Materiality: Plant Knowledge

There has been much discussion lately on the L-ARCH listserv regarding the role and knowledge of landscape architects regarding plants and planting design. (ah, a listserv, how 1997, but i digress). To sum up, there's a persistent theory that Landscape Architecture suffers from a deficiency of plant knowledge. Is this true? Well, I personally know I could stand to know much more about plants and characteristics of plants that I currently do - and plan on continuing learning, and growing for, let's conservatively say, ever.


:: Battery Park City Garden by Piet Oudolf - image via The Battery Conservancy

The issue with planting design, or any other form of landscape specialization, is that it makes you an expert at the expense of other vital skills. Does this diminish planting design? Perhaps... a bit, but the profession, as many point out, requires a high level of generalized knowledge, and aside from focus on a particular project or area of specialization, it is hard to gain depth in this wide swath of topics. Is the basis of our profession plantings, or is it synthesis of ecology, art, and science in the creation of spaces for people, which plantings is one, critical aspect?

This is not to diminish plants, and our need to understand them more and use them better. This goes for all materials, as craft involves an intimate knowledge of the tools at hand. Plants are tough. They go in small, grow, die, get to0 big, evolve, and always, change. There is a tacit assumption that, much like architecture, when it's done you walk away, and maintenance budgets reflect this. How many projects do you know that have future funds for planting, thinning, and changes after final completion?

This should be a challenge, as well as an opportunity. The trend towards Landscape Urbanism and addressing temporal change - acknowledging that there is and will always be change, and establishing fields in which these can evolve and flourish. While still a conceptual framework, it is an interesting approach. Thinking of landscapes not as static objects but as gardens that need to be tended and adjusted - perhaps would create new expectations and much better results.

Another aspect of the discussion is, whether to include a horticulturist and plant expert on a team, in addition to the landscape architect. For specific projects it makes a lot of sense, particularly ones with horticultural complexity. In this regard, a number a recent article 'A Landscape in Winter, Dying Heroically' in the New York Times, profiles the techniques of Piet Oudolf, who is the originator of a gardening style dubbed 'New Wave Planting' which couples ecology and design alongside an appreciation for structure and form.

Aside from his prolific writings, he has collaborated with many high-profile LAs on projects such as the High Line with Field Operations, Millenium Park with Kathryn Gustafson. He has also done extensive work at the Battery Park Gardens in NYC.


:: The High Line - image via Cool Hunting

This knowledge and approach gets the attention of high-profile LAs like James Corner, who is working with Oudolf on the High Line. Quoted from the NYT:

"Most people think in a formal way: if you put A and B with C, it will look like this — but only at a certain moment in time,” said James Corner... one reason he asked Mr. Oudolf to do the project’s planting design is that the way he selects and composes plants “...is thought through not only in terms of summer, but also in terms of winter — all 12 months are interesting.”

The article outlines the concept of death, decay, decomposition (coupled with dormancy) and the full season changes and ebbs and flows of plantings in Oudolf's private garden.






:: images via The New York Times

This aesthetic is counter-intuitive to the Picturesque and Romantic notions of planting design strategies. This is perhaps why Oudolf has caught the attention of more cutting-edge designers, and landscape urbanists, like Corner and Charles Waldheim, both of whom are quoted. Waldheim's reference to Oudolfs abilites to set a new course in planting design, again from the New York Times: "He’s gotten away from the soft pornography of the flower. He’s interested in the life cycle, how plant material ages over the course of the year and how it relates to the plants around it."

Knowledge is a life-long thing. Learning from masters, experimenting, continually learning are all good things. Accepting that landscape architects are not 'plant people' is not. Learn the plants, go to the nursery and arboretum. Take classes. Then you can refine and test, and put forth new approaches and aesthetic sensibilities such as Oudolf mentions in the article: "You accept death. You don’t take the plants out, because they still look good. And brown is also a color.”

Flux Paroxysm: A Found Poem

Jumping the shark a bit, but here's the first part of the found poem from the SoWa endeavors with David Oates, et. al. - enjoy!:

II. Flux Paroxysm
composers: Jason King and Claire Nail

Giants move
politicos
huddled together,
a tribe
in KKK regalia
rough pioneers, hard men
act out Ahab after vengeance
unhinged by luck
dirty quarrel, barks of laughter
bones will crack
rips of sobbing
gated community.

Hard to keep one’s temper pregnant
fleecing the rich
the storm, the insistent rain
too much rotten air.

All the ways of water:
the river churning
shining in metaled light
hard pressing, air chilling
stung with January.
Is it leaching into you?

A hundred years ago,
I have to stop and remember
a point of escape:
a deer, a bald eagle, an Indian fishing—
this riverfront the slingshot
path skirting a stand of burnt timber.
The map changes, the essence remains.

All the ways of water
funnel through the lobby
centuries of hydrology:
arithmetic and penmanship—
pouring, counting, constant needled rain.

Are there mysteries in Portland?
100 years ago today, fathers slept unaware.
Daughters tiptoed out early, strays of night.
Loping horses, where women now shop for shoes.

Let’s write the book on mystery now: come wild under its power.
Imagine the Banfield one evening rush hour, if we still rode horses,
if we stood up in the saddle and spread our arms.
The West of Imagination,
as free as anywhere Oregon, high boots gleam.

I’ve crossed a hidden river, live with vast infusion,
dripped mist,
through alders and cottonwoods,
the vegetative complexities
shave grass, hills of blackberry vine.

100 years from now, running late again
stale dreams stalled,
snagged, shaven,
chiseled
a fetid cesspool,
sand and gravel.
gutted.
Dire predictions:
all the unborn babies
poured unto the ether pavement.

Rehabilitate the lost;
why not the woodland path?
Live with vast infusion.
Touch the water.
Trace the watery extents.
Take that picture, damn it!

All the ways of water,
falling from darkness,
wishing they’d quit talking
strayed so far,
silenced
the
word
rain.

(2008)

Pioneers of Planning

The historical roots of ecological planning and sustainability are varied. Metropolis magazine may not acknowledge the role of landscape architects in sustainability, perhaps this is because no one has specifically outlined a definitive history of ecological landscape architecture and planning. I began some time back to trace some of this lineage, which i will include a later date.

On a similar note, I found that the American Planning Association (APA) had previously (2003) released a list of 25 Individuals Who Influenced Planning before 1978, prepared for the 25th anniversary of the APA. A few notable LA's make this list of 25, along with a bevy of influential urbanists. This is by no means comprehensive, but telling as to the mark that the field has made on planning over the years (most links via Wikipedia):

1. Hippodamus (5th century B.C.)
2. Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)
3. Pierre L'Enfant (1754-1852)
4. Baron Haussmann (1809-1891)

5. Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903)

:: image via fredericklawolmsted.com
"Frederick Law Olmsted is widely recognized as the founder of American landscape architecture and the nation's foremost parkmaker. His first, most loved, and in many ways his best known work was his design of Central Park in New York City (1858-1876) with his partner Calvert Vaux. But Olmsted would go on to have a significant influence in the way cities and communities are built to incorporate the idea of nature and parks. He was one of the first to espouse the principles of the City Beautiful movement in America and to introduce the idea of suburban development to the American landscape."

6. George Pullman (1831-1897)
7. Camillo Sitte (1843-1903)
8. Daniel Burnham (1846-1912)
9. Jacob August Riis (1849-1914)
10. Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928)
11. Patrick Geddes (1854-1932)

12. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957)

:: image via Cornell University
"Arguably the intellectual leader of the American city planning movement in the early twentieth century, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. was a worthy son of a distinguished father. While still an adolescent, "Rick" Olmsted worked and studied under his father before entering Harvard. After graduation in 1894, he entered his father's firm and a year later, as the elder Olmsted's health deteriorated, he and his half­brother took it over under the name Olmsted Brothers. "

13. Clarence Arthur Perry (1872-1944)
14. Alfred Bettman (1873-1945)
15. Clarence Stein (1882–1975)
16. Le Corbusier (1887-1965)
17. Robert Moses (1888-1981)
18. Lewis Mumford (1895-1988)
19. Catherine Bauer (1905-1964)
20. William Levitt (1907-1994)
21. Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)
22. William Whyte (1917-1999)
23. Kevin Lynch (1918-1984)

24. Ian McHarg (1920-2001)

:: image via Wikipedia
"Ian McHarg was one of the true pioneers of the environmental movement... He published his landmark book, Design With Nature, in 1969. In it, McHarg spelled out the need for urban planners to consider an environmentally conscious approach to land use, and provided a new method for evaluating and implementing doing so. Today, Design With Nature is considered one of the landmark publications in the environmental movement, helping make McHarg arguably the most important landscape architect since Frederick Law Olmsted.

25. Paul Davidoff (1930-1984)

The list is diverse, showing the multiple voices that together shape movements such as planning. From ancient philosophers, to housers, writers, theorists, urban legends, and yes, landscape architects - planning, like many disciplines, is the product of genius and hard work in it's many forms.

Veg.itecture: New Additions

A visual tour of some of the latest in Vegetated Architecture. From the wonderful to the integrated to the sophmoric - the ideas are flowing and the concept is here to stay. A few recent projects:

In todays readings, from Archidose, the amazing pioneer of vertical greening, Patrick Blanc is at it again, creating a softly architectonic form for the CaixaForum Madrid in Madrid, Spain by Herzog & de Meuron (2008). Rusted steel panels and vertical green juxtaposed together. One word: stunning.


:: image via Archidose

A new hypergreen tower by Jacques Ferrier shows elevated pockets called 'vegetated sky lobbies' . Again this is one where representation versus realization is a question it provides a compelling building-landscape integration. So good it deserves two shots...




:: images via Green.MNP

A new project, Tuin house, by Reinier de Jong, provides a model of two-story homes are stacked into taller structures - creating vertical suburbs, aimed at providing the amenities of single-family dwellings in high-rise fashion to keep people in more densely populated areas... maybe in Vancouver. While the concept is laudable, the model, which has been floating around for a while, reminds of crappy balsawood models we did in the first year of design studio.


:: image via MoCo Loco

Finally, greening the big box. This prototype Wal-Mart store in Chicago, with gasp! a green roof. I know Wal-Mart is on a kick to 'green' up their image (forgetting the third leg of social equity now and again with its employees...) But, how the heck does Chicago get big-box stores to do this. Maybe something Portland can learn from?


:: image via Jetson Green

Reading List: A Pattern Language

Some books are classics. You read them, you reference them, you let them gather dust on the shelves until one day something jogs your memory and makes them vital again. This, along with other more obsessive reasons, is why I tend to collect design books with never any thought of letting them go. And design books tend to be heavy, sometimes in content, and often in heft.


:: image via Architecture.MNP

No book proves both of these points like Christopher Alexander's tome, 'A Pattern Language'. Written in 1977, this book elucidates a series of broad to specific patterns of development. The recent post by Architecture.MNP linked to a fantastic online version of the pattern language - which seems even more useful when framed in a hypertext format. Building on the strengths of the linking pattern heirarchy, this online tool allows you to access the pattern with paging through the book, even including illustrations. Each one is nested within a larger order of magnitude, and reduced to smaller constituent parts. For instance, Pattern #14: Identifiable Neighborhood, is connected from:

"... the Mosaic Of Subcultures (8) and the Community Of 7000 (12) are made up of neighborhoods. This pattern defines the neighborhoods."

These are further reduced to the parts that:

"...mark the neighborhood, above all, by gateways wherever main paths enter it - Main Gateways (53) - and by modest boundaries of non-residential land between the neighborhoods - Neighborhood Boundary (15). Keep major roads within these boundaries - Parallel Roads (23); give the neighborhood a visible center, perhaps a common or a green - Accessible Green (60)‹or a Small Public Square (61); and arrange houses and workshops within the neighborhood in clusters of about a dozen at a time - House Cluster (37), Work Community (41).... "

The online version allows for simple jumping from point to point, and back, which is a true mark of the successful pattern - context and detail. The site includes illustrations from the book, such as this visual discription of Pattern #4: Agricultural Valleys:


:: image via A Pattern Language

The language is timeless, although the vocabulary may be in need of updating. For instance, usage of the term 'green street' has evolved, and the concept remains, but as seen in Pattern #51 - Green Streets, the definition differs somewhat from our current use:

"There is too much hot hard asphalt in the world. A local road, which only gives access to buildings, needs a few stones for the wheels of the cars; nothing more. Most of it can still be green."


:: image via A Pattern Language

While the original pattern still has merit, the idea of pattern languages is an interesting point-of-departure for any type of analytical undertaking. An example, somewhat dated as well, takes the idea to separate application of the principle, Ecotrust developed their Conservation Economy Pattern Language, the goal to provide a framework for an "...ecologically restorative, socially just, and reliably prosperous society."

More recent, Alexander's new series is a four-volume set entitled The Nature of Order, investigating a broad world-view of architecture in four parts: The Phenomenon of Life, The Process of Creating Life, A Vision of a Living World, and The Luminous Ground. I have yet to check this out, other than a cursory glance at the bookstore, but i imagine they involve some density - and patience to get through, but alas, something as light as understanding the Nature of Order should require a bit of heavy thinking.

Revisit: Olympic Sculpture Park

In light of the recent AIA Honor Award for 2008, some revisit of the fantastic Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. Designed by internationally renown firm Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism along with local Seattle Landscape Architect Charles Anderson.

The main theme of the project is a folded Z-shaped pedestrian spine that traverses a significant grade change between the upper portion of the park/urban interface and the lower portion of the park/waterfront interface - also spanning the riverfront roadway below - connecting the park seamlessly from Elliot Bay to adjacent Belltown. This is shown below in a simplistic 'model' of interlocking planes:


:: image via Weiss/Manfredi

This theme provides interesting details, as well as a design parti that permeates both the site, landscape detailing, as well as the architectural forms. The buildings are appropriately designed, but in true Landscape Urbanism fashion, take their forms from the surrounding landscape fabric, not dominating or directing landscape spaces.


:: images via Weiss/Manfredi

I had the chance to visit the park about a year after it was completed, and the following photographs are from this trip. I took note of the specific landscape/built-form interactions, and some of the detailing that bridges and smooths these transitions. (all following photos by author)


:: Waterfront Pathway


:: Wall detailing

The clash of sharp angles provides some dynamism, as well as some particularly difficult details. The following photos illuminate the successes, particularly my favorite space in the park, the slightly offset angular convergence of sloped concrete walls above the roadway.


:: Roadway convergence


:: sloping pathways and spatial merging

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the parks success is less about the art it contains and more about it's contribution to the urban fabric. Thus the art-container transcends the art. In contrast with say, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where the grounds provide a simple field for art placement, here the dynamic space often overshadows some of the lesser art pieces. While the collections will ultimately evolve, this follows other precedents in architecture where the museum becomes better known as a piece of architectural art, rather than as a functional space.

There are a few art-elements of note, in addition to the photogenic and iconic red form of the 'Eagle' by Alexander Calder. The first is shown below, not a consistent favority, but one i liked, is a sun-shade and canopy aptly titled 'Seattle Cloud Cover' by artist Teresita Fernandez, which plays with abstract colors and textures, as a piece in itself, as well as throwing interesting patterns on the ground plane:


:: Seattle Cloud Cover - by artist Teresita Fernandez

A consistent favorite is 'Wake' by Richard Serra, consisting of multiple forms of rusted steel forms evocative of ships and waterforms, tying the installation into the local context. Built as an interactive piece, it evolves based on the viewers point-of-view, although exists with a 'no-touching' policy which is strictly enforced, leaving some of this interactivity unrealized.


:: Wake - by Richard Serra

While primarily an urban park, there are some special moves that allow for pockets of refuge and immersion in nature along the pathways. The Grove, which naturally zig-zags up a hillside triangle, offers a dense planting of aspens along with site-specific artworks spaces along the pathway. This is a counterpoint to the dynamic rigidity to the adjacent areas.


:: a view of the grove - immersion in urban nature

The overal zig-zag concept makes for some stunning detailing, but allows for some difficult spots, particularly where there is a convergence of very sharp acute angles, which either create clunky merging of materials and lines, or allow for pedestrian crossing that degrades vegetation. The uppermost photo shows the difficult merging - and the lower shows the temporary fencing to avoid cross-cutting at waterfront level until vegetation is established.




:: Tapered crossing zones with depleted vegetation

In spite of these minor issues, the OSP is impressive - even more so in person than in the photos here or elsewhere. The combination of setting and strong design concept is powerful and seems to fit the Seattle aesthetic well. The softening of spaces that provide some counterpoint to the overall plan are successful, including adjacent fields of native groundcovers and other low-maintenance materials. The wall and pathway detailing, with a few exceptions, is impeccable, using relatively simple forms but making them vibrant by using them in subtle ways.

For additional information, here is a link to some interactive media about the OSP. Definitely check out the park flora link, as well as the construction slideshows showing in-process photos of various design elements.

Bio-diversity

A meditation on plants, picking up on some earlier threads of vegetated abstractions, whether they be sculptural or metaphorical, aesthetic or functional. First is the idea of global warming, and it's impacts on the biological functioning of plants. While often reported as a purely negative or neutral, the shifts of hardiness zone allows for greater biodiversity, but changes the natural makeup of the ecology of regions.

There are potentially some aspects of this that are beneficial, such as the extended growing season, which allows for greater plant functions, such as the uptake of carbon, as well as more vigorous growth (i.e. faster production). While the long-term results are inconclusive, this may be a subtle way of nature trying to balance out some of the man-made global temperature increase and carbon spikes by using it's available means - similar to James Lovelock's idea of the Gaia Hypothesis, in which the earth is a self-regulating organism.


:: image via Treehugger

The origins of trees - both physical and metaphor take on complexity when couple with chaos theory and fractal geometry, investigating the innate form and structure. Similar to biomimicry, and riffing on threads of golden section, drawing trees requires both artistic process as well as a scientific way of looking to parse the specific formal properties. 'Branching', an interesting study on drawing trees, provides a play-by-play of a significant artwork.


:: image via sevensixfive

While trees are but a part of the overall strategies for landscape and urbanism, there are some specific functional aspects that are vital components of design and planning strategies. Two examples show a range of functions of urban vegetation. The first is more holistic, in terms of loss of habitat, is summed up in a reference on Treehugger to the significance of habitat loss, referencing Wikipedia:

"Habitat destruction is a process of land use change in which one habitat-type is removed and replaced with another habitat-type. In the process of land-use change, plants and animals which previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Urban Sprawl is one cause of habitat destruction. Other important causes of habitat destruction include mining, trawling, and agriculture. Habitat destruction is currently ranked as the most important cause of species extinction worldwide." [emphasis from Treehugger]

:: image via Treehugger

We talk often of urban ecology and providing habitat for particular species of plants and animals that are mutually beneficial to urban dwellers. This often comes at the cost of providing available habitat for more vigorous adapted species that we consider nuiscances. This balance will only shift more as habitat destruction and displacement occurs throughout the world, creating pressure on particularly mobile species to find refuge in our urban zones.

The second aspect involves some more specific potential strategies for mitigation of global warming, by planting and adapting plants for particular qualities that provide higher levels of surface reflectivity, or albedo. Mentioned on various sources, including BLDGBLOG's reference to a recent Guardian article on the subject involves plantings with silver, while, or lighter pigments for increased reflection of suns rays. Studies have shown that switching from darker and more uniformly surfaced plantings to ones with higher surface area (i.e. hairy leaves) and lighter colors can reduce temperatures significantly.


:: image via BLDGBLOG

How these seemingly disparate threads converge in a strategy? A previous post tied together aspects of current plant bioengineering techniques, touching on the good and bad components of these endeavors. As with many science, design, and planning strategies, we tend to look at the individual issues in isolation rather than as an aggregation of potential benefits. Unlike monocultural agriculture, the idea of plant life is one not of isolating and maximizing productivity - but rather it using more of a biodynamic perspective to investigate plants innate synergies with each other, and by default with us. And to not look at plants solely as a solution, but to other possibilities as well. While plants provide multiple functions, other man-made elements are more simplistic, and have possibilities, as BLDGBLOG notes, for some simpler solutions, including "...an architectural side to all this: "Other scientists have suggested different ways to cool the planet [such as] painting roads, roofs and car parks white." Recent trends in cool roofing and green building are steps in this direction.

In this regard we can tie together the following threads into something resembling coherence. First, we look at the responses of nature to man-made situations such as global warming as potential strategies to emulate in coming up with solutions. Second, we take a closer look at nature's patterns and processes at a more specific level - knowing plants, and their characteristics and synergies in new ways, not just as commodities or products of aesthetic appreciation. Third, we balance solutions not as a single goal, but a collective benefit - to humans, to habitat and it's related flora and fauna, and to providing overall solutions, taken FROM nature's processes. Finally, we don't look to science to remake similar mistakes (such as getting rid of conifers, genetically modifying plants for single uses, such as biofuels, and planting monocultures of broad-leaf and high-albedo species) but to find a balance.

Coming full circle, we look at the big picture, examine the components in detail, identify problems and solutions, and provide balanced approaches that are locally and globally beneficial. Kind of like nature does already.

Finding SoWa's Soul

Under the radar, a series of South Waterfront District Artist in Residence events have been happening at the South Waterfront District, with an eye to honing in on some sense of place in our cities newest neighborhood. AiR Studio is hosting, Linda K. Johnson, wants to provide a sense of history for a place that is percieved to have none. She will be implementing place-based ephemeral and performance works throughout the year. Check out Corpus Botanicus for a taste of the site-works, and investigate her Daily Movement Journal: 'A day-by-day accumulation of movements sourced from a rotating series of sites in the neighborhood, this extended dance phrase will capture Johnson’s daily impressions of the neighborhood over the residency year.'


:: From the Daily Movement Journal - image via southwaterfront.com

To expand on the placed-based approach Stephen Beaven profiles Johnson's approach and writes in yesterday's Oregonian about the monthly rotating series of 13 guest AiRs that are looking to engage in a variety of media to explore this common themes. Currently, I have been working alongside a group of much more talented writers, some of them SoWa residents, under the expert tutelage of writer David Oates exploring themes of Portland's Past, Present, and Future, and culminating in a collaborative piece of found poetry.

Another fascinating upcoming event is the Urban Acupuncture Project by Artist Adam Kuby. Slated as the guest residence for March, his project aims to investigate this phenomenon: In the artists words:

"I plan to bring together a group comprised of acupuncturists, city planners, art professionals, people from the city’s Asian communities, poets, writers, etc. Together we will re-envision Portland as a metaphorical body, map its meridians and diagnose its health. As a group we will explore how energy flows through the city and what parts of the metropolitan area might correspond to what bodily systems."


:: Urban Acupuncture - image via Adam Kuby

Will these art endeavors successfully unearth some of the hidden history or dare I say, a Soul of SoWa? Time will tell, although participation by residents and other community members at least allows us to feel connected to a place. There is already history and place. These alone provide fertile seeds.

In addition to site, good architecture, the signature tram project, expert planning, and quality built form - add taste and texture. Along with these activities, the upcoming SoWa Neighborhood Park design being completed by Hargreaves Associates, and implementation of (in some form) the SoWa Greenway designed by Thomas Balsley and Walker Macy will add some much needed ground-level greenery and context to the mass of current urbanization. Finally, the Greenway Art Plan created by Seattle artist Buster Simpson will hopefull infuse some additional, more permanent, artistic placemaking into the mix.


:: image of South Waterfront Greenway via Portland Parks

The final ingredient: perhaps, is time.

Vegetated Architecture

New terms, or juxtaposition of terms, continually occur in the design dialogue. Sometimes these provide language for describing something new - a technology, process or approach. Other times, this language provides a new use of terms that gives resonance for a fresh approach to something old. Terms like living buildings, civic ecology, living architecture, natural building, cradle-to-cradle and eco-architecture are all natural variations on the concept of sustainability. The fact that we have adopted and perhaps transcended the basic conceptual framework of sustainability as somewhat status quo, leads us to continue to reinvent new terms or co-opt old ones as ways to explain our specific approachs. With this comes new ways of outward expression in tow.

It's an interesting phenomenon, mentioned in Landscape Urbanism previously, that architecture has adopted landscape as a new medium. The distinct line between building and landscape has thinning the point of transparency. This new term is vegetated architecture, which is specifically the focus of much of this blog, is simply a blurring of the line between landscape and architecture. This offers a number of benefits, added value for the overall aesthetic and function. While used for design purposes, often as an ambiguous green face, applied as skin or roof. While the values of green roofs and living walls are summarized elsewhere, there is the need to ground this approach not just in terms of ecological systems or high-design strategies, but as the two mutually beneficial idealogies at work in tandem to create sustainable and visually stunning projects.

A few recent examples to further elaborate on the idea of vegetated architecture:

This project, recently featured on Inhabitat, is the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The green roofs provide environmental benefits, as well as accessible open space for informal gatherings. The monoculture of grass is a uniform 'green mantle' as well, although perhaps not the most sustainable material.


:: image via Inhabitat

Suspended greens, by Architect Taketo Shimohigoshi, a winner of a 2007 AR emerging architecture award, complete with moss-covered overhead structures in Tokyo:


::image via G-Living Network

A full interior/exterior landscape fusion by Shigeru Ban Architects for a vertically oriented Swatch store in Japan. The Nicholas G. Hayek Center is described as an urban oasis with living walls, trees, and planters spanning multiple floors.


:: image via Jetson Green

While none of these ideas are specifically new, there seems to be significant amounts of traction related to the concept in architecture the past few years - giving rise to more edgy design and experimentation with technology and form. Expanding on simple themes of green roof, living wall, these designs imply a more holistic approach to the inclusion and melding of buildings landscape, as well as not being marginalized as eco-driven or 'natural' design strategies. Significant projects seem to be localized around Europe and Asia, particularly France and Japan, although there are many more daily examples of vegetated architecture worldwide. Perhaps this is the 21st Landscape.

Materiality: Concrete

The concept of mundane materials taking new forms may offer the ability to literally 'recast' their use in a new light. No material is this more true than concrete. In it's many forms concrete is a malleable soldier of the building trades, and provides countless opportunities for architecture and design. While a number of building materials rarely make the trek into landscape territory, concrete is one that is used much - perhaps a staple of the profession due to it's use in paving, as well as it's mutability for organic forms, walls, and other built elements.

Due to it's commonality, there are often two pitfalls which range somewhere in the categories of monontony/overuse, and bad/clunky detailing. While for every example of bad use of material, there are equal and opposite (and perhaps more) examples of great uses, both typical and innovative. In this regard, we celebrate the wonder of concrete, and some of it's many forms, in the following 'Ode to Materiality Series'

The following example of black-tinted concrete comes from Andrea Cochran in her aforementioned Pacific Heights Residence. Would this have the same modern clean lines and impact with a stone or block material? Or, would it blend into the scene and surrounding metal and gravel as seamlessly if it were typical gray concrete coloring?


:: photo via Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture

Both of these examples are via Dezeen, and involve an opposite idea. See through concrete in a couple of forms. The first example is from Hungarian architect Áron Losonczi, Litracon, which is shortening of Light-tranmitting Concrete available in a blocks of varying sizes. The second, dubbed Translucent Concrete, created by Andreas Bittis. Both are essentially the same idea, with Litracon having the international patent... but a combination of concrete and optical fibers woven through the mix that are able to be lit and provide levels of translucence through the materials:


:: image of Litracon via Dezeen


:: image of Translucent Concrete via Dezeen

A simplistic form of concrete is the concrete masonry unit, or CMU. This shows up in many types of construction due to it's low-cost of manufacture, easy transportation, and simplicty of installation. It's variants include the 'decorative' versions with texture and color variations, as well as the modular walls systems we all love to hate, such as keystone or anchor. A new take, by Loom Studio, is part of their project 12 blocks, which provides textural variations of the volume of the CMU itself, celebrating the prefabrication as well as the malleable nature of the form, and allowing for interesting patterning and combinations without adding significantly to the cost.



:: images via Loom Studio

While this could go on... and probably will - the simplicity of alternative finished concrete paving. To provide an aesthetic quality of paver material without the cost of unit pavers, we like to try to dress up our concrete to give it something beyond it's flat gray nature. Thus our use of coloring and patterning, via Bomanite or other types of systems that involve either a rubber stamp or a roller. The problem with these systems is 1) they tend to look artificially textured and tinted, and 2) the quality and consistency is usually lacking in the actual installation. I have heard some techniques for how to provide more quality control (i.e. use both integral and surface color) but it seems that there are few contractors we can go to with confidence for this service and know we are getting a good product. If anyone has great experiences or examples (i have few) of colored concrete and texture, I think it'd be a great discussion.

I've tended to lean more towards simplicity of textures, without color or with some subtle variations (although going back to Andrea Cochran's walls, i may rethink this). We have not moved much past the simple texturing methods that have long been used (i.e. broom finishes) due to their simplicity. There are a number of options available depending on the needs. One of my favorites is to use rock salt finish on paving, to give it a mottled appearance that is a bit softer.


:: image via Concrete Network

Another method that I have seen, for walls specifically, is board formed concrete, using the grain of the wood to embue a certain texture and quality to the overall finished surface. Again, quality is an issue, but even some inconsistencies work because of the nature of revealing a materials nature (the fluid malleability of concrete) and the process of creating it (the traces of wood grain, bolt holes, and joints remaining in the final mix). I will post a pic as soon as i find a good one.

I realize this is an ongoing investigation, but it has inspired me to endeavor to look more closely at some of the materials we tend to take for granted in design and construction, and investigate the nature of the material, it's uses, and new innovations for application. Suggestions for other materials to investigate are welcome.

P/A Award: Taichung Gateway Park

A wide range of 'progressive architecture' awards were recently announced on ArchitectOnline going to a wide range of winners. The process and product of what defines 'progressive' is a constantly shifting target, due to new jurors as well as new architectural directions. From the article:

"Last year's jury, for instance, favored projects with a sense of social and environmental responsibility, including an orphanage in Haiti, a school for working children and women in Lebanon, and a retirement community in Arkansas. This year, by contrast, no single agenda dominated the jury's decision-making process. While clearly mindful of the critical issues in contemporary architecture... [the jury] weighed each project according to its own individual strengths—whether those be social, environmental, technological, aesthetic, or otherwise. The results of their selection process are diverse, to say the least; the eight winning projects range widely in budget, location, program, scale, and architectural intent..."

My vote for the most 'progressive' architecture, that of the mostly non-architecture of Taichung Gateway Park in Taiwan. Designed by architect Stan Allen, this 620-acre park is adapted from a former airport. The site actively rejects historical park planning concepts of space ringed with circulation (i.e. the Central Park Model, which at 840 acres, is similar in scale), instead weaving landscape and park functions in and out of the fabric of the community, "...to increase the possible surface area for adjacent buildings." This is diagramatically reflected in the overall plan configuration:

:: Traditional v. Contextual - images via Architect Online

Continuing a line of significant urban parks designed by architects (la Villette, Downsview), this is another example of the more directed trend towards Landscape Urbanism, with capital L & U... which to paraphrase Waldheim '...provides the buildings blocks of urbanism not with architecture but with landscape...' Essentially the idea reversed of building structures and filling in the voids with greenery, there is a distinct blurring of the line between urban and landscape until the two become indistinguishable.

Via the landscape urbanist principles shown by Corner et.al, there is the typical compartmentalization of functional overlays (infrastructure, structures, ecology, amenities), shown below in diagrammatic form:

:: image via Architect Online

The main strength of the approach is a cohesive and flexible infrastructural system that will be realized many phases down the line, allowing for responsiveness to a wide range of unpredictable variables. A major tenet of Landscape Urbanism, this adaptability is the cornerstone of many alternative modes of thinking, specifically in the dis-realization of what we know and can predict, versus the realization that what we must allow processes to unfold over time and provide fields in which to accomodate them. The fact that this process can create rich spaces and uses, as well as changing environments, is shown in some of the potential visuals from the website as well.


:: image via Architect Online

The great the quantity of significant landscape projects (esp. beyond paper architecture) that have significant temporal strategies at their core, will continue to allow for greater traction beyond the static 'finished product' of so much landscape architecture. This is reinforced by this particular project's timeline, which is slated to occur over a long period of implementation, making this flexibility of program and form even more important.

Again from Architect Online:

"By necessity, the project will be completed over several phases, beginning with the ecological aspects (water regeneration, reforestation, and the greening of pocket parks), then moving on to infrastructure (primary and secondary roads, bike trails and footpaths), and then finally into the urban program (anchor buildings, then the cultural, academic, and canal districts). The first stage is slated to commence in the fall, and the entire scheme may take decades to complete."

Tree | TREE | tree

As we have seen, trees occupy a litany of places in our senses and psyche - and just beg to be used as fodder for sculptural and architectural abstraction. Some recent adaptations of the theme take on some interesting forms, due to the use of material (a future topic) form, and function.

Three examples of the abstraction in it's literal sense, followed by a building-as-metaphor:

'The Ancient Tree' by Christ & Gantenbein Architects, a concrete park structure evoking the arching form of a large canopy species.


:: image via Coolboom

Solar power trees, via Treehugger, these found in Adelaide, Austrailia:


:: image via Treehugger

And the l'Arbre de Flonville in Lausanne, Switzerland by Samuel Wilkinson a combination of steel trunk and exposed 'roots', offering seating and structure, along with a softer wooden canopy.


:: image via MoCo Loco

Where does this all lead? While many items can take the form of, or evoke the style of a tree, even maintaining the majority of tree-functions, the metaphor can be further elongated. As mentioned in William Mcdonough's writings often, there is the strong metaphor of making a building function like a tree. A form of realization of this metaphor of the Skyscraper as a tree for a speculative building in dubbed the 'Tree Tower':


:: image via Jetson Green

While the aesthetic possibilities of architectural greening are myriad, there exists possibility of many functional ideas taken from nature. Looking at concepts such as biomimicry as guides, and using technology alongside, not in place of natural systems, can we learn from nature's ways of providing function and beauty, art and science - while allowing for the innate process of self-regeneration? That's our challenge.

Revisit: JC Raulston Arboretum

While in North Carolina for Christmas, my planned visit to Greenbridge Development in Chapel Hill. The closest I got was a peek through the closed windows of the office, and a quick driveby to the building site, which was vacant. Alas, not much to report, until I get some materials... although the real-estate folks were quick to call me back after the holidays, as they may have percieved a potential sale.

A side visit to the JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University proved a worthy, and probably more informative field trip. My girlfriend SuSu worked at the arboretum while getting a horticulture degree at NCSU, so I was also equipped with a wonderful tour guide and plant nerd. Plants, much to our delight, seldom require much commentary... so i will abide by the rule of pictures=1000 words, and keep it brief.


:: Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia faurei)


:: the right coast OG - Media Mahonia (Mahonia x media)

While not incredibly striking, Mahonia spp. in the PNW are a native staple and do evoke the regional landscape. The above Media Mahonia was lush and continually striking whenever I saw them. In addition, there are some rare specimens, or just those with striking placement and seasonal color. These Dwarf Loblolly Pines are unique features not found in many locations.


:: Dwarf Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda 'Nana')


:: Chinese fringe tree (Chionanthus retusus)

A roof garden project I designed in mid-2007 made use of the Muhly Grass, which was a new species to me (and a SuSu recommendation) to provide waves of reddish tufted seed-heads that would wave in the breezes atop the building. I was doubly convinced of this choice after seeing this grouping along the perennial border.


:: Muhly Grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris)

In addition to the ability to see and experience firsthand materials and seasonal change, as well as full-grown forms that bely their nursery sizes, the arboretum (read: ANY arboretum) is a great opportunity to study the beauty and variety of plant form. Looking at shape, color, texture, contrast, and unique character is only accomplished firsthand - thus maybe a picture is worth 1000 words, but a visit is priceless.


:: Fruit of the Hardy-orange (Poncirus trifoliata)

Revisit: Oregon Garden

It's a rainy, gray day in Portland, so i was sorting digital photographs and stumbled upon a few from a November trip to The Oregon Garden in Silverton, Oregon. This was my first visit to the garden, and alas, the camera died about 500 feet into the garden, so a return trip is required. The garden was envisioned in the 1940s, and finally took shape in the mid-90s, and opening around 1999. Consisting of a series of 20 gardens, focussed around a typical horticultural display, or a theme based on local ecology, children, agriculture, or art.

The focal point is the A-mazing Water Garden, designed by Carol Mayer-Reed, principal of Mayer/Reed in Portland. The garden consists of a series of water features and ornamental water plants, configured around a sweeping bridge. This is one of the more formerly defined and well done areas of the garden.


:: The Amazing Water Garden - image by author

Another more recent addition was the ecoroof demonstration project added by Ecoroofs Everywhere, back when it was a non-profit building ecoroofs in the Portland area. This small project on one of the gardens pumphouses tested three different ecoroof soil mixes and a variety of succulents suitable for local conditions. One item of a more horticultural approach that provides some added value by identifying plant species.


:: image of ecoroof and author by SuSu Hunniecutt


:: image by author

Another feature that I have not visited, but plan to this year, is the relocated Gordon House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and moved adjacent to the garden in 2002. A prominent example of FLW's Usonian architecture, which were developed during the depression as middle-income L-shaped houses which are derived from a simplicity of form and materials, and was considered a predecessor of the mid-century ranch house and the carport. Houses typically had a strong visual connnection with exterior and interior spaces, and were developed with a garden terrace in the exterior of the L-shaped structure.


:: image of Gordon House via Flickr by Major Clanger

Many local designeres at the time played parts in many areas of the garden throughout the years, so as much as it is a display of local plant variation, it becomes a display of local design variation as well. The Oregon Garden differs from some more horticulturally-oriented displays in the sense that it provides some more orderly arrangements, as well as some working demonstration and and test gardens. A goal of the upcoming year is to visit the Oregon Garden in all four seasons (with camera batteries charged), to see the variations throughout the year. So more to come.

Madness/Genius?

You decide... what can I say... Taking the idea of 'playing with your food' to, I guess, 'healthy' extremes, photographer Carl Warner has created landscapes using only food items, photographed and digitally manipulating pastoral nature scenes. Whereas broccoli is a no-brainer for a tree analog, who would've pictured pink salmon ocean water lapping on to shore in the tropical scene below.


:: image and link via Treehugger


:: image via BBC - follow link for more photos

Portland CityShrinking

Portland landscape architect extraordinare Dave Elkin, offers this take on City Shrinking, noted in the Landscape Urbanism year-end review... This photo of Portland's Sandy Green Street Project in miniature uses the techniques outlined by Ben Thomas in this Adobe Design Center interview, so you too can wield the power. I have yet to try but Dave swears it was a simple Photoshop process... seeing is almost believing.


:: image via Dave Elkin

Tasty Building/Landscape Fusions

I am definitely noticing the green wall/facade, vegetated architecture trend... with ASLA's blog asking the burning question: Are green walls 'the green roofs of 2008?' Seems so, at least in a theoretical, paper architecture visual sense - but as mentioned prior, green facades and walls are beginning to literally take root all over. A few notable recent finds:

Treehugger showed us the simplicity of Topiade by Gas Design Group. This overlay facade for existing Louis Vuitton stores that melds topiary forms in, you guessed it, shapes reminiscent of the LV logo... store branding to the extreme. From the renderings, it seems partially artificial and partially vegetated... Interestingly, Gas Design Group is a industrial and product design firm - illuminating for me, that like green roof technology, living wall technology will inevitably be pressured to perform not as a landscape, but as a commodity.


:: images via TreeHugger follow for additional links

On a totally different scale and concept, vegetative-leaning architect Ken Yeang's rendering for a 'bioclimatic' Elephant and Castle skyscraper in London.

:: image via Treehugger

Our third is another 'component' from a French company called Vegetalis, Greenwall S.A.S. The initial web shots shows some of the structural components for their mur vegetal, which, if my high school french doesn't fail me, means vegetated wall. Makes sense. Part of the appeal of these walls is the modularity, which has created products by a number of manufacturers, which can be installed, removed, adjusted in theoretically a simple manner... My upcoming goal is to collect examples of each of the systems to compare how they work, as well as visit some sites... now I just need to find a way to Paris.

:: image via Vegetalis - Greenwall S.A.S

Resources & Blogs Galore

It was time for some reevaluation of the goals and objectives of the site, which should actually begin to take shape. In the interim, this just in... a bevy of recent readings that have required some study to determine if they are worthy... still a dearth of landscape blogs.

1. Rumors have been floating around, so new in Portland, from former Oregonian Architecture and Arts writer Randy Gragg, is Portland Spaces magazine. As a self-professed magazine junky (hello, my name is Jason, and I am a magazine whore...) another magazine with some regional cache is much welcome. There are also some fledgling blogs on the site, to keep tabs on the scene.


:: image via Portland Architecture

While Portland gets some coverage in other magazines, such as Arcade Journal, the local landscape scene is pretty dismal (read: Homes and Gardens supplement in the Oregonian and their newly minted Homes+Gardens Northwest magazine, which is a glossy version of the same crappy Thursday fold-out). Another 'Northwest' oriented magazine - it get's a bit confusing, is Northwest Home, which is better, but Puget-Sound centric. And occasionally, we find something worthwhile in Sunset Magazine, although it's very unlikely. Anyone know of some others I missed?

I am running to get a copy, now.

Thanks to Brian Libby's most excellent and informative Portland blog that doesn't clutter my coffee table at Portland Architecture for the heads up on this one.

2. A short listing good ones that I have stumbled upon recently (to be added in the sidebar)...
Terrain.org has a blog with some regular content.
Aesthetic Grounds offers a glimpse of public spaces from an arts lens.
My Urband Garden Deco Guide more dwell exteriors than landscape urbanism, but they had me with the feature page on decorative pots, specifically photos of a line from Ego2.

Local Urban Agriculture

I've been reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, as well as continuing my work with a great and inspiring group called Verde, and it has put ephemeral site use and urban agriculture on the brain in some interesting new forms. Verde is a non-profit dedicated to [improving] "...the economic health of disadvantaged communities by creating environmental job training, employment, and entrepreneurial opportunities, fostering the connection between economic vitality and environmental protection and restoration."

The third leg of sustainability, social equity, often is neglected, and pairing job training with sustainable stormwater just makes so much sense that you gotta support the idea. I got hooked up with Verde and the executive director Alan Hipolito after working on a number of affordable housing projects through Hacienda CDC, mostly in Northeast Portland. The following is an example of some of the sustainable stormwater projects that have been completed recently, creating demonstration rain gardens at local sites:


::image via Verde

The long and short of it is that Verde now has the rights to establish a short-term production nursery operation on a former landfill property located in NE Portland. One of many surplus properties owned by the City of Portland, the Cully Park site as it is known, is slated for use as a future neighborhood park and ballfields, and a master planning process has begun to shape this future use. The goal for the site now is to temporarily use the site for production of stormwater plant materials and as a site for job-skills training. Recently, the idea has expanded to include potential strategies for urban gardening to use these sites.

Surveys of vacant and blighted land, which contributes little the community, reveals many acres of potential land that can be co-opted for alternative uses. While the idea of using vacant and underutilized land for agriculture is not new... but perhaps requires some additional revisitation pf other examples. Last December in various sources, including BLDGBLOG, was a story regarding Farmadelphia, which envisions wide areas of vacant lands in Philadelphia transformed to areas of urban agriculture:

:: images via BLDGBLOG

There has long been a shortage of community gardening spaces in Portland, and i'm guessing, wherever we live in urban areas where yards are either too shady or too small to provide a good growing environment. We are slow to add community gardens, both due to land costs, infrastructure, and just plain will - and thus we are constantly underserved with access to garden space. Rather than add any significant amounts of new gardens, there was the controversial removal of the Reed Community Garden (in which I had a plot for a year, and was mesmerized by gardens and gardeners on a daily basis there).

Another somewhat related option, Orion magazine featured an article 'Food Less Traveled', which some innovative Portland gardeners who run Your Backyard Farmer, a service that 'create sustainable organic farms' in people's backyards, sharing a CSA portion with the homeowner. With a message of 'We do the Work, you enjoy the healthy harvest', YBF is aimed at those either too busy or with excess urban land that would like to enjoy fresh vegetables without getting their hands dirty.

The Carbon Question

The Carbon Question is on everyone's mind these days, due in no small part to Al Gore an the shockingly good An Inconvenient Truth and a steadily growing acknowledgement of the problems associated with global warming and it's causes. This has been addressed as well in the architectural press, and the role that building occupies in the overall. Architects and advocates have responded with more green building in general, as well as more robust guidelines such as Architecture 2030 which continue to address the root cause (primarily energy use and materials production) and don't significantly address landscape issues.


:: logo via Architecture 2030

Recently Slate featured a column titled The Greenest Tree (Jan 8. 2008), which asks the question, 'Which tree species will do the most sequestering carbon?' Or simply, which species aid us in doing our part to limit global warming in the landscape. While there are some simple recommendations, such as planting trees that are large, and deciduous, and focusing on those fast growing species (because they sequester more carbon more quickly due to size). The winner, due to a 2002 survey by NY Oasis, is the Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) and the European Beech (Fagus sylvatica). The study delved into ecosystem valuation as well, by assessing a variety of factors such as size and type to provide a weighted compensatory value based on the tree.


::Liriodendron image via Floridata

Inevitably, the ability for plants to sequester carbon is fleeting, as they will release this carbon into the atmosphere when they die and begin to break down: From the same article in Slate:

"Yet even the hardiest native trees are doomed to die someday, and in doing so, spew their carbon back into the atmosphere. (That's particularly bad news when the trees are killed as part of a timber company's clear-cutting efforts, since no young trees are left behind to help mitigate the losses.) If you're around to witness your trees' twilight years, consider keeping the carbon in place by turning them into furniture or building lumber, rather than letting them go gently into that good night."


::sustainable furnishings via The Joinery

At the very least, planting MORE of any type of trees have multiple benefits to the public, of which carbon sequestration is just one. A more focussed study from a landscape perspective, would be to provide additional date on how much more carbon sequestration is actually provided via the soil biomass. While planting trees and building, this reinforces the need for making soil conservation and erosion control measures to maintain soils during construction and farming operations paramount.

LU Top 8: Recap 2007

While this blog has not been around long enough to warrant a year-end (or month-end) recap, I did spend some time sifting through the list of blogs and assorted sites that I look at regularly, and found some great stuff. While there are good sites that touch on landscape issues, like BLDGBLOG, Pruned and others... I want to position the content on this site to encompass the transitional space between building and landscape, while being able to occupy the margins of both areas of inquiry. See the constantly expanding sidebar to get a feel for the types of source material that I am drawing from.

This is a quick recap of the best of 2007 I encountered...

1. Pure Geography - from the October '07 blog Pruned, the residential development of Punta Pite, near Santiago, Chile, which was showcased in the August 2007 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine - and the cliffside trail system leading to the was skillfully designed by the Chilean firm Teresa Moller & Associados.


:: image via Pruned

2. Under construction photos of the California Academy of Sciences Building in San Francisco by Renzo Piano and the wonderfully organic and undulating green roof. I have yet to find out whom is responsibe for the green roof, but will do so asap.

:: image via Archidose

3. Tattoo House by Andrew Maynard Architects. As profiled in Architecture.MNP this architectural abstraction of vegetation teeters on the edge of kitsch without falling - making it a daring and quite simply stunning use of natural form to articulate a facade.


:: image via Architecture.MNP

4. The virtual mind-trick played by City-Shrinker using simple camera manipulation of the depth of field and color, creating a diorama-like effect that turns real spaces into virtual models.


:: image via Architecture.MNP

5. Agricultural rehabilitation via BLDGBLOG, featuring the work by Front Studio's creation of Farmadelphia. Using agricultural landscapes as ways to reclaim unused and blighted urban spaces.


:: image via BLDGBLOG

6. West 8's competition-winning entry for Governor's Island in New York City. See all of the entries (including Field Operations, Hargreaves, WRT, MDP - and some architects you may have heard of at the site: The Park at the Center of the World.


:: image via Treehugger

7. The consistently good work of Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture in the Bay Area. A overview of some of her work was posted on Atelier A+D, as well as showing up in many design mags throughout the year. Ahhh.


:: Pacific Heights Residence image via http://www.acochran.com/

8. Lastly, my newfound love of blogs and blogging (refer to sidebar for my current and growing list of readings) - I was a skeptic for years, passing blogging off as self-indulgent, mindless, crap. But no more... and it allows me to satisfy my sometimes insatiable craving for input, and gives me something productive (I guess) to do with it! Overall, I'm a little disappointed in the lack of good landscape blogs (Pruned has been slow of late) - and thus the desire to ramp up my content... Anyone knows of sites i'm missing, let me know.

Reading List: Blue Monday

Mondays aren't that bad... specifically when you start off with a wonderful book. The Architecture Urbanism Design Collective (AUDC) based out of Los Angeles published the book Blue Monday: Stories of Absurd Realities and Natural Philosophies.


:: image via AUDC

Led my Robert Sumrell & Kazys Varnelis, the site focuses on producing not built works, but texts, multimedia and a wiki, collectively summing up their approach to conceptual architecture. From the website mission statement:

@ AUDC uses the tools of architecture to research the role of the individual and the community in the contemporary urban environment.

@ AUDC constructs realities not objects.

@ Underscoring our work is a belief in finding ways of bringing people together. We define our practice by adhering to a system of core values that instill all our work with integrity and meaning.


:: unrelated to Mike - rooster image via Wikimedia Commons

The firm also has a number of essays, both small and large, focused around urbanism, found in alternative forms on the web and in publications. A favorite of mine, 'A Chicken's Guide to Life' is prominantly pinned up above my desk. It outlines the rural legend of Mike, the headless chicken that managed to survice for years after it's beheading - and uses the story as a parable for ability to '...continue living and moving forward without the benefit of a coherent system of logic or heirarchy.' Thanks Brett for the read and links...

Helvetica | Manufactured Landscapes

These documentary films have been in theaters for a bit. I recently was able to get both for home viewing, and found that they were definitely focused, at least tangentially, on design and landscape - both urban and rural.

HELVETICA
As a self-described font nerd, the first documentary Helvetica did not disappoint. Spanning the history of Neue Haas Grotesk, it's original name, over the past 50 years of use and misuse. Love it or hate it, Helvetica is a ubiquitous font - and the reactions from graphic design icons to new cutting edge firms are fascinating. Non-font lovers will be bored after 20 minutes, whereas anyone who has sifted/adjusted/fretted over the typeface and/or kerning to get it just, oh, so right - will be mesmerized. While i've never been a fan of Helvetica itself, I walked away with a new-found appreciation for the typeface and it's longevity.


:: image via Helvetica website

A number of designers were interviewed, and subtle camera shots of Helvetica in it's native habitat were used to showcase the commonality and flexibility of this typeface. In addition to commentary from anti-Helveticans David Carson and Eric Spiekermann, most notable for me was the interview with Michael C. Place of the London-based Build and his creative use of Helvetica in a number of forms. Also check out their site for a fascinating exhibition '50', focused on celebrating of 50 years of Helvetica.


:: poster image by Build via Helvetica website

The feeling that I was left with immediately after viewing, was a duality of love/hate for Helvetica (the font, not the film). The best description I can paraphrase from the film was that 'helvetica has not innate connotation in it's own, and thus is an inert material for the designer to use in creative ways.' While this concept of genericism seems simple, most designs, including type, have ingrained cultural meanings that can positively or negatively impact the overall design concept.


MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES
Second, the biopic documentary on photographer Edward Burtynsky titled Manufactured Landscapes was just made available via DVD from Netflix. I've been waiting for this one after missing it's brief run in town and hearing feedback from some folks that have seen it. The filming and photography was stunning, and the opening shot is worth the entire price of admission just for it's scale and monotony, but glimpse of humanity. Slow at times, it's definitely a pace that reinforces a certain mood - something you aren't riveted to but seems difficult to avert your eyes.



This was my first experience with the photography of Burtynsky. While I found the photos of China amazing, I was much more drawn to his photos of degraded, seemingly non-industrial landscapes, including photos of various mines and quarries. The impact of these images, in terms of nature and culture; beauty and blight - highlights the dichotomy of building and consuming, and the residual impacts that persist.

Kennecott Copper Mine No. 22 -Bingham Valley, Utah 1983


Nickel Tailings No. 34,Sudbury, Ontario 1996

:: Both images via Edward Burtynsky Photographic Works

Burtynsky's artist statment reinforces the idea of a consistent metaphor that can be derived from these images. The following excerpt from his website, reinforces the concept of seemingly ugly nature, rendered beautifully. This explains and magnifies how this is referential to our global society as a whole:

"Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis".

The film was well composed, with many long cuts of the process and landscapes. One of the scenes was particularly illuminating... While attempting to gain access to a degraded landscape of coal yards that supplies a majority of China's industrial growth, company officers are reluctant, repeatedly mentioning that that these would not make very 'pretty pictures'. Burtynsky's assistant shows them photographs of some of his other work and mentions 'that with his camera, he can make them beautiful.' The stunning image of coal piles extending into the horizon follows this exchange:

Tanggu Port,Tianjin, 2005

:: Image via Edward Burtynsky Photographic Works

The DVD definitely requires multiple viewings, and the additional bonus materials are well done and offer glimpses of Burtynsky's more expansive body of work. Not one to purchase films for rewatching, I plan on owning both of these and watching them repeatedly.

Both films focus on the man-made landscape, albeit in significantly difference media and scales. Helvetica examines something infinitely smaller-scale and constructed, a typeface, and it's larger impact on the overall landscape (of print, signage, and design). It has relevance to the day to day, and significant in the larger sphere of design. Much like a degraded piece of earth, it can also capture the mundane and ugly - along with the beautiful, which ties it in nicely with the central theme of Manufactured Landscapes. Small-scale or large, our creations, good or bad, mundane or significant, all speak of ourselves as much as they do themselves. Items which exist, and thus become part of the landscape, have the ability to tell myriad stories about us as individuals - such as the font you choose to use, and society as a whole - as in the degradation you can live with and perpetuate.

Landscape Urbanism Bullshit Generator

It's friday, so for a little humor, I've included this gem - The Landscape Urbanism Bullshit Generator, which is a simple interface that comes up with verb-adjective-noun combos using the lingo we've all come to love to parse.


:: image via Ruderal

My favorites for the evening:
@ intensify scalar meshworks
@ enable interstitial networks
@ matrix generative channels

Soon you will be able to 'incentivize visionary solutions' with the best of them. Brought to you by the Ruderal Land Trust, ...'incubating ephemeral taxonomies for home and office'. Thanks Tim S. for the link.

Artifice and Landscape

Everyone is publishing their best of 2007 blogs, and there are a number of interesting items of note. The amount of imagery showing buildings and landscape integrated was notable. My current interest is in seeing how many of these 'green' roofs and facades are actually feasible - and how many are merely the 'green mantle' just applied to a building as a inert material.

Modest examples from the Brad Pitt led competetion for housing in New Orleans... with open screen panels and vegetation, to the simple base treatment of pier footings including:


:: Design by James Timberlake, photo from Treehugger


:: Design by Shegiru Ban, photo from Treehugger

To acheive the next stage of greening, there is the abstraction from simple form to more robust unbuilt examples that require some significant work to realize. The first, by Edouard Francois, is entitled Eden Bio, and literally engulfs the structure in vegetative cover. I am personally a big fan, and loved some of the previous work, such as the TowerFlower in Paris, but must be skeptical of anyone whose face occupies a large portion of their website.


:: Design by Edouard Francois, photo from Dezeen

Next we move on to what BLDGBLOG described as 'literal green architecture' from SCIFI and architect Minsuk Cho... for a speculative building in Seoul, South Korea. This was my first introduction to Jeffery Inaba, whose interview with BLDGBLOG entitled 'of cars, dogs, golf and bad feng shui ' is a must read:

:: photo via BLDGBLOG

Our short tour ends with the notable non-building example. Still, it is a significant example of literal greenwashing... in the form of a mountain in China that was painted green. The reasons for doing this ranged from response to degraded environments do to increase logging and subsequent erosion, to improving the town's feng shui. Perhaps the $60,000 would have been better spent on actual green plants?

:: Photo from Sine English

It's over-the-top, but still a poignant example of the disregard for the actuality of vegetation as an material, whether natural or architectural. To portray landscape on par with horizontal and vertical panels of abstract material forgets the fact that there is pragmatism and reality to these types of application. This is not to say that they are not possible and that examples do not exist for precendents (such as the Renzo Piano designed California Academy of Sciences building and it's undulating green roof, or some recent living walls posted here). There is the excitement and use that is vital to continual innovation and adoption of landscape integration, but also the failure potential and logistics that will be required by landscape professionals to pull them off. Take into account maintenance, and it's definitely a large issue - but also a wonderful opportunity. Time for LAs to step up to the challenge - it's going to be a green, green year.

Best Careers 2008

The year starts off with news that we've all know for years. US News and World Report issued their Best Careers of 2008, which includes Landscape Architect in the listings. Also included for 2008 from the design world are Urban Planner, and Engineer. While perhaps over-simplifying the profession, here's Marty Nemko's description of a typical day in the life of a landscape architect:

Landscape Architect: A Day in the Life
"You've started a new assignment: designing the landscape for a school district's administration center. You've already met with the developer, project architect, civil engineer, hydrologist, and government regulators. Today, you're considering the site's sun patterns, land slopes, and soil characteristics. You read the results of a questionnaire you gave to the site's future users, trying to figure out what would make their experience most pleasant and efficient. Then, using a computer-design program, you sketch out a first draft of the site's land grading, building placement, walkways, and roadways, along with decorative features such as plantings and a fountain. Next, you head out to the work site for a walk-through, documenting your stroll with a camcorder. You get excited as you set up a meeting to present your draft plan to the client. If only you didn't have to spend two days writing a sheaf of land use and environmental documents for the government."

Making the dubious Overrated Careers list was our friends the Architect. I don't know if i agree totally with the the prognosis, there is some validity regarding the negative trends including: "...the housing decline souring the job market... more potential clients are offshoring the work to India, downloading premade blueprints developed by top architects, or having lower-cost interior/exterior designers or building contractors design their structure."

Either way, there is perhaps a shifting of the bias/balance between architecture and landscape architecture regarding our value and skill-set, including site planning, sustainable design, and integrated building/landscapes. I think in the end, both professions are healthy and vibrant, and in need of a collaborative spirit that will continue to provide innovation and creativity - which cannot be out-sourced or prefabricated.