 85,000 new dwelling units in the city. Their results demonstrated that urban growth of any type reduces bird distributions overall, but compact development substantially slows these reductions.
Sensitive species particularly benefited from compact development because remnant habitats remained intact, with predominantly non-native species thriving in sprawling development conditions. These results suggest that cities with denser footprints—even if their suburbs offer abundant open space—would experience a steep decline in biodiversity.
This is a common outcome found in similar studies around the world that exhibit a comparable decline in the species richness of multiple taxa along the rural-urban gradient. Although biodiversity is lowest within the urban core, the trade-off of preserving as much remnant natural habitat as possible almost always results in greater regional biodiversity.
Common bird species in urban and suburban Brisbane, Australia / Paula Peeters
Helsinki’s Biodiversity Database
One of Europe’s fasted growing cities, Helsinki faces similar pressures for new housing and traffic connections as many other major metropolises. However, in Helsinki, geotechnical and topographic constraints, coupled with its 20th century expansion along two railway lines rather than a web of highways, created the base for its finger-like urban and landscape structure. Today, one-third of Helsinki’s land area is open space, 63 percent of which is contiguous urban forest.
In 2001, Finland established an open source National Biodiversity Database that compiles multiple data sets ranging from detailed environmental studies to observations of citizen scientists. This extraordinary access to information has allowed the city to measure numerous data points within various conservation area boundaries, including statistics related to the protection of individual sites and species.
Measured by several taxonomies, including vascular plants, birds, fungi, and pollinators, Helsinki has an unusually high biodiversity when compared to neighboring municipalities or to other temperate European cities and towns. Vascular plant species, for example, average over 350 species per square kilometer, as compared to Berlin and Vienna’s average of about 200 species. By embracing biodiversity within the structure of the city, not only is the importance of regional biodiversity codified into the general master plan, it is also embedded into the civic discourse of its citizens.
Figure-ground diagram of Helsinki’s green fingers / Schwarz Plan
When it comes to where the next virus might emerge, Wuhan isn’t really that different from Washington, D.C. If the American model of over-indulgent suburban sprawl is the benchmark for individual success, we all lose.
Now is the moment to put the health of the planet before American values of heaven on a half-acre. Land use policies in the United States have just as profound an impact on the rest of the world as any movie out of Hollywood.
If we shift American values toward embracing denser, cleaner, and more efficient cities that drive ecological conservation—instead of promoting sprawl as a panacea for our current predicament—that may very well be our greatest export to humanity.
Michael Grove, ASLA, is the chair of landscape architecture, civil engineering, and ecology at Sasaki, a global design firm with offices in Boston and Shanghai.
How the Virus May Change Your Next Home — 05/12/20, The New York Times “After spending so much time indoors, having access to fresh air and nature at home is likely to become a priority.”
BIM in Landscape Architecture: Scenarios, Possibilities and Breakthroughs — 05/11/20, ArchDaily “For professional landscape designers, a greater effort is needed to understand how to behave within this new universe of intelligent modeling and how to contribute, through landscape architecture projects, to the multidisciplinarity that BIM brings.”
Architect of Sweden’s No-lockdown Strategy Insists It Will Pay Off – 05/07/20, The Financial Times
“Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist who devised the no-lockdown approach, estimated that 40 per cent of people in the capital, Stockholm, would be immune to Covid-19 by the end of May, giving the country an advantage against a virus that ‘we’re going to have to live with for a very long time.'”
A Schoolyard Fence Proposal for Greenwich Village Raises Questions about Creeping Privatization — 05/05/20, The Architect’s Newspaper
“To screen or not to screen? That was the question before New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on April 28, when panel members reviewed a seemingly innocuous proposal to permanently alter a chain-link fence surrounding a schoolyard in Greenwich Village.”
Bruce Gutnick with the EMS service of the NY Fire waits for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is distributing meals at EMS Station 4 in lower Manhattan in celebration of International Firefighters’ Day, May 4, 2020. / Anthony Behar, Sipa USA, via AP Images
Many of the challenges managing the pandemic in the U.S. are due to the loss of 50,000 local public health jobs since 2008. Federal funding for local public health through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been cut each year. The result is that “we didn’t build a health ecosystem, and we simply respond crisis by crisis,” argued Matt Chase, CEO of the National Association of Counties, during a session at the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference @ Home. He called for providing more direct funding to thousands of county and municipal governments, our “critical first responders,” to finance the “three T’s: testing, tracing, and treatment.”
The impact of the coronoavirus across the U.S. has been swift. There are now a million cases, which have doubled in two weeks, and 61,000 people have died. “The virus is now the 7th or 8th leading cause of death — it passed suicide, kidney failure, and the flu, and will soon pass diabetes.”
In just a few weeks, some 30 million people have lost their jobs. In comparison, during the 2008 Great Recession, some 15 million became unemployed over 18 months. The unemployment rate went from 3.8 percent to probably “over 20 percent” now.
After the 2008 recession, approximately one-fourth of U.S. counties never recovered. These are the places that have record high rates of “opioid, heroine, and other substance abuse.” As a result, it’s critical that the pandemic doesn’t further reinforce the existing divide between have and have-not communities.
Chase outlined the components of aid packages that have passed on Capitol Hill. In late March, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided $2 trillion in support, with $150 billion in a relief fund for state and local governments. In late April, CARES Act 3.5 added supplementary funds to CARES programs and provided $25 billion for testing. CARES 3.5 was supposed to include additional funds for state and local governments but that was dropped.
The National Association of Counties estimates some $144 billion in lost revenue for counties over the next 18 months. “That’s a big number given that all county budgets together total $600 billion.” Furthermore, these estimates don’t include cuts in state aid or property tax revenue.
With all this lost local revenue, how will counties continue to provide crucial services, like answering 911 calls, keeping buses running, and delivering meals to the elderly? How will they hire the many thousands of people needed to trace exposure?
Clarence Anthony, CEO of the National League of Cities, which counts 2,000 cities of all sizes as members, said that “some 88 percent of city leaders polled expect to face revenue shortfalls.” Already, Cincinnati, Ohio has furloughed 1,700 city workers, Detroit, Michigan has cut hours for 2,000 workers, and Dayton, Ohio has cut 24 percent of its city workforce. The National League of Cities anticipates a job loss of 1 million municipal workers in the coming year.
Anthony stated that it’s important to make aid decisions based on data. African Americans are 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for 33 percent of COVID-19 cases. “We need to get money to where the impact is.” He was concerned that not all cities are “disaggregating data based on race or ethnicity.”
He added that the public overwhelming prefer information on COVID-19 from local elected officials. City, county, village, and other community government websites are the most visited destinations for up-to-date news on guidelines, testing centers, transportation routes, financial relief, and treatment options. So it’s critically important that local government are able to maintain high levels of service.
Some other key points from their talk:
Local influencers such as chambers of commerce and non-profits need to make their voices heard about the additional support cities and counties need, Chase argued. “We need an all-community approach,” particularly in the area of human services, such as domestic and substance abuse services. “Many non-profits in this arena are seeing their funding sources drying up.”
Urban planners can help by mapping federal funding sources against local needs. County and municipal governments must continue to document all their costs to get federal aid.
A major concern is that in an effort to cut costs, too many government services are becoming only available online or via apps. The issue is not everyone has a smart phone, generous data plan, or access to wi-fi or broadband. Anthony said “we need to provide free wi-fi hotspots in disadvantaged communities.” He envisioned buses loaded with wi-fi systems parked in communities that need access the most.
“People are now demanding open space. They are craving parks and recreation areas.” Anthony believes that more cities will follow the lead of Oakland, California, which plans to open 74 miles of its streets to pedestrians and bicyclists. Just a few weeks after Oakland’s move, New York City made a similar pledge to open 40 miles of streets by the end of May and 100 miles in total.
Over the long term, cities may never be the same, given density is now a disadvantage. “Rural and suburban communities will likely see an increase in interest,” Anthony said. “These communities can provide more safe space for kids.”
The pandemic will “lead to changes in how we plan and design cities. The focus will now be on safety. We used to love density. The pandemic has changed all of us.”
First Look: The Redesign of Downtown Dallas’ Carpenter Park — D Magazine, 02/29/20
“Hargreaves Jones, the New York-based award-winning landscape architecture firm involved in developing the 2004 Dallas Parks Master Plan and downtown’s Belo Garden, is behind Carpenter Park’s redesign.”
Lithuanian Capital to Be Turned into Vast Open-air Cafe — The Guardian, 04/28/20
“Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, has announced plans to turn the city into a vast open-air cafe by giving over much of its public space to hard-hit bar and restaurant owners so they can put their tables outdoors and still observe physical distancing rules.”
NYC Will Open up to 100 Miles of Streets to Pedestrians — Curbed, 04/27/20
“Under an agreement with the City Council, the de Blasio administration will open up at least 40 miles of streets in May, with the ultimate goal of 100 miles in the coming months. The undertaking will also roll out temporary bike lanes and expand sidewalks, he said.”
Extensive Renovation of South Los Angeles’s Magic Johnson Park Moves Forward — The Architect’s Newspaper, 04/20/20
“Last week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved funding that will bring the proposed master plan of Magic Johnson Park in Willowbrook, California, one step closer to reality.”
Slow streets in Oakland, California / Oakland department of transportation, via Streetsblog
Eyes on the Street: A Quick Look at Oakland’s “Slow Streets” — Streetsblog, 04/14/20
“The plan is to eventually open 74 miles of Oakland streets for local residents to go for a walk, bike, jog and generally avoid going stir crazy, all while maintaining six feet of distance from one another.”
Your Maps of Life Under Lockdown — CityLab, 04/15/20
“CityLab recently invited readers to draw maps of their worlds in the time of coronavirus. Already, nearly 150 of you have responded to our call with an incredible range of interpretative maps, submitted from all over the world.”
Burning Man 2020 Won’t Go Ahead After All, Moves Online — The Architects’ Newspaper, 04/13/20
“The virtual version of the ‘Playa,’ VBRC, will be available to access for a fee—and participants still need to reserve tickets—and Burning Man organizers have estimated that they’ll see attendance around 100,000 this year as a result. ”
Even Parks Are Going Online During the Pandemic — Next City, 04/09/20
“Shortly after schools closed indefinitely in New York City, the Department of Parks and Recreation pushed out their ‘Parks at Home’ initiative — an online portal virtually bringing environmental education and recreation to viewers, from the comfort of their homes.”
Location Data Says It All: Staying at Home During Coronavirus Is a Luxury — The New York Times, 04/03/20
“It has been about two weeks since the Illinois governor ordered residents to stay at home, but nothing has changed about Adarra Benjamin’s responsibilities. She gets on a bus nearly every morning in Chicago, traveling 20 miles round trip some days to cook, clean and shop for her clients, who are older or have health problems that make such tasks difficult.”
Kate Orff, RLA, FASLA, is the founder and principal of SCAPE and also director of the Urban Design Program and Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). In 2017, Orff was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and, in 2019, SCAPE received the National Design Award in landscape architecture from the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.
On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans, which at that time was some 10 percent of the population, took to the streets during the first Earth Day, demanding greater protections for the environment and decisive action to improve human health and well-being. 50 years later, the movement is now global, with an estimated one billion participating each year. What role does collective action play in solving today’s climate and ecological crises? What role do landscape architects play?
Earth Day is a chance to pause, take stock of the planet that sustains us, and think and act beyond ourselves to reach the scale of the globe and all its inhabitants. Landscape architects are largely concerned with the “middle scale,” but Earth Day forces us to conceive of the planetary landscape, and what our role is in retrieving the Earth from its climate emergency status.
Our book Toward an Urban Ecology describes the potential of collective action at a landscape scale and gives many examples of digging in, showing up, ripping out, and gardening with your neighbors. At the same time, it’s important to keep focus on the more radical, insidious challenges in our carbon-intensive economy mapped out at a national scale in Petrochemical America, which depicts the American landscape as a machine for consuming oil and petrochemicals with profound impacts on ecosystems and communities.
I guess the lesson here is that on an individual level, we have to consume less. At a neighborhood level, we can work together to repair the landscapes in our immediate environs through community oyster gardening or invasive species removal in a patch of forest. And at a global scale, we have to radically and equitably decarbonize our economy and rebuild the wetland and intertidal landscapes disappearing before our eyes. Our installation at the Venice Biennale called Ecological Citizens bridges these scales of thought and action. Plenty to do!
What connections do you see between the COVID-19 pandemic and our climate and ecological problems? How are environmental and human health connected?
COVID 19 shines a spotlight on our health care system and existing social inequity. The pandemic is truly playing out as a human tragedy on so many levels. It also reveals the incredible and irreversible harm we are inflicting upon non-human species and our extreme interdependence on each other and the natural world.
Whether the virus was transmitted through a bat or pangolin, it’s a parable about the exploitation of “the other” that must stop. This April, 25 tons of pangolin scales were seized in Singapore, taken from nearly 40,000 of these endangered creatures. An estimated 2.7 million are poached every year. It boggles the mind.
On a positive note, one can imagine our “stay at home” behavior, which is intended to curb the pandemic, has the unintended consequences of lowering our personal carbon footprints; and leading us to care for each other more, make time to mend the landscapes in which we live, and prioritize the basics of happiness and survival — food, shelter, clean water, clean air, neighbors, family, and the core of what matters to you.
You founded SCAPE in 2007. Your office’s stated mission is to “enable positive change in communities through the creation of regenerative living infrastructure and public landscapes.” What is regenerative living infrastructure and why do communities need it?
Today’s society faces compounding risks: a climate emergency, increasing social and income stratification, and a biological apocalypse termed “the sixth extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert in her 2014 book of the same name. Together, these forces are rapidly tearing at the fabric of our entangled social and natural worlds. In every SCAPE project, we identify the capacity of design to repair that fabric and regenerate connections over time.
The aim is to not just deliver built work, but envision a program that begins to generate new ties between communities working in, living in, understanding, and loving the landscapes that sustain them. This could take the form of unlocking sediment trapped upstream to nourish protective bay landscapes and cushion the impacts of extreme weather and sea level rise.
ASLA 2019 Professional Analysis and Planning Honor Award. Public Sediment for Alameda Creek, Alameda County, California / SCAPE and Public Sediment team
For decades, infrastructure has been constructed as “single-purpose,” often designed by engineers to isolate one element of a system and solve for one problem. For example, on Staten Island, during Superstorm Sandy, a levee designed to keep water out was overtopped, resulting in a “bathtub effect” of trapping water inside a neighborhood rather than keeping it out. People perished because of this catastrophic failure. In many places, metal bulkhead walls are being raised in anticipation of sea-level rise only to block drainage during major rain events, flooding adjacent blocks.
Regenerative landscape infrastructure helps to maintain the structure and function of ecosystems embedded in the built environment, accounting for complex systems. This has been the organizing mission of SCAPE: to bring holistic, landscape-driven, and time-based thinking into the places we inhabit.
Through Living Breakwaters in Tottenville, on Staten Island in New York, SCAPE created a layered approach to ecological and social resilience, including oyster habitat restoration on a series of near-shore breakwaters. Working with communities in Boston, SCAPE has developed visions for a more resilient Boston Harbor and Dorchester neighborhoods. What are the benefits of these resilient landscape approaches?
The resilience benefits of these projects are clear. We can’t just look at one facet of the future: We have to synthesize how climate shocks and stressors compound each other. Extreme heat will increase drought and poverty. Extreme hurricanes will increase long-term rainfall projections used as a base for design efforts. How will these shocks and stressors combine to impact people and shape our future?
Robust, intact landscapes can’t do everything, but they can absorb a range of intersectional challenges and create immense protective value. Part of SCAPE’s approach is to begin to address the “sixth extinction” in the intertidal zone, restoring landscapes and habitats for marine critters that could be a lifeline to the future. We not only envisioned the Living Breakwaters project. Over many years, we navigated a federal, state, and local regulatory and budget environment to make it happen. We have a unique perspective on how to advance these kinds of projects despite many roadblocks and challenges.
Living Breakwaters, Staten Island, NY / SCAPEResilient Boston Harbor Vision, Boston, Massachusetts / SCAPE
Our team just completed a long-term vision for the rapidly eroding Barataria Basin in Louisiana with an array of collaborators. This project combines marsh creation with bottomland reforestation, sediment diversions, and related landscape restoration and job creation strategies. A healthy and bountiful landscape means better economic opportunities for a wider range of people, rebounding shellfish and fisheries, and a coastal landscape that can absorb and adapt to a range of climate risks on the immediate horizon.
Your firm is also now planning a linear network of greenways and blueways along the Chattahoochee River, which spans 100 miles across the Metro Atlanta region. How does planning and design focused on rivers improve ecological and community resilience? With the risk of flooding increasing, how can communities better live with their rivers?
The Chattahoochee RiverLands is a vision to reconnect Metro Atlanta to its seminal river, building on a decades-long legacy of community planning in collaboration with the Trust for Public Land, Atlanta Regional Commission, Cobb County, and the City of Atlanta. It’s a radical effort to stitch together a historically fragmented public realm along a primary conduit – 125 miles of trail winding along the Chattahoochee that showcase the river’s ecology, history, and link into ongoing restoration and education efforts.
Rivers have such power to bring people together, link up disjointed places, and bring life and mobility into cities. For this project, we cut through red tape, charting a path of access through a mosaic of public and private lands. The overall vision was grounded in over 80 stakeholder and community sessions and events like “river rambles,” educational outings for focus groups to provide hands-on learning experiences.
Public engagement session for the Chattahoochee RiverLands greenway study, Atlanta, Georgia. / SCAPE
Beyond its physical footprint, the goal of the RiverLands is to raise public awareness, improve connections and access, address a long legacy of environmental racism, expand mobility for underserved communities, and build on a strong regional legacy of water resource conservation and protection.
This effort is a testament to open and inclusive design processes structured to empower residents and to shift from conceiving design as a “master” plan to a method of workshopping and co-creating with constituents. Advanced floodplain warning systems and sensors can be integrated into these linear landscapes to ensure public safety.
Lastly, you are also a Professor at Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), where you are director of the Urban Design program. What have you learned from your students – the next generation of leaders – about how to solve our challenges? What new ideas have really astounded you?
Over the past five years, I’ve done a series of studios focused on Water Urbanism – global studios to uncover how water, climate, and migration patterns combine to shape the future of cities. I’ve learned so much from this endeavor and working alongside my incredible co-teachers Geeta Mehta, Dilip Da Cunha, Thaddeus Pawlowski, Julia Watson, and others. We’ve traveled to Amman and Aqaba, Jordan; Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil; Can Tho, Vietnam; and four cities in India: Kolkata, Madurai, Varanasi and Pune, among others.
From our collaborators and students, I’ve learned that excellence emerges in the space between people – in open dialogue, hard work, and collaboration among people with diverse and international backgrounds with a shared purpose.
Columbia University urban design studio in Pune, India / SCAPE
A few years back, I hosted “Water and Social Life in India,” a panel at the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture with Geeta, Dilip, and Alpa Nawre. This session captured some of the big lessons for me. Over the years, we have learned water is not an abstract “issue” to be solved. To embrace a water-resilient future, we have to learn from past practices and small communities managing and communicating with each other. Designing with water is not just about adapting to changing conditions – it is also crucially about fostering forms of social life, maintenance, and care.
ASLA 2018 Professional General Design Honor Award. Re-envisioning Pulaski Park. Stimson / Ngoc Doan
If you are in a place impacted by COVID-19, spending 20 minutes experiencing nature in a park, street, or even your backyard can significantly reduce your stress levels. Just be sure to follow federal, state, and local guidelines and maintain social distancing of 6 feet. But even if you cannot or are unable to go outside, taking a break by opening a window and looking at a tree or plant can also help de-stress.
After years of research, Dr. MaryCarol Hunter, ASLA — a landscape architect, ecologist, and professor at the University of Michigan — can state with confidence that just 20 minutes of experiencing nature has major benefits. Her findings, which were widely covered in the media last year, were published in the Frontiers of Psychology.
The Coronavirus pandemic — and all the financial, social, and emotional havoc it has wrecked — has only increased stress worldwide. “People are stuck inside, freaked out, and the news doesn’t get any better,” Hunter told me.
She explained that there are a few good ways to stop “ruminating and concentrating on bad stuff.” One way is to exercise. Another is to experience nature, which offers a “great way to take you away from whatever is on your mind.”
She recommended walking or sitting or looking closely at a tree, plant, bug, or animal. “Get rid of your tech — your smart phone — and actively pay attention to something in nature. The experience of nature is what is key. The intentional focus gets you the stress reduction faster.”
Everyone’s experience of nature may be different. It can be experienced on a trail or street, in a park or plaza, within a backyard, on a patio with some plants, or out a window. “You can also close your eyes and listen to birds or insects.”
Parks are particularly important though, because it is also a way to see other people from a safe distance. These green spaces have few metal or plastic surfaces where viruses can lurk.
As the pandemic hits New York City, the NYC parks and recreation department made a point of keeping city parks open.
Mitchell J. Silver, NYC parks commissioner told The New York Times there are no current plans to close the parks. “I’m optimistic. It’s critically important to get fresh air, it builds the immune system. People are out using parks. Twenty minutes in the park reduces stress, anxiety. You see people doing that today, given the times we’re in.”
ASLA 2018 Professional General Design Award of Excellence. Brooklyn Bridge Park. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates / Elizabeth Felicella
Hunter reiterated a point Silver made: that spending time in nature is critical to boosting our immune system, which is essential to staving off health problems. A study by University of Illinois researcher Ming Kuo showed that “good immune system function is linked to resilience.” Hunter added that nature also helps improve cognitive function — our ability to pay attention, which is so important given everything going on.
Hunter’s study had such an impact because it was the first nature-focused one to sample the cortisol levels of relatively large numbers of subjects repeatedly over long stretches of time. 37 subjects were tested three times a week over 8 weeks. “The repeated testing of each person gave a realistic assessment of the stress reduction capacity of a ‘nature pill’ under the conditions of daily life.”
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, over the summer, Hunter’s subjects were given a wide berth in defining and finding their own nature experiences. For some, it was taking a walk in the park; for others it was sitting under a tree. “The only criteria was that they felt a connection with nature — that’s it.”
She gave her subjects an app, which prompted them to go outside. Many of her subjects, which had considered themselves avid outdoors people, were dismayed discover they weren’t going outside as much as they had thought. The app also enabled them to take photographs of whatever nature they experienced that moved them.
Examining cortisol levels in the saliva samples, Hunter and her researchers sought to figure out “the magic point” at which experiencing nature starts to relax people. She found that 20 minutes registered a significant reduction in stress. From 20-30 minutes, people are experiencing the “greatest efficiency in stress reduction, the biggest bang for the buck,” so to speak. After 40 minutes, there is continued stress relief but at slower rates.
Hunter said she gets one question a lot: “What if I don’t have 20 minutes?” Her answer: Taking smaller breaks of 5-10 minutes helps, too.
The pandemic shows how important it is to embed nature wherever possible along streets and in pocket parks, plazas, and courtyards. Those nearby-nature experiences become more critical given people’s increasing time constraints and restrictions in traveling to big urban parks or nature preserves.
There are three primary types of sound in our environments. There is geophony, which is the sound made by geophysical forces like rain, snow, rivers, ice, and cobble stones; biophony, which is the “sound of life,” including birds, frogs, and other animals; and anthropony, which is the “sound we make” through air conditioners, trains, and cars that creates a “low hum, like the base drum of the world.” In every soundscape, one component of sound dominates: NYC is clearly defined by its anthropony, while the Brazilian rainforest is one of the purest expressions of biophony. Soundscapes are the acoustic representations of a place and can be conserved, enhanced, or actively managed.
According to Chris Streb, an ecological engineer with Biohabitats, who presented at the ASLA 2019 Conference on Landscape Architecture in San Diego, sound is also a “powerful component of placemaking.” Soundscapes can be analyzed, planned, and then designed.
“Our sense of hearing is often overlooked, but sound is critical. It’s our first sense in our mothers’ wombs — the sound of our mother’s voice.”
Humans can hear farther than they can see. Nature, in fact, privileges sound. “All higher vertebrate animals have hearing but not all have sight.” Without sound, many species, like birds, which rely on song to attract mates, wouldn’t be able to reproduce. Other species, like whales, even create “pop songs” that can go viral, spreading through their oceanic communities. “We think they create songs to impress their mates.” Predators rely on sound to capture prey, and prey use the same sense to evade being eaten.
In a world filled with Anthropogenic noise, “we are forgetting how to listen,” which is a shame because we can learn a great deal from hearing to the natural world. For example, if you listen carefully, you can tell the temperatures from the frequency of the chirps of the Snowy Tree Cricket (Oecanthus fultoni).
Through the noise we make, we are not only “interfering with our own experience of nature” but also nature’s ability to communicate. Frogs, for example, stop their chorus for up to 45 minutes after being disturbed by a “big noise.” Being silent for that long makes them more vulnerable to predators and also stops them from mating.
The health of an ecosystem can in part be determined by the sound it makes. The traditional method of analyzing the vitality of an ecosystem is to use jars and nets to capture fish, butterflies, birds, bats, and other critters. Another common approach is a Bioblitz in which a group of citizen scientists scour a given territory and count all species in a given time frame. The problem is these kinds of surveying are “very labor intensive, take lots of people, and also stressful on the animals themselves.”
Instead, a soundscape analysis conducted many times a day can be “worth a thousand pictures.” The depth and variety of sounds in an ecosystem can provide a metric for species density and diversity.
Streb showed a slide of an expanse of woods that had been recorded both before and after it was thinned out through logging. A base level was created to capture the sound of the stream and bird chatter, and then after the logging, recorded again. “The soundscape was totally different,” with a noticeable reduction in the amount of sound.
According to Lauren Mandel, ASLA, an associate and researcher at landscape architecture firm Andropogon Associates, “soundscape mapping” can help landscape architects maximize geophonic and biophonic sounds humans and animals naturally gravitate to and minimize the anthropogenic sounds that create a negative physiological response.
Working with Michael Mandel, an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, who brought deep expertise in how to apply digital tools to measure the quantity and quality of sounds, Andropogon mapped the sounds of the 6,800-acre Shield Ranch in Austin, Texas, as part of a master plan that determined areas of development and preservation. One goal was to protect the the most vital ecological soundscapes while allowing anthropogenic noise in areas that are already impacted by human sounds. Areas in red on the map had the largest amount of anthroponic noise.
ASLA 2018 Professional General Design Honor Award. From Pixels to Stewardship: Advancing Conservation Through Digital Innovation. Andropogon, Austin, Texas / Andropogon
Michael Mandel said measuring the sound along the river and amid canyons of the ranch was challenging, as “sound travels in waves and ripples through the air, and when sound waves encounter a solid object, they bounce off, echo.” On a mountain top, for example, the case is “if you can see something, you can hear it.” But in other areas where echoes happen, “there are things you can hear but can’t see.”
And at the 2,500-acre Avalon Park & Preserve in Stony Brook, Long Island, which includes a diverse range of landscapes such as forests and tidal marshes, Andropogon also created a soundscape map that not only helped plan and design a new 7-acre park within the landscape, but also schedule public events and educational programs.
After a BioBlitz that identified the number of species at Avalon, Andropogon and their team set up audio recording devices to measure the type and decibel levels of natural and human sounds throughout the site. With sound meters purchased on Amazon.com, they conducted three readings a day in different locations. Andropogon also brought in local middle school and elementary school students to help with sound measurements. Older kids used a checklist while younger ones had a “visually-oriented form with images instead of words,” said Lauren Mandel.
While capturing decibels is useful, “getting measurements of sound quality is much more valuable.” Breaking the site into zones, Andropogon discovered the most pleasant sounding spaces were near meadows and forests, while the least pleasant next to a road crossing. The analysis led them to put a large sculpture, which was initially planned for a space in the woods, an area with a very high sound quality, in a place with a low sound quality. Visiting the sculpture is an anthropogenic experience anyway and bringing high numbers of visitors into the woods would only degrade the sound quality there. Thoughtful efforts like these helped increase the biodiversity in Avalon by 35 percent.
Avalon Park & Preserve / Andropogon, Landscape Performance Series
Sound guided the program schedule for spaces, too. To avoid “sonic conflicts,” they didn’t organize yoga at the same time as lawn mowing or mechanical pruning. And they also scheduled programs for kids when birds were their at their noisiest. “We shifted the program based on sound.”
Mandel explained how urban soundscapes can also be managed. Designers can use buildings, walls, and trees to dampen sounds. Reducing urban noise in green spaces increases their habitat value. And audio recordings of birdsong can be added to spaces to help reduce the negative impacts of anthropogenic noise.
Soundscape mapping can be done at the very large scale as well. Artificial intelligence is being programmed to listen to thousands of hours of recordings of Caribou and migrating birds made across millions of square kilometers of Alaska in order to analyze the ecosystem impacts of climate change or oil and gas exploration. The same systems can also be used to measure the effectiveness of ecological restoration efforts, explained Michael Mandel.
Artificial intelligence is already helping sound become a more mainstream species identification tool. Birdnet uses machine learning to help users identify what bird they have heard.
ASLA 2019 Professional General Design Award of Excellence. Heritage Flume. Sandwich, MA. Stimson / Ngoc Doan
The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced the 2019 Professional and Student Award winners.
Chosen from 544 submissions, this year’s 36 Professional Award winners represent the best of landscape architecture in the General Design, Residential Design, Analysis & Planning, Communications, and Research categories. In addition, a single Landmark Award is presented each year.
A full list of this year’s Professional Award winners can be found at www.asla.org/2019awards
ASLA 2019 Student General Design Award of Excellence. “Y” Shape Jetty System: A Sustainable Solution for Coastal Ecosystem Protection, Population Retreat, and Global Tourism Development, Yi Song, Student ASLA, University of Texas at Austin.
Chosen from 368 submissions, this year’s 26 Student Award winners represent the bright future of the landscape architecture profession in the General Design, Residential Design, Analysis & Planning, Research, Communications, Student Collaboration and Student Community Service categories.
“ASLA’s Professional and Student Awards programs are the oldest and most prestigious in the profession. This extraordinary and diverse array of winners represent both the best of landscape architecture today and the brightest hope for our future,” said ASLA President Shawn T. Kelly, FASLA.
“This year’s awards reflect the global nature of landscape architecture and demonstrate to professionals and the public alike how our profession addresses some of the world’s most pressing problems, including climate change and resilience, livability, and the creation of healthy and equitable environments.”
All Professional and Student Award recipients, their clients, and advisors will be honored at the awards presentation ceremony during the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture on Monday, November 18, in San Diego, California. There are still complimentary press passes available.
Background on the ASLA Awards Programs
Each year, the ASLA Professional Awards honor the best in landscape architecture from around the globe. Winners of these prestigious awards are chosen by a jury that represents the breadth of the profession, including private, public, institutional, and academic practice, and exemplify diversity in professional experience, geography, gender, and ethnicity. Submissions are judged blind.
Professional Awards are presented in six categories: General Design, Residential Design, Analysis & Planning, Communications, Research, and the Landmark Award. In each of the first five categories, the Jury may select one Award of Excellence and any number of Honor Awards. It is not guaranteed that an Award of Excellence will be selected each year, as it is up to the jury’s discretion. Only one Landmark Award is presented each year.
This year’s Professional Jury included: Andrea Cochran, FASLA (Chair); Henri Bava; Kofi Boone, ASLA; Gina Ford, FASLA; Deb Guenther, FASLA; John King, Honorary ASLA; Pam Linn, FASLA; John Vinci; and Keith Wagner, FASLA. Joining the Professional Jury for the selection of the Research Category were representatives on behalf of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) and Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA): Stephanie A. Rolley, FASLA and Galen Newman, ASLA.
Student Awards are presented in seven categories: General Design, Residential Design, Analysis & Planning, Research, Communications, Student Collaboration and Student Community Service. Like the Professional Awards, the jury may select one Award of Excellence and any number of Honor Awards. It is not guaranteed that an Award of Excellence will be selected each year, as it is up to the jury’s discretion.
This year’s Student Jury included: Linda Jewell, FASLA (Chair); Diana Fernandez, ASLA; David Gouverneur; Robert Gray, ASLA; Damian Holmes; Kendra Hyson, ASLA; Maki Kawaguchi; Signe Nielsen, FASLA; and Daniel Tal, ASLA.
