Natural Stone Permeable Paving System

[L+U NOTE: This is a guest post from Miles Chaffee from Milestone Imports]

"With the rising popularity of permeable pavement systems in residential and commercial landscape designs, it is important for landscape professionals to educate themselves about the different materials available for paving options. Natural stone is increasingly used as a permeable paver because of its durability and aesthetic appeal, as well as ability to facilitate water filtration and aid in land conservation. Stone such as Porphyry, a natural granite, is used today to design driveways, streets, walkways and parking lots.



While there are several materials that can be used for permeable paving, there has been a growing interest in natural stone as a resource for permeable paving systems because of the aesthetical appeal. The benefits of permeable paving include a more beautiful, user friendly environment that eliminates unsightly retention ponds and can reduce runoff by 80 percent or more. This eliminates puddling and flooding on parking lots while reducing snow plowing costs because of the rapid ice melt drainage.

The primary purpose in the design of a natural stone permeable paving system is to effectively reduce and manage the quantity of surface rain water runoff while accommodating pedestrians, vehicular parking and traffic. Permeable paving has proven particularly valuable in existing urban developments where the need to expand parking areas is hindered by the lack of space due to retention ponds. In these situations, permeable paving is a cost effective way to create parking areas, while eliminating the need for some retaining ponds, since permeable paving allows the rainwater to filter back into the ground naturally.



By definition, for a surface to be permeable, it must allow for water to penetrate the surface through porous openings. In segmental or unit paving, like natural stone or brick pavers, the joints are what make the surface permeable. Some surface materials, such as gravel, do not have a solid surface and therefore allows water to pass through to the subsurface.

Typically a subsurface for segmental permeable paving would be designed using a crushed stone base which would provide filtration and partial treatment for rain water runoff pollution. A full filtration system designed for permeable subsurface soils should allow the storm water to penetrate the surface and filter through the base course and the native soils back into the aquifers. If the capacity of the soil to filtrate the water is exceeded, the base may be designed to filter, partially treat and slowly release the water into a storm sewer.

For the landscape professional and the customer it is important to note that this system also promotes tree survival by providing air and water to the roots and works to preserve woods and open space when using retention ponds. The customers can also benefit by using the additional space allowed in the building to increase the rental income of the building. This may also reduce overall development costs due to the reduction in storm sewers and other drainage methods otherwise required.

The different types of permeable paving have pros and cons. In terms of cost, gravel is the least expensive option. The drawbacks are that it requires frequent maintenance and renewal and the high upkeep increases the cost over time. Also, wheel ruts easily form in gravel which detracts from the appeal. Permeable concrete and asphalt are next in terms of expense, but studies have shown them to be prone to clogging, negating their efficacy. A study conducted be the Metropolitan Engineer’s Council in Denver showed a complete failure of permeable concrete under freeze-thaw conditions similar to those here in Santa Fe. The City of Rosemary Beach Florida tore out permeable concrete city streets due to clogging and replaced it with concrete pavers with permeable joints.

Brick, concrete, and natural stone pavers require that the material in the joints be permeable since the pavers themselves are not considered to be permeable. The brick must be the correct type and manufactured to specific requirements in order to be used as paving, especially in freeze-thaw climates. Constant freezing and thawing is harder on materials than climates that freeze and remain frozen for long periods. Concrete pavers offer a low cost option for paving and can last ten to fifteen years – just as brick can.

Natural stone is more durable – think of the Roman roads that were made out of Porphyry and other roads in Europe that were built centuries ago and still exist today. Again, the joint material must be permeable. Stone can be expensive but long outlasts other materials, which reduces the overall cost during the extend lifespan of the stone.

No matter the material chosen for a permeable paving project the benefits out weigh the additional costs. Permeable paving can free land designated for retaining ponds and has numerous environmental benefits. Done correctly with durable materials the paving can have a long life span and be aesthetically pleasing.

About the Author:
Miles Chaffee
Founder and President of Milestone Imports

Miles has been active in the stone business for over 18 years. In 1996, he founded Milestone, Inc. which began as a small stone yard and tile store. As business grew and developed, Miles created a separate enterprise, Milestone Imports, in 2002 to focus on quarry-direct representation of Porphyry paving stones. Milestone Imports now represents Porphyry quarries from around the world importing and distributing throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Miles’ travels have carried him to diverse locations to promote Porphyry as a historically sound material that provides beauty and sustainable solutions to today’s modern challenges. He has traveled throughout the world to locate and research high quality materials with sound quarrying practices that lend themselves to the demands of his customers.

Bell Street Park - Seattle

A new project recently via the Daily Journal of Commerce unveiled by SvR Design Company in Seattle shows a pair of proposals for Bell Street Park: "The project will affect the area from First to Fifth avenues and create 17,000 square feet of park space. The city is converting one lane of traffic to public recreational space and reconfiguring parking to create a linear open space with landscaping, lighting and pedestrian amenities."


:: image via Seattle Parks

The team created a couple of different concepts, based on good streetscape principles and some of the cultural and natural history of the area of the city. A description of the concepts and some commentary from Nate Cormier, landscape architect at SvR is included in the article, along with a representative concept block of each plan:

CONCEPT ONE
The first 'Sluiced Surface Plan': "...was inspired by the earth moving that created Bell Street... it is meant to represent the changed landscape. The pathway through the park meanders down the street, moving from side to side. Cormier said it reflects the fact that cities are always changing, and that some landscapes are made while others are unmade. "


:: image via Daily Journal of Commerce

From a presentation on the design, some additional images to explain the concepts a bit further, exploring some of the significant 'flattening' that happened to topographic features through sluicing.


:: image via Seattle Parks

And finally a vignette sketch of the plan.


:: image via Seattle Parks

CONCEPT TWO
The second, called 'Measured Movement Plan': "...was inspired by the rhythms of the street and also reflects the area's history as Seattle's film row. In this design, the park would have a pathway straight down the street. “This one says, the people in a sense are the architects,” Cormier said. “It's more of a stage, more flexible, more taut compared to the other one that really sets up those opportunities more explicitly.”


:: image via Daily Journal of Commerce

The more formal elements of this plan are derived from a more mechanical processes and industrial heritage, as well as referencing the areas history of film. The repetition and modulation of spaces using the filmic idea of frames, using lighting and the tracery of impressions of people as a conceptual framework for organizing the site.


:: image via Seattle Parks

A vignette sketch of this plan as well.


:: image via Seattle Parks

More on Digital Media

A follow-up to the interactive interview on Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture Bradley Cantrell sent me a couple of links to the work he and others are doing in the digitial realm down at Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University.


:: image via reactscape

The first is his own blog, reactscape.visual-logic.com, which primarily focusing on digital media and responsive environments in landscape architecture. From his bio, you get a feel for the topics that Cantrell is interested in:

"His own research and teaching focuses on using digital film and techniques to represent landscape form and phenomenology. This work in digital representation ranges from improving the workflow of digital media in the design process, to providing a methodology for deconstructing landscape through compositing and film editing techniques. Another of his research interests is creating interactive landscapes using devices which express site characteristics through ambient cues. A continuation of work started while he was at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, this research aims to strengthen designers’ analysis and understanding of landscape and the everyday use of space."

Some twitter links lead to thoughts on mechanization of farming and the modeling capacity of legos which set the stage for delving into an interesting mix of technology and the landscape worth exploring. A quick perusal of the rest of the site (if 'quick' is possible with all of the interesting tangents and links) yields a range of interesting work, notably the explorations of 'Ambient Space' (see concept model above), and and exploration of the abandoned Mississippi Basin Model, a large scale analog model for testing performance of strategies in the lower Mississippi detail region. As you see from the model images the systems aren't representational, but rather use materials that simulate functions to test the variety of scenarios.


:: MBM Model - image via reactscape

A more formalized site lab.visual-logic.com features a range of work conducted at LSU around design computing, as well as the research for a fascinating course 'Illustrating Ecologies' is compiled, along with other research and resources.



Without going into too much detail, I will offer the link and an invitation to explore for yourself, and will be posting some interesting finds from the site in the future. The potential explorations should provide some seeds related to new media forms and a reconfiguration of the means of representation in landscape architecture, which is far overdue. The combination of information gleaned from other sources, along with original research is fascinating.

Check out both sites, you won't be disappointed.

Metropolitan Field Guide

University of Oregon landscape architecture graduate and now Seattle resident Kelly Brenner has an interesting blog called 'The Metropolitan Field Guide' which focuses on design for urban wildlife habitat. As a self-professed generalist which tends to take me on ADHD-addled tours of pretty much everything, I'm a big fan of folks who aim to provide content based on specific elements of the urban landscape. This is a great addition with both practical and creative ideas around the theme.


:: image via Metropolitan Field Guide

Some recent posts include a riff on habitat and large green roofs, the interesting Cardiff animal wall (seen here on L+U), and the Biornis Aesthetope (seen here on L+U). Another interesting post includes some of the adaptation of urban fauna, similar to a post I remember doing a few months back showing a bird nesting in the housing of a street light. This photo of a nest made from scrap wire is indicative of the resilience of many species in using what is available to them.


:: image via Metropolitan Field Guide

Looks like she's just getting started, but if urban ecology and habitat is of interest - add this one to your feeds.

Field Ops is Hot (Still)

In addition to being named on the top 10 list in Fast Company's Most Innovative Architecture Companies (the only LA on the list) and the major success of the High Line, a couple of recent wins have pushed James Corner Field Operations fully from the realm of the theoretical provocateur, to competition all-star to full-fledged big name landscape architecture project powerhouse.


:: image via LA Times

The Fast Company article included the likes of DS+R, MVRDV, Kieran Timberlake, and Santiago Caltrava, and mentioned the firms most visible work to date: "James Corner's New York-based landscape architecture firm led the design team that transformed the High Line, an abandoned elevated railway track on Manhattan's west side, into a wildly successful public park. Up next: revitalizing Philadelphia's Race Street Pier."


:: Race Street Pier - 'The Slice' - image via Plan Philly

In addition, there has been copious press related to Field Operations' design proposals for Cleveland's Public Square. As mentioned on Design Under Sky: "James Corner, of Field Operations and High Line Park fame have worked directly with two nonprofit organizations, Parkworks and the Downtown Cleveland Alliance. Corner offers three radically different designs to the square. Deemed, The Frame, The Forest, and The Thread, the concepts address traffic and circulation matters to different extremes, while all providing elements of urban park goodiness."




:: images via Design Under Sky

Two recent additions to the portfolio, spotted via World Landscape Architect, announce some more high-profile commissions for Atlanta and Santa Monica. The first includes design for the 22-mile Atlanta Beltway, which, according to The Dirt, Field Operations and "...Perkins+Will have been selected as the lead designers of the Atlanta Beltline, a 22-mile green beltway of park networks, multi-use trails and light rail, which will also reuse and revitalize old rail tracks and restore local ecosystems. "


:: image via The Dirt

The last is annoucement from the LA Times that Field Operations "...has prevailed in a high-powered design competition for a 7-acre park in the heart of the Santa Monica Civic Center". An interesting addition is the makeup of some of the teams, which included some big name architecture firms. "Of the six competitors for the park job, Field Operations was the only one without an architecture firm attached. It beat out entrants including Frank Gehry and a team made up of landscape architect Peter Walker and architect Frederick Fisher."

The trend towards high-profile park design featuring architects may begin to change as some high-profile LA firms gain the credibility to go it alone. And to show that the firm isn't doing quite everything in the US, and are maybe a bit busy with the current workload - Field Operations was conspicuously absent from the list of finalists for the St. Louis Gateway Arch Design competition, leaving room for a number of other high-profile LAs as team leads or team members.

This who's who of designers in St. Louis should produce some interesting ideas and inevitably a great concept, but I really think competitions that don't rely on great ideas submitted in anonymity - such as this one with an open qualifications process that made it easy to pick the big names - limit opportunities for any new faces to appear. It's less a competition than a high-profile RFQ.

Isn't the competition a chance for the new rising stars to shine? Instead of reinforcing the current roster of stars that get visible and notable work worldwide, how about using the competition for tapping into potential. If big firms when - they do so on merit of ideas, not just reputation. Just look what that model did for Field Operations in the first place?

New Blogs

It's been ages since I've posted about some of the recent blog additions. To maintain my sanity, I've decided that for each new blog I add to my personal RSS feed, I take another off (the total hovers around 120 or so, which is a lot of input). I keep all of them in the various sidebars, but focus on 'reading' the ones with consistent and relevant content. Some notable inclusions:

Digital Urban: A recent addition, the site features some amazing work utilizing a range of digital tools that literally had me staring at videos for a couple of hours. More to post on some of this work, but in synopsis, the blog is "...written by Dr Andrew Hudson-Smith, aimed at examining the latest techniques to visualise the city scape via digital media it covers a lot of the work going on at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London."

Edible Geography: Nicola Twilley explores a fascinating breadth of topics around concepts of food, maps, and much in between. Part of the growing BLDGBLOG empire, you get a feeling that dinnertable conversations are never dull after spending the days mining the ephemera of the world that never graces the pages of mainstream media.

Civil Eats: Taking a more literally approach to food, Civil Eats is one of my go to blogs for ideas on food and urban agriculture, looking to promote "...critical thought about sustainable agriculture and food systems as part of building economically and socially just communities." It's a great compliment to City Farmer News and some of the food writing from The Grist.

mammoth: A tag-team effort from Stephen Becker and Rob Holmes the blog mines similar terrain to the peripheral investigators that make for great blog content. Their manifesto gives a good indication of the diverse margins of writing and interest: "Our interests include extinct megafauna, the production of urban space through the manipulation of infrastructure, landscape processes, and tactical architectural interventions aimed at forestalling the arrival of our inevitably dystopian future and/or ushering in a new era of global harmony."

Next American City: The multi-author blog companion to the quarterly magazine, the site offers great thinking on contemporary urban issues, reminiscent of the great Design Observer site. From the NAC site: "We observe, document and conceive realistic solutions about how to improve cities—how to ensure that future generations’ lives are improved, and not made more dangerous or unnecessarily complicated by the decisions we make"

Urban Tick: Another product of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis in London, the blogs takes a specific process-oriented look at urban cycles: "With this blog the research on cycles and rhythms will be embedded in the most recent developments in technology, covering a range of areas with a focus on space-time related technologies."

Infrascape Design: Authored by Barry Lehrman, a landscape architect and educator from Minnesota, the blog focuses on a range of material, centered around "...green infrastructure, sustainable cities, and high-performance buildings around the world"

faslanyc: Simply put, intelligent, critical (often irreverent) but always spot on discourse on landscape architecture; or exactly what we need. From the blog header: "Take a nice book about landscape architecture. drop it in a puddle in a gutter on a street in New York City. leave it outside to dry and forget about it for a year. that wrinkled, yellowed edge, the way it crumbles when you touch it- that is FASLANYC."

Urban Cartography: Infographics galore! Some great, some terrible, all interesting. See notes below on quantity and tumblrs,

Free Association Design (FAD): written by my friend and colleague from Portland, Brett Milligan explores the landscape with a focus reminiscent of BLDGBLOG and Pruned and the afforementioned mammoth - investigating many of the margins of landscape and architectural practice that place the profession firmly in the world of large-scale works, infrastructure, and urbanism, and less in the garden.

Plan and Section: Written by a MLA student from University of Texas at Austin, the theme is squarely in the terrain of representation in landscape architecture: "The aesthetics of representation are heavily explored on this site as well as the social pull graphics can have in illustrating that landscapes are socially necessary and economically viable"

I'm also amazed and overwhelmed by many the various tumblr-type sites... amazed by some of the great images and snippets of projects - overwhelmed by the sheer output and redundancy between them. Something about the type of site interface seems to lends itself to 20-30+ 'posts' in a day, which tends to make me want to just delete the works rather than sift through them for interesting links, or just unsubscribe for sanity-sake. That said, a few notables that focus on the landscape architecture are People and Place, makdreams, urban greenery, if you don't mind a daily bombardment of great images.

Drawing the Land

A unique opportunity to tap into one of the most creative minds in modern landscape architecture representation, Brad Cantrell, via an online webinar/interview on Land8Lounge conducted by Drew Maifield of The LANDWIRE.




Cantrell is author of Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture (Published by Wiley, 2010) which promises to be the most complete resource of landscape related techniques captured to date. A must read for anyone looking to get the most out of the digital tools in representing design solutions. As Maifield mentions: "...imagine being able to listen in and hang with the expert who wrote the book on this pivotal topic! "

The event is happening February 18th, 2010 at 8pm CST, so be sure to sign up today, and also check out more of Brad's work via his portfolio on Land8.

On Landscape Criticism 3

The final essay 'On Criticism 6: On Bias in Criticism' comes from Stephen Rustow and completes what has been a really fun, if quick, review of the status and possibilities of landscape criticism inspired by Urban Omnibus. The concept of criticism is laid out as a 'revealing' to the larger public what the intentions and for lack of a better word, 'meaning' of a design is: "It is the first job of the critic to list and elucidate for a larger, non-professional public what those questions are; then to ask how, and how well, the project responds to those questions. Finally, the critic must ask what value those questions have in a larger context and whether they are the right questions to be asking at this moment in time."

This personal viewpoint opens up the idea of bias, as the critic is inserting themselves into the argument and taking a stance about some specific contexual or stylistic piece of the work. The goal is not to diminish the importance, but as stated, the critic must have a 'stance' that is well-founded and appropriate. While I'm not convinced that the audience (of the critic, not the work) is actually the 'non-professional public' which is somewhat of a dichotomy. While the users of the work are specifically that public, it is debatable whether the critic is writing to this particular audience - and if it even matters. Either way, perhaps it is the critic that informs the larger discussion within 'architecture' which can engage both the public (users) and the designer (author) in meaningful ways - perhaps just to connect the two is dialogue.

The idea of criticism of that which is 'bad' is an interesting dilemma. While the focus should no solely be on good or bad, there is the need to celebrate both sides - one as exemplars the other as learning moments. Each of these must come with appropriate context as gushing praise without foundation is equally as detrimental as derogatory remarks that are based on nothing tangible. Again this goes back to the question of audience - what is bad to one group may be good to another. Designers may be able to see the constructive criticism, whereas a less educated reader will just blindly say 'That's bad design'. Are they given the tools to make this interpretation for themselves, or is it just given to them from one viewpoint?

As case in point, I recently attended a meeting of green roof professionals where the idea of discussing project 'failures' was met with uncomfortable silence to downright anger. The crux was that anything negative was going to diminish our ability to grow the profession by making us look bad. My thought was that a dialogue about lessons learned removes the danger of making similar mistakes over and over, but also to learn how to get better, more efficient, and more technically solid. While it is hard to hear or discuss dissenting views, if any group is suited to this it is the design professions, which has education and practice based on criticism as a way to learn (a process which never stops for an entire lifetime). You learn to listen, accept that which is valid, interpret that which is directive, and dismiss that which is irrelevant (or perhaps hyperbolic).

Returning to bias, Rustow ends with the thought that contemporary criticism lacks the necessary distance to evaluate context in a meaningful way. Historical referents are great for providing necessary lessons from the past (thus the teaching of history in design schools) but critique of current work, within our messy and unexamined context, is still vital. Locally, we discuss often the work of Halprin in the sequence of connected parks in the south auditorium district - both in the context of today as well as the previous context in which they were built in the early 1970s. Viewpoints vary, opinions fly, and we all think of how landscapes change and culture changes and sometimes the relevancy of longevity of our work will be judged long after we die, as well as the moment if goes into the ground (or maybe earlier).

The connection is between all modes of discussion that span from today towards the past (which the late Howard Zinn shows us is subjective for sure) - all of which incorporates bias in good measure to be successful. Rustow ends:

"Criticism of course is but the first draft of history, not the thing itself. It is journalistic in the original Latin/Francophone sense of the word — ‘of today.’ Its historical aspirations, such as they are, can only be to serve as the raw material of some future, more dispassionate, analysis. But in exchange criticism can — must — make full claim to passion, to the convictions, enthusiasms and biases that animate discussion today, now, in full understanding that once our passions are spent they too will become the subject of more broadly contextual and quieter historical methods. Deprived of any pretense to history, criticism has nothing left but bias: without bias criticism is worthless."

On Landscape Criticism 2

Following up on the previous review of editorials from Urban Omnibus in the post 'On Landscape Criticism', I wanted to continue with the next three essays. The continuation of thinking delves into some more specifics.

In 'On Criticism 4', William Bostick warns of the perils of the broad focus in terms of minimizing the impact of criticality: "When we write about architecture, yes, we should write about it in context. Big, city-shaping forces are at work here, but those can be cumbersome ideas, and trying to talk about them pushes us into metaphor territory or worse, theory." I think this is a double-edged sword, and perhaps to shy away from it minimizes the overall potential of architectural and landscape criticism. This may be part of the difficulty in establishing a viable strategic stance for landscape, as it isn't neat and tidy but is big and cumbersome... the hermetically sealed and controlled box is easy to assess, the untidy landscape urbanism is not.

The fact that the 'danger' is to, gasp! move into theory is pretty funny - as I can think of no more welcome addition to discourse than some good theory. To explain, I don't think we need more intellectual posturing or overly wrought scientific methodologies applied to landscape, and there is still the need for critique of objects. It's more but theory as a hybrid of the analytical and the philosophical - neither completely empirical (which is impossible and irrelevant) nor wholly detached from the reality (which is somewhat useless aside from thought exercise). This is perhaps why the majority of what passes for landscape critique is formless, as we have yet to determine a model that seems to work.

As Bostick continues, he finds the interest in some of the personalities versus the work, which aligns with much of the journalistic bent we find in much writing. We love celebrities (the TMZ reference from faslanyc is an apt metaphor) in all things - even over the actuality of originality of the work. There are many reasons why firms tend to have the names of their founders prominant, not just as a reference to that person's talent, but as a defined way of 'branding' a product. Look at landscape architecture firms - at least the more prominent... mostly name firms, with a strongly branded personality that can both inspire the work and provide a interview-friendly mouthpiece for the media. You know the names - van Valkenburgh, Schwartz, Walker, Hargreaves, Sasaki, etc.. Even recently I noticed that 'Field Operations' has tied the name James Corner directly to the firm splash page... as Corner the 'personality/brand' has a lot more media potential than Field Ops the 'firm'. It's an interesting concept, and important, because when you talk about a firm like 'Diller Scofidio + Renfro' you do so as both a collective and as individual people (well, maybe not Renfro), but still marketing genius.

I've talked at length before about the celebritization of many facets of new design beyond the firm (i.e. Fritz Haeg, Dickson Despommier, Cameron Sinclair, Emily Piloton, or the pinnacle - Brad Pitt who made Make it Right a household name). This isn't to diminish the work (which is good, great, and more), but really to point the lens at what matters: the actual work created by these folks and its relevance, or a way of personify the work and literally put a face to it. It may be impossible, but is it possible to talk about the work, it's context, and it's people in equal measure? Furthermore, is it possible to detach, in our culturally dense worlds, any piece of work, particularly in criticism, from the myriad forces that shape it (including the media itself?).

Continuing on, I waited with anticipation to read faslanyc's 'On Criticism 5' which focused on the landscape side a bit more (venturing into the small 'a' if you will). His tenets regarding the superficiality of the current state includes both the inherent insecurity of landscape architecture and the divide that exists in rhetoric and attitude between academia and practice.

The first, and most visible, is our insecurity, which is frankly obvious in the type of criticism that we tend to embrace... a . As mentioned, this is a product of the demise of modernism and the failure of post-modernism, leaving us lacking in a viable -ism to hand our hat on. Again referencing Koolhaas' essay 'Whatever happened to Urbanism?, he: "...gave voice to an unsettling feeling that had been haunting practitioners since it became apparent that modernist architecture was not the panacea it claimed and not as important as it supposed. Forced to confront superfluity in a single generation, the critical discourse within the profession took up defensive positions to weather the storm."

While I agree with the above assessment, I think it has more to do with an inherent lack of confidence in the validity of the argument, or at least in our ability to express it in appropriate ways. The closest analogy I can include (at the risk of getting political) is the ability of the 'right wing' to hone in with laser precision on the essence of the issue and create a collective viewpoint, versus the 'left wing' looking a nuance and subtleties (context you may say) and getting mired in the details, resulting in a watered down and incoherent message. It's an oversimplication, but people tend to understand a simple black-white argument and place themselves within that versus muddling through various shades of gray. Do we want to over-simplify things to the point of polarity? No. But we do need to specifically occupy critical terrain and build fortifications with continuing expanded thought to strengthen that position. Otherwise, we internally bicker or worse, flip-flop :)

The second is more insidious, as it addresses the severed split between the academic and the pracitioner - which results in a typically incomplete application. One side is mired in complexity of language as a way to distance itself, the other can't be bothered with 'theory', because we have important work to do. The blending of both thought and action is notably absent to the majority of the profession - much to the detriment of the whole. As faslanyc points out: "For this reason, the majority of practitioners have abdicated their responsibility to contribute to the contemporary discourse within the professions. It is currently dominated by writers and theoreticians with no foundation in praxis..."

"...As a result, the critical discourse has become a series of self-catalyzing memes and hyperbolic metaphors characterized by a forced focus on concept and cult of personality. Only projects deemed exemplary according to a conservative set of values (standards of beauty, economic viability, social popularity) are discussed and then largely in a laudatory tone. This is not healthy criticism."

Continuing on, we move to the concept of meaning in landscape architecture, which was captivating for me early in my career. The idea of instilling meaning into a design is fascinating for a fledgling landscape architecture professional - giving another facet to provide depth to design beyond 'style' or in modern obsession 'sustainability'. You can have both, right? Referencing Marc Trieb's essay on the subject from Landscape Journal 'Must Landscapes Mean?' (of which I have a dog-eared copy somewhere) it is easy to think there is possibility in a collection of narrative metaphors linked into a language. But will anyone understand, or better yet, will they care?

Finishing up, there is the overall idea of where to go - which goes back to our current situation of landscape architecture criticism - 'where do we start?' faslanyc includes four ideas to consider: "political process, cultural context, a focus on criticism through time, and polemics." I'll leave you to read them in the essay specifically, but a few thoughts spring to mind.

Regarding political process, this seems to be the beauty of some of the more interesting landscape urbanism thinkers - navigating the manifold players and barriers, spread over long periods of time, to achieve an appropriate and flexible solution (and perhaps more important, convincing these folks that the 'design' is never done.) Corner at Fresh Kills seems the best example of this in action, with a glacial timeline and myriad bureaucracy to navigate making the political as much a site factor as the site itself.

Culture has been addressed previously, but seems the antidote to one of the great flaws to the overly rational methods incorporated in the McHargian method - infusing the aspect of people and culture to inform the purely scientific. Data with a conscience perhaps? Additionally, landscape absolutely needs the element of temporality in design and criticism, both in terms of inherent flux in the system, but also to highlight the unfinished nature of the work and the role of maintenance personnel as actors work towards.

The final portion, polemics, is the key to our taking a fresh look at professional criticism - and needs to be included - with good argument and context in support. While all projects exist in a cultural frame, each has differing goals and objectives - so something as simplistic as 'cost' isn't a viable argument. While the High Line is mentioned, a more appropriate case for this is my ongoing criticism of the ASLA Headquarters Green Roof. The critique is not with design, technique, application, or intent - but that the goals of the project were to promote the concept of green roofs as a visible pilot project. While the former are well executed, the latter came to bear with a price tag that would make all but the most motivated of clients flee. In this regard, it is a failure and should be considered such. The purpose of course, isn't degradation, but an honest accounting of all of the goals and how well we met them. Every designer should be able to handle this.

"As a profession, we gain nothing by constantly patting the same people (and by extension, ourselves) on the back for a job well done. Designers know that no project is perfect. Self-righteous celebration is not the job of criticism within the profession."

These four elements proposed by faslanyc are a great working method for current landscape criticism, as they expand the argument beyond mere style or sustainability to include other factors that must be included within all arguments. The inclusion of a range of voices from many different disciplines, working with an honesty and transparency, will do nothing but help us improve.

A final essay on Urban Omnibus is left to discuss, focusing on the idea of 'bias', of which this post is already too long to accomodate... stay tuned.

On Landscape Criticism

A great ongoing series of posts on Urban Omnibus delves into one of those topics that seems missing from the dialogue in landscape architecture -- that of real criticism regarding the profession. I don't mean the type of mindless carping that happens based on polarities of viewpoint or in response to the profession being declared 'dead'. For the most part, the concept of criticality seems absent from most thought processes, project work, review, engagement, discussion or interaction, save the occasional provocative essay or graduate theory class.

The editorials focus on the big 'A' that has typified design of building objects (i.e. Architecture) rather than more broadly encompassing little 'a' architecture that I feel discusses a wider range of design. As mentioned on the opening part of the discussion by Andrew Blum, 'On Criticism', the key question is scope in terms of that particular professional lens: "Is architecture criticism still architecture criticism? Is it still – if it ever was – about merely architecture? Or do the forces that change the built environment come from a broader toolkit: from urban planning, certainly, but also from the more engineering-heavy realms of infrastructure, or more policy-heavy realms of politics?"

Big 'A' architecture criticism seems to be at a crossroads - wondering in this context: 'Where Next?'. This seems driven by a perceptible shift to a new expanded era of urbanism and infrastructure and a continued disengagement from starchitecture and its inherent lack of depth. This is where the interdiscplinary and less-building-centric 'small 'a' architecture (of which landscape architecture and urbanism exist) is uniquely suited for this scale and scope. Aside from just neo-infrastructural systems or new, better versions of sustainability, this shift offers the opportunity for landscape architecture to insert themselves fully into this arena and fully embrace a dynamic new era of professional relevance. The question is, do we still continue on our current path of tepid critical inquiry, or do we embrace the need for self-consciousness as a way not of marginalizing ourselves but as a method for expanding our reach and relevance.

The need for art is not to be downplayed, as it the poetic is just as important as the technical. The difference is that it isn't a binary position as we have seen it, over the past half century slipping into a new versions of the art v. nature debate that has sustained the majority of landscape architecture criticism of thinking. As mentioned in Diana Lind's followup 'On Criticism 2' the dichotomy was best expressed in the broad viewpoints of Herbert Muschamp and Jane Jacobs - both in New York but worlds apart in ideology: "Jane promoted common-sense principles and ideas. You shouldn’t put a highway through the middle of SoHo; a street with broken windows looks unsafe and thus will encourage crime. Herbert, on the other hand, championed risk-taking — in architecture, in writing, in life." Lind expands that point by reinforcing the tomy, particularly in discussion less of building per se (Muschamp; Big 'A') and the idea of context (Jacobs, small 'a'):

"Architecture criticism has become too much of a discussion of form and ability, and not enough about context. We wouldn’t dare call Jane Jacobs an “architecture critic” now — but she wrote about how buildings function in a society. What Jane and Herbert didn’t do was write about architects. They both used the built environment to comment on how it symbolized something more profound about society. As architecture criticism has been pushed further to the outskirts of regular arts coverage, we architecture critics can’t further isolate the discussion by writing solely about an architect’s talent or a particular building’s aesthetics. Maybe it will no longer be a matter of choice. How can we write about singularity in this time of populism and interconnectedness?"

This idea of context, populism, and interconnectedness is the foundation of the landscape idea, so the ability for us to address bigger issues that . While a beautiful project gives us hope and makes us sometimes forget our trouble, does it really do anything in this larger context worthy of our praise. Alec Appelbaum 'On Criticism 3' delves somewhat into the, discussing this lack of context in relation to larger factors like climate change: "You’d expect those of us who “see” urban design to highlight projects that foster dialogue and blunt climatic calamity.Yet too often we acclaim renderings that airbrush conflicts out of urban scenes – like Rem Koolhaas’ mischievous new midrise, or Steven Holl’s constellation-like Shenzen experiment. Who will flag insidious design choices... and challenge them?"

It's interesting that Koolhaas and Holl are pulled into this argument in this particular way. Not that they aren't still significant big 'A' style practitioners, but compared to a Liebskind or Gehry, they represent a more robust side of architecture that is less focused on the building that has expanded into the realm of the urban and contextual. It's also telling that many of the more vocal and articulate writers on the concepts of landscape urbanism seem to be architects (as opposed to planners or landscape architects) many riffing on some of the conceptual terrain laid out by Koolhaas. That isn't to say some voices are out there such as James Corner, Elizabeth Meyer, Richard Weller, and Kristina Hill (to name but a few) are expanding the number of landscape voices out in the media. These and others have laid out a foundation of thought that is slowly starting to find a voice and some application in actual project work. Is this getting addressed in the large discussions (i.e. media) of landscape architecture, beyond fawning over the High Line or parsing the latest graphics from a high-profile design competition? Even our main-stream criticism is relatively hollow, consisting of question of technique over larger questions of relevance.

The stars are aligned an opportunity for the profession to step up and occupy some of this rich terrain. The transformation of the architectural scope beyond building, the focus on urbanism and infrastructure as more appropriate systems for building and growing, and the acknowledgment of the importance of context all lead towards a more expansive role of landscape architecture in the dialogue. While we as LAs seem to content to give more and more ground to others more willing and articulate to map this vision out, perhaps it is time to step up and make ourselves heard. Ten years from now we will look back at this as a critical turning point in the profession, and reflect on our ability to ... Could this be the marking of the end/beginning of an era?

Maybe this means the death of the profession in a traditional sense, but maybe that's not a bad idea?

More essays on Urban Omnibus to discuss, including a landscape-specific installment by faslanyc, so I'll split this into a couple of posts... stay tuned.

I like the sentiment...

...but something about the tone of this article 'Landscaping as a Seductive First Step', from the NY Times Blog is a bit off-putting. Not sure if it was the reference to 'landscaping' in the title (it's kind of nit-picky but a gross simplification), the reference to Weiss/Manfredi as landscape architects (no disrespect meant at, I love their stuff, but it rings of the DS+R as lead thing with the High Line), or the reference to the site as a 'nice wedding photo-op' (literally referencing landscaping as decoration or icing on the cake that is the city).


:: image via NY Times

Nice try at least, and an indication of landscape as the armature and incentive for future development its laudable. In the scope of 'no bad press' I think it's a throwaway - neutral at best. But I'd love to hear what others think - bold statement for landscape architecture, or puff piece that misses the point?

Read, decide and comment for yourself...

Reading List: Subnature

Another book that engaged me on my hiatus from blogging is one I picked up on somewhat of a whim as it looked like a fascinating read. I wasn't disappointed, as 'Subnature: Architecture's Other Environments" by David Gissen, quickly became impossible to put down. The reason? It really tackles some interesting terrain that is definitely at the fringes of architecture and landscape, which typically addresses the realms purity and order, whether in terms of materials or the messy nature in cities.



To quickly summarize the main components of subnatures, these include: dankness, smoke, gas, exhaust, dust, puddles, mud, debris, weeds, insects, pigeons, and crowds.

The idea of subnature comes from a hierarchy between the supernatural (above nature) and the natural (our current world view), to include this subset of nature in which existence seems difficult if not impossible. Definitely not the standard fare of typical books on architecture, particularly in our current fascination with new space-age materials and technologies to solve problems, while only a minority instead looking at context, natural materiality and process. Gissen's main thesis is we can capture the essence of these subnatures, we may, "...arrive at a truly radical and alternative concept of what environment means."


:: grotto - image via symphonies naturelles

This is specifically engaging, as the evolution of the book, as explained by Gissen in the introduction, is that this information collected here was the residual ephemera from a more focused study an architecture and nature, including a range of historical and contemporary source material from a wide range of sources. While the main academic pursuit of 'natural architecture' is perfectly relevant, (his dissertation included an 'exploration of nature in modern NYC buildings in the 70s) - the leftovers make for a much more interested concept.

So why is the subnature so interesting, specifically in the context of architecture and urbanism? Gissen mentions some of this context: "I draw on architectural and urban design theorists' key texts and contemporary practicioners' recent design to examine how both groups envision peripheral and often denigrated forms of nature..." In essence, it's not just a historical look at unconsidered materials, but a way of looking at the natural processes in a new way. This is perhaps more authentic than many of the explorations and misuse of the word 'ecologies' (or landscape for that matter) in modern parlance, which takes a much broader (and cleaner) cultural view of interactions between organisms and environments.


:: mud - image via ridgeway

There is some precedence for this realm of inquiry, including a few mentioned in the book. These include Antoine Picon's ideas of anxious landscapes, Gilles Clement's writing on the third landscape, and Francois Roche's (from R&Sie(n)) term corrupted biotopes - all of which explore postindustrial landscapes, debris, polluted ecologies, damaged nature. This coincides with some of our recent fascination with the dirty - including a focus on brownfields, post-industrial landscapes, vacant lands, air/water pollution, and other non traditional sites.

This is also why it is interesting to landscape architecture, as it is a clear refutation of the hermetic condition of pure architecture (i.e. a finished product offering refuge from 'outside'), and the desire to apply this condition to that of landscape, which is constantly in flux and infused with these subnatures. Is our desire to fight against these subnatural forces to create order in the garden, or is a more nuanced ecological approach to understand not just the base forces (geological, hydrological, meteorological) and understand the influence and opportunity of the subnatural forces at work.

Gissen frames this in practical terms as a means to achieving true 'sustainability'. The book "...offers an alternative vision to those contemporary municipalities, developers, and architects who seek to remake cities and buildings through the parameters of a more natural framework based on sustainable principles. Subnature also offers an alternative to the emerging vitalist discourse on 'flow' as the dominant effect of nature in architecture." Juxtaposed between the functionalism of the green building movement which "... advance a seemingly neo-Victorian and neo-Haussmannite vision of urbanism in many global cities... [which] often entails the utilization of nature as an instrument that cleans the world, increased productivity and efficiency, and transforms our existing natural relationship, while advancing the social sphere that exists." (p.23)

While not a specific critique of the green movement, it's more a re-engagement in some of the messiness that ensues from our working in nature and specifically subnature either directly or metaphorically. As mentioned, "Subnatures will not save us from our inequities, but its inherently alienating character enables us to consider how more comforting forms and dynamic images of nature are often used to reproduce existing forms of power in society." This is reflected in equity disparities of the rich being able to afford 'green' and the poor still being marginalized and left to reside with the leftover subnatures.

The final distinction is also made between the concept of reconnecting with nature, included in books like Earth Architecture, and one of my favorites The Granite Garden, and pretty much the crux of many of the projects that venture in new forms of habitat creation (such as PHREE Urbanism), Animal Architecture, or much of the Veg.itectural featured on a regular basis. The photoshopped vegetated visuals versus the messy reality is sometimes difficult to reconcile, perhaps due to the subnatural forces at work. Similarly, Gissen distances the concept from the new theories in architecture that embrace material weathering from Mostafavi & Leatherbarrow, showing that "...evironments appear as fixed and stable systems relative to a dramatically changing architecture object." Weathering and veg.itecture have similarities in expression to date, as it is difficult to choose one or the other - wild process here but not here.

The book itself is visually rich, and is very readable - making it a good book for a range of audiences. While potentially veering into either the overly historicist or the overly theoretical, Gissen toes the line with a certain grace that shows adequate historical background but also modern applicability. The historical is the common jumping off point and ranges within the confines of a coherent thought process (say versus the content schizophrenia of BLDG BLOG)... but is no less interesting.

For instance a 1568 image (in the chapter on dankness) by Philibert de l'Orme showing the idea of a 'builder emerging from a dark cave to become an architect', a metaphor from the transformation from the subnatural realm to the natural.


:: image via Freemason Collection

Additional interesting ideas include the necessity of tobacco smoke in the authenitic experience of Philip Johnson's Glass House, Peter and Alison Smithson's work with rubble at the Robin Hood Gardens, the British Beehive, and countless examples both verbal and visual. Many of these are architectural in nature, but many transcend to include urban spaces or particularly landscape context, making (or blurring) the connection between the three and their various influences due to subnatural forces is a key aspect - beyond just the exploration of the forces themselves.

From the epilogue: "...perhaps this hypothetical architect considers these strange forms of nature as a material endemic to architecture and cities, as opposed to an aberration that must be consolidated, removed or dismissed. He or she is not only engaged with the realities of the modern world but with the social processes that surround architecture, urbanism, and history. To rid cities of subnature negates aspects of urbanity while advancing a narrow concept of architecture's proper environment. By seeing only these things that are useful to a building's program, an architect dismisses key aspects of contemporary urban life."

For me the conceptual and contextual framework of the argument is the most interesting component of the book. It is necessary to include modern interpretations of the application or engagement of these subnatures, but for the most part these seemed somewhat less relevant, taking away from the overall impact of the argument. Perhaps this had to do with an amount of technological intervention sometimes required to achieve a balance with subnatures, more of forcing versus working with these processes. The examples are interesting, and definitely worth exploring (and many of them have appeared on the blogs throughout the recent couple of years). A typical example, for instance, is found in the category of exhaust. The B_mu tower by R&Sie(n) incorporates the exhaust of Bangkok into the form of the project, adding an element to the skin of the building that is responsive to the immediate context.




:: images via new territories

Read and see a full overview here.

"Bangkok is a very dusty gray and luminous city.The pollution cloud, CO2 residue, filters and standardizes the light with only gray spectral frequencies.Over 50 different words could be used to describe the tones and the touching aspects of the absence of color: “luminous, vaporous, pheromonal, hideous, shaded, transpiring, cottony, rugged, dirty, hazy, suffocating, hairy…” The dust dresses the city and her biotope, even going so far as to modify the climate. Within this fog of specs and particles, Bangkok becomes the melting pot of hypertrophic human activity with convulsing with exchanges of energy, where visibility becomes its greatest charm. At the antipodes of the canons of modern urbanism and its panoply of instruments lies, the city of Bangkok, ectoplasmic, super fluid to quote Kipnis. "

"She is conceived in between aleatory rhizomes where the arborescent growth is at the same time a factor of her transformation and her operational mode.The project for the future museum B-mu feeds off of the climatic opposition between the urban environment’s protuberant energy and the indoor subdued and subject to the museum conditioning procedures (white cube). We are talking here of two distinct geometric structures: one is Euclidian, globalization incased, where cultural merchandises are circulated in an aseptic and deteritorialized universe, and the other typology, plunged in a intoxicating urban chaos."

:: images via new territories

This look at old/new in tandem is really interesting, and illustrated the books simple beauty. To focus on one or the other exclusively would have made for a focused but somewhat less vibrant read. The beauty is also that it is so topical and necessary within the framework of our modern discussions of green building: "When we talk of architecture engaging with the environment, very often we mean to say that architecture is harmonizing with, or open to, some aspect of an uncorrupted nature. An architecture that engages with the environment usually incorporates or mimics the mechanics of trees, sunlight, water, and wind; whether developing a country house or a skyscraper, the architect attempts to work the form, program, and system of the building into a mutually beneficial relationship with the environment... But as this book has demonstrated, the environment is much more than the nature we often image to be in some prehuman and pristine form; it is composed of subnatures produced by social, political, and architectural processes and concepts. Unlike the natural environment, we cannot possibly imagine a subnatural environment generated by, nor found within, a nonhuman world. Subnatures force us to confront the implicit nonsocial character of nature, as it is invoked in discussions of architecture and the environment." (p.211)

While virtually impossible to adequately cover all of the content of this book in a short post, I'm hoping to expand some of the notions of these subnatures, so look forward to some additional posting around these concepts, weaving in some of Gissen's information and project examples and some other writings.

Stay tuned, and definitely get a copy of this book for reading and re-browsing. Fascinating stuff.

Living Buildings 2.0

Early last week, on the heels of the Sustainable Sites Initiative updated system launch, the International Living Building Institute offered the updated version of the Living Building Challenge, v2.0 - which offers a comprehensive building rating system for not just green, but regenerative buildings.


:: image via ilbi

The new system offers a much more robust system that incorporates local food production, expands the notion of sites and access to nature, limits gated communities and incorporates a number of other equity issues. The other major difference is that the results of certification are based on the end result, not the planned result as is standard in many projects. This is part of the reason there is not an officially designated Living Building to date - but many are in various stages of development around the world - on the race to be the first. I'm excited to take a look and see these new changes.

While I'm happy to see the expanded scope, I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't continue to move forward with the separate Living Sites and Infrastructure Challenge - but instead incorporated these ideas into v2.0 of the LBC. Combining sites and buildings makes a lot of sense and the LBCv2.0 integrates the two in a much needed way that is lacking in the majority of system approaches. As a way of measuring landscape projects, it's often hard to remove the building from site scale projects (thus they are not even ratable) - making the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SSI) the only viable game in town as a purely site-specific system.

There's plenty of rating systems out there, so time will tell the overall relevance and reach - but they tend to fall into two categories. Those in the first category attempt to respond the complexity and cost of LEED by offering a more accessible, yet watered down rating that has less impact, and thus less relevance. LEED remains the industry standard, but for those who want to push the boundaries of green beyond mere sustainability, there is luckily these alternatives out there. As LEED inches forward at a conservative snails pace by incrementally incorporated somewhat minor updates and additions to new versions, I foresee SSI and the Living Building Challenge filling some of the vacuum.

They may not gain the same market share as LEED - but will truly define what regenerative design will be for both buildings and sites - something that cannot happen now that LEED has become the defacto standard and is driven by market forces as much as a green agenda.

PlastiCity FantastiCity

The fabulous RMIT based journal KERB has recently announced a new competition called PlastiCity FantastiCity, to envision a new urbanism. From the site: "The competition re-envisions city systems to explore fantastical opportunities that enable groundbreaking and fun projects which shake the design world. A multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged though not required and we are sure that with help from you and your site we can hit our target audience."



The most telling idea of what the competition is about is through the definitions of the two terms - both mashups/portmanteaux with some interesting ideas:

PlastiCity (pro-noun)

1. The theory that a space’s most beautiful quality can often be the way in which it is continually made by those who inhabit it.
2. The projection of a speculative world into a pragmatic application.

FanstastiCity (pro-noun)

1. A world of limitless possibilities.
2. The city that exists in your mind, living in your wildest dreams and your most peculiar sketches.

Look forward to seeing the results - and definitely considering an entry. It's nice to see amidst many of the pseudo-seriousness of the competition scene something to embrace the crazy, outlandish, and fantastic.
Also, stay tuned for my coverage of the previous issue of Kerb 17, which literally amazed me with a series of essays on 'Is LA Dead?', a take on the future of the profession from a range of sources.

Sustainable Sites - Update

From some sneak peeks of the latest update to the Sustainable Sites Initiative (more from L+U here), I was both excited about the next iteration and establishment of more rigorous set of criteria, and a bit curious how it was going to maintain some of the necessary distance, inclusivity and poetry that is lacking in many other site rating systems. I'm not sure how I feel about the new split between the guidelines and the 'case' for sustainable sites



The full text from the Sustainable Sites website:

"The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 is the product of more than four years of work by a diverse group of experts in soils, hydrology, vegetation, materials and human health and well-being. It is expanded and updated from the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks –Draft 2008, which was released in November 2008. The Initiative developed criteria for sustainable land practices that will enable built landscapes to support natural ecological functions by protecting existing ecosystems and regenerating ecological capacity where it has been lost. This report focuses on measuring and rewarding a project that protects, restores and regenerates ecosystem services – benefits provided by natural ecosystems such as cleaning air and water, climate regulation and human health benefits.

The Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 includes a rating system for the credits which the pilot process will test for refinement before a formal release to the market place. The Rating System contains 15 prerequisites and 51 credits that cover all stages of the site development process from site selection to landscape maintenance. If you are interested in becoming a pilot project to test this Rating System, please apply here. Feedback from the pilot projects will be used to create a reference guide which will provide suggestions on how projects achieved the sustainability goals of specific credits.

The companion document titled The Case for Sustainable Landscapes provides a set of arguments—economic, environmental, and social—for the adoption of sustainable land practices, additional background on the science behind the performance criteria in the guidelines and performance benchmarks, the purpose and principles of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, and a sampling of some of the case studies the Initiative has followed."

It's great to see a site-specific system taking shape, and can't wait to see it begin to permeate the discussion of true sustainability and green building - and addition long-lacking in the current dialogue. For a bit of additional info, check out this short presentation 'Landscapes Give Back' which makes a case for the role of landscape in this discussion. More to come.

More to come after I have a chance to take a look at the updated documents. Additionally, the concept of What is a Sustainable Site will be a common theme in the next year, as the Oregon ASLA embarks on a number of events, discussions, workshops, and symposia around this idea.