Density of the Dead

A little cross-post from the Veg.itecture blog, where the concept of a vertical cemetery in Mumbai 'Vegitecturally Vertical Cemetery' was presented as a way to satisfy cultural expectations while efficiently utilizing scarce urban land. As we've become less likely to cross program or use cemeteries as quasi-public parks and open space - these areas (while heavily weighed down with much baggage) are literally urban dead space. A diagram of the amount of comparative density on a plot of land shows the inefficiencies of this horizontal infrastructure for disposal - at a density of 4000 bodies to 100 acres.

:: image via Inhabitat

Using similar mapping/datascape techniques of MVRDV (some info here) - it would be interesting to posit the acutal spatial impact of such a land use - even factoring in the differing cultural aspects. Even as we densify the planet, there's still a bunch of land in this big world of ours - at a rate of 1000 s.f. per body - that land surplus is gonna go away quickly.

:: image via Bellville Cemetery (Ohio)

So as we develop new cultural techniques for disposing of bodies - there still persists the need to memorialize - which inevitably leads to more use of space, often of the urban kind. I often wonder about the orderliness of the pastoral cemetery as an adjunct, in miniature, of the suburbs - as if in death we must live with a plot of land, a swatch of lawn, a marker worthy of our self-image, and a few neighbors. If life does mimic the hereafter, is there an appropriate correlation of living density and land use as there is for the dead?

:: image via cruelkev

Are we willing to use these spaces, either new or historic, as public or open space, perhaps even letting the lawn go for habitat. Or is a combined cemetery off the table as a way of urban cross-programming? Either way, does it not make sense to utilize this space more fully, and also come up with alternatives that at the very least have a significant multi-functional aspect - utilizing the square footage in a new, more efficient manner (going vertical? subterranean?

More on this for sure, as two things remain - the ideas of transforming urban density, and cemeteries - will continue to fascinate.

Reforesting Cities

A great post on Urban Omnibus investigates the potential of implementation of urban reforestation blended into existing buildings in our urban areas. From author Vanessa Keith, author of the article: "Retrofitting our urban building stock to address climate change need not be limited exclusively to increasing their energy efficiency. If “one of the primary causes of global environmental change is tropical deforestation” (Geist & Lambin, 143), then we should approach the adaptation of our buildings as an exercise in reforestation."


:: image via Urban Omnibus

While the ideas of terrestrial re-forestation have been discussed often in urban areas, the proposals attempt to incorporated this into existing building stock is a unique way of augmenting this. The post goes through a range of typologies of interventions including white roofs, greenscreens, green roofs, windbelts, and a range of blue-roof strategies (see Veg.itecture for more exploration of this).


:: image via Urban Omnibus

So, pulling it all together, starts to looks like a eco-district scale project typology, with a range of building and terrestrial opportunities exploited: "Large scale urban farming which takes place indoors and on large expanses of roof, greenscreens to let plants to climb the vertical surfaces of the city, trees which are now able to grow on the city roofscape. Roof ponds and artificial waterfalls for cooling and electrical generation. Solar and wind devices which form sculptural elements in the city, performing a function as well as having an aesthetic. Ports for plug-in electric vehicles which gather energy from photovoltaics. Solar panels incorporated into street poles, and vertical wind turbines which form a rhythm in the streetscape. Bicycle lanes, room for walking and the incorporation of still more trees."


:: image via Urban Omnibus

The concept of building retrofit has gained much attention, both as a economic necessity as building slows down, but also as shown in the article, the usable surface area of the city isn't just composed of the left-over terrestrial parcels, but a network of building faces, as cited in: " A recent New York Times article quantifies the amount of available roofspace in the city alone as 944 million square feet, 11.5% of the total building area the city holds."

Ignoring this resource will miss a significant opportunity to incorporate more area in our attempts to reforest cities, and also expand our toolkit beyond street tree canopy and dense planting in open spaces.

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.

Elements of Urban Agriculture

I had the opportunity today to see a presentation by local urban agriculture guru Marc Boucher-Colbert (the man behind the Rocket Restaurant rooftop garden here in Portland). Instead of focusing directly on rooftops, he outlined a broad version of urban agriculture through an investigation of a range of possible strategies for our cities. This is all information investigated at length at times here on L+U and Veg.itecture, but I thought it apt to summarize the ideas from the lecture, as they provide a great overview and were a really inspiring collection of ideas woven together into a strategy.

1. Guerilla Gardening
The starting point of the discussion took a look at the thriving guerrilla gardening movement worldwide as a quick response to the bland and life-less environment we exist within in our urban areas. Both safe anarchy and also, via Wikipedia... "political gardening, a form of direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists. It is related to land rights, land reform, and permaculture. Activists take over ("squat") an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it."


:: image via Wikipedia


:: seed bombs - image via itwasme

A side-note of the discussion dealt with the production of seed bombs (or the less provocative 'seed balls') as a way of simply and efficiently distributing plant life to our streets, vacant lots, and other left-over spaces. Again via Wikipedia: "A seed bomb is a compressed clod of soil containing live vegetation that may be thrown or dropped onto a terrain to be modified. The term "seed grenade" was first used by Liz Christy in 1973 when she started the "Green Guerillas". The first seed grenades were made from condoms filled with local wildflower seeds, water and fertilizer." As a fledgling guerrilla gardener myself, it's pretty damn cool and quite liberating. Give it a try.

2. Front & Backyard Gardening
The idea of front and backyard gardens isn't a new idea (don't tell Fritz Haeg) but have become a cause celebre for re-occupation of our urban and suburban spaces. Call them Victory Gardens, or Edible Estates, or hell, call them 'this is the only place I can find good sun in my yard' - this isn't a new idea come back, but rather something that has always existed and has now re-emerged as a vibrant movement. Growing vegetables at your home is the ultimate in local food, and also engages people in exercise, meditation, and a range of other benefits - making it both a productive activity and a hobby worthy of your time.


:: image via The Blue Marble

Marc explained that while the idea of taking back the lawn is laudable, there is a grim reality to the concept of agri-buisiness, summed up in the following fact: of 'food' grown in the US, 1.5% is fruits and vegetables, while the other 98.5% consists of grain and oilseed, which any reader of Michael Pollan will know goes to meat production, biofuels, various corn products and other detached food we consume in many ways. This led to another new figure in the story - of Stan Cox, who works with one of my heroes, Wes Jackson at The Land Institute, reinventing corporate agriculture through a new model of perennial production based on the tallgrass prairie ecosystems.


:: Perennial Agriculture - image via The Land Institute

The other models beyond reoccupying the land you have is the sub-economy that include yard sharing or other means that leverage open land with the energy and desire of those to garden. By taking the land of folks that have surplus, or don't have the time to garden places like Your Backyard Farmer or Hyperlocavore offer a range of options to use land in cities for productive uses. Again this trend can also go beyond just gardening to include other trends such as backyard chickens, pygmy goats (great for blackberries) or other trends suitable for urban locales.


:: Backyard Chickens - image via Flicker (zbar)

3. Community Gardens
Another vital aspect of both food production and urban life is the community garden, where the interactions between people are just as important as the growing of vegetables. The idea of a range of programs, including those run by the city (such as in Portland), cooperatives, and other models. While a large part of the eventual urban agriculture puzzle, many communities are currently dealing with huge demand and a lack of funding to provide more supply. While the need to fund these programs will continue, there is also a need to look beyond the plots to a larger picture of gardening in cities.


:: image via The Daily Green

The overall conceptual framework of community gardening can be found at the resource-rich site for the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) which provides information on starting and maintaining community gardens throughout the country. As Marc pointed out, much of the training and education for the ACGA is focuses on engaging community resources and partnerships - taking the tack that is you build community, this is lead to a thriving garden - and you can figure out the training of food production and other added services later.


:: food preservation - image via Eat. Drink. Better

Finally, the idea of subsistence and market farms, or a combination of the two, offers a range of opportunities to offer gardening, community, and the ability to make money through the use of these sites in cities - offering for green job creation. Also, included in the idea of community gardening and education is the value-added ideas of food preservation, chickens raising, small animals, beekeeping, and other more agriculturally related ideas to round out the potential for urban ag.

4. School Gardens
While encompassing a range of institutional gardens such as hospitals, prisons, and other urban uses, school gardens provide a unique opportunity to provide food and education, as well as utilizing large amounts of available land. Modeled after the ground-breaking Edible Schoolyards" program in Berkeley started by chef Alice Waters "...to create and sustain an organic garden and landscape that is wholly integrated into the school’s curriculum, culture, and food program." which has been copied around the country in many locations.


:: image via Edible Schoolyard

A local project that provides a bridge for schools and food in Portland has been taken on by the fantastic local non-profit Ecotrust called the Farm to School program, which: "...enable schools to feature healthy, locally sourced products in their cafeterias, incorporate nutrition-based curriculum in all academic disciplines, and provide students with experiential agriculture and food-based learning opportunities, from farm visits to gardening, cooking, composting, and recycling." These connections between food and school continue to offer many possibilities in cities throughout the world.

5. Rooftop Gardens
Covered in detail on the web, the idea of rooftop gardens is definitely a love of Boucher-Colbert, who installed the project on the Rocket (now the Noble Rot) which has become a model project that gets a lot of comments for the kiddie-pool planters, (an inspiration from Joe Ebenezer from Chicago - read about him here) as a low-cost planter alternative and using it as a test for production techniques which are used in the restaurant one floor below.


:: Boucher-Colbert atop the Noble Rot - image via City Farmer

Obviously there are some limitations to rooftops, and difficulties with gardening due to wind, temperatures and other issues. As we provide incentives for more eco- and green roofs atop buildings, growing vegetables will become a continually growing trend as urban land costs make terrestrial farming a less financially viable proposition.

6. Vacant Lands
The use of vacant lands for farming is definitely a hot topic in areas like Detroit, but even in a number of locations like Oakland, which recently identified 1200 sites available for farming - or Montreal, which has implemented permanent agricultural zones that are protected from development - consisting of almost 4% of the Cities total land.

The focus in Portland is on the much discussed and somewhat disappointing implementation of the Diggable City project in 2004-05 which looked at city-owned lands as possible opportunities for establishing: "... an inventory of vacant, publicly-owned land in the Portland area, and to start a conversation about how that land might be used to support urban agricultural activities." The large number of sites have over time been whittled down to a few - and little has been done on any of this pilot projects - even though hundreds of brownfields, vacant lands, and other opportunities still exist.


:: Portland Vacant Land - image via Diggable City

7. Green Building
The integration of agriculture in green building is definitely making strides, as certain points for LEED ND, and potentially other systems can be achieved through the addition of garden plots of agricultural land. This allows for more multi-functional landscaping that includes productivity and use, which was difficult at times to reconcile with green buildings due to added water use and lack of totally native and adapted plantings. Our next task is to develop more year-round, lower maintenance permaculture-based planting that meet aesthetic and functional goals long-term.

Another aspect which spans this category and the next is the concept of Building Integrated Sustainable Agriculture (BISA), which begins to work with walls, rooftops, and other spaces to integrate food production in buildings. This also begins to expand beyond this to using waste heat and water from buildings to heat greenhouses and extend growing seasons to increase productivity. Examples abound, including Mithun's concept urban agriculture project (using the Living Building principles) as well as older examples like Eli Zabar's rooftop garden in Manhattan, to name a few.


:: Mithun's Vertical Farm - image via Treehugger


:: Zabars Vinegar Factory - image via Vison for our Cities

The concept also begins to looks at other agriculture products like chickens, bees, aqua- and hydroponics to maximize space and maintenance as well as blend systems together into closed-loop systems that treat waste as food for other phases of the system.

8. Vertical Farming
Picking up on the threads popularized by Dickson Despommier et.al, the idea of the BISA mentioned in green building is now blown up into the full-fledged phenomenon of vertical farming, which is exciting but needs some serious thought as to the viability of how this actually works and what the economic and social implications are. Boucher-Colbert was interested but skeptical, as there seem much more obvious low-hanging fruit (pardon the pun) to look at first - but as density and food security become more important, all the options must be on the table.


:: Vertical Farming - image via Vertical Farm

In closing, the eight concepts here span a wide range of possible agricultural interventions in our urban environment for getting to the root of food in our cities. It goes beyond production to include community, interaction, and a range of benefits such as habitat, beauty, and cooling - making the mix as important as the individual ideas. Peak Oil will warrant a close look at cities and a re-thinking of what we eat, where it comes from, and how much transportation is used to get it from farm to fork. So, as we transform from city-dwellers that keep nature and farming outside of the city to those that integrating food production into our spaces and daily lives - these tools provide a valuable arsenal for making the 21st century city a vibrant, healthy, and productive environment for all.

You Can Go Home Again

Well not exactly home, but a wonderful trip last week, back to my alma mater North Dakota State University for a presentation on my favorite topics - Landscape + Urbanism + Veg.itecture. Thanks to everyone that attended the lecture and for the great conversation before, during, and after. Fargo has changed a lot, but remarkably stays the same. More posts upcoming after this short, work- and travel-induced break.

LEED Sustainable Sites

I was fortunate enough recently to be chosen for the US Green Building Council's Technical Assistance Group for Sustainable Sites (SS TAG). This appointment will allow me to be directly involved in defining how sustainable site strategies are integrated in existing determinations and future iterations of various LEED rating systems. The following is an interview with Damian Holmes from World Landscape Architect, published a couple of days back, explaining a bit more about the appointment.. another 0:12 seconds of my fifteen minutes :)

FEATURE: Interview with Jason King

"Sustainable Sites is an initiative with a interdisciplinary effort by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the United States Botanic Garden to create voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices.

Jason King is a Senior Associate at Greenworks and an enthusiastic landscape architect who shares his passionate views at his sites Landscape+Urbanism and veg.itecture. He has just been appointed to the Sustainable Sites Technical Advisory Group for the US Green Building Council (USGBC) so we thought it would be a good opportunity to interview Jason about Sustainable Sites and his role at Sustainable Sites Technical Advisory Group.

WLA: What will your role be with the Sustainable Site Technical Advisory Group?

Jason: As part of the Sustainable Sites Technical Advisory Group, our regular activities will include working within the group to evaluate existing and future policies related to Sustainable Sites for all version of LEED, and specifically provide input on issues such as interpretation and Credit Interpretation Rulings (CIRs) on a bi-weekly basis. Specifically, I am going to be the primary credit guardian for the SSc5.1, Reduced Site Disturbance: Protect and Restore Open Space, and to work as a sub-guardian for a number of other credits. The entire group collectively makes determinations – this is just the first point of contact on specific items, sharing the load a bit.

My goals are really to move the LEED system and its interpretation of sustainable sites in a significantly more realistic and robust application. Determining what open space is and what it means to site users, or what components make up habitat are big questions – and can’t be oversimplified into mere square footage coverage. The challenge is to find ways to move the concepts forward to more specific and increasingly rigorous goals, but do so in a what that is accessible and integrated into the system. We need to constantly raise the bar, but not lose the momentum by making things overly onerous.

WLA: How important is LEED and Sustainable Sites to the future of landscape architecture?

Jason: I think it’s vitally important. Based on the success of LEED in the building-related industry, and how it’s really become a touchstone (for better or worse) for sustainability, our voices and roles in this process will be very important. One way is to be advocates for changes in LEED that reflect sustainability as we see it, beyond the simplification that often is the case in creation of green building systems. LEED isn’t going to go away, but rather evolve as we learn more and evolve from sustainable to regenerative design. The Sustainable Sites Initiative, developed by ASLA, is a good step in our future. It’s in the early stages, and not without issues that need to be resolved, but is much more of a true site-specific guideline that will really give us direction on defining sustainability in the landscape.

WLA: Most Landscape Architects are instinctly “green” and “sustainable”. How do you see the role of Sustainable Sites of built environment professionals?

Jason: It’s true that our education and experience makes landscape architects green or sustainable by nature. Many of the ideas we do as common practice are not considered specifically as ‘sustainable’ design to us, just what you do as a landscape architect. When compared to some other disciplines these ideas are much more innovative, or at least more contextual. Still, we have a great challenge in both quantifying these ideas into a system framework, and making sure we are vocal advocates for change, not allowing other disciplines to determine what role we play in design. The integration of landscape and buildings is fascinating – as landscape architecture, rather than just being ornament applied to the exterior, is becoming enmeshed in architectural form, building systems, and the environmental performance. The possibilities for integrated approaches are incredible.

As we get more prominence and a greater voice in project design processes, we will be able to more truly represent the profession and move forward an agenda that is both more sustainable, regionally adapted, and reflective of the common notion of what is a sustainable site.

We would like to congratulate Jason on his appointment and thank him for taking the time to answer a few questions."

By Damian Holmes – 12 August 2009

Two if by Land, None if by Sea

Just last month, a strange site appeared in Portland, docked at Waterfront Park. The area, chain-linked off from anyone getting too close, gave a vision of a spectacle equal parts Rose Festival Fleet Week and kitschy episode of the The Love Boat, spawned from gigantism of the engineering prowess and the ego that could only yield something as warped in size and concept as 'The World'.


:: Portland, Meet the World - image via Google Images

This thought stuck in my head - why? While life at sea on the move, from port to port, may at least give one a feeling that there is a different destination looming, adventure around the corner, or least a feeling that if you're on a boat, your life can't be standing still - life on the static 'floating island' must come from those willing to stay put. This is the concept of 'Seasteading' is just that - homesteading on the sea. This is not a houseboat... think more like an oil derrick with buildings on top.


:: Club Stead - image via Wikipedia (copyright TSI, used by CCR)

The main group behind this concept is The Seasteading Institute - and the winners of the "...first Seasteading Architectural Design Contest ...invited participants to design the floating city of their dreams. " ...were recently unveiled, via a post on Bustler. I filed this under Veg.itecture due to the inclusion of images of rooftop greenery - but thought better even though I guess if the entire 'field' on which the design is placed is a giant (patent pending?) floating platform, then it's all on structure. Here's some of the notable entries - but read more at Bustler.

The Swimming City by András Gyõrfi won top prize - and really seemed ok, but not necessarily conjuring up visions of innovative sea life - more like a new urbanist development in a bustling suburb of florida. Even the greenery seems pastoral - like someone's front yard.


:: images via Bustler
On the flip side, there were definitely those with the aquatic theme in full speed, sporting fins and other such ichthymorphic features that I thought would dominate the competition, such as the Winner of the Prize for Aesthetic Design: SESU Seastead by Marko Järvela


:: image via Bustler
A lot just look like some new modern buildings (albeit sometimes with an icing of the Veg.itectural) photoshopped onto a square surrounded by water. The water in this could be the surrounding street in the urban block - as removed from an seasteading context as these are.




:: images via Bustler

These could literally be floating anywhere - so not necessarily contextual. Then again, if you place something out in the sea, what is the context? The most contextual I think really captured 'oil derrick'... motif was Resort by László Szabó...


:: images via Bustler

Also, the most innovative idea I thought may go to: the Cultural center, Designer: Mark McQuilten, Robert Davidov and Ben Attrill... featuring a floating scene of contextual destruction with a 'Planet of the Apes' apocalyptic scene moored next to the current Statue of Liberty. Sort of a post-global warming Ellis-island welcome to the new world.


:: images via Bustler
A goodly portion of these are just plain awful - but enough interest to think: 1) of the technical problem solving to make these ideas work on a floating, seaworthly platform, 2) do these operated similar to small island nations with 95-100% imports of practically everything, aside from fish?, and 3) what would motivate someone to live on one of these - aside from the random assorted Bond villian? So curious.

Local Flavor: OSC Revealed

Last week I posted about this local project, and the process in general. The end of the Phase I feasibility study for the Oregon Sustainability Center revealed a very integrated and transparent process culminating in a potential example of cutting edge Veg.itecture in Portland - albeit in need of some visual refinement. I usually turn to my favorite local, Brian Libby, and his great blog Portland Architecture, for the latest insight.


:: image via Portland Architecture

His initial thoughts: "Pictured above is a rendering of the Sustainability Center as it might look once constructed. It would be unfair to judge a building so innovative and so green on its exterior aesthetics. At the same time, it is written in the summary, "The Living Building Challenge is unique, among programs that encourage and evaluate accomplishments in sustainable design, in that it mandates beauty as well as aggressive goals for energy, water and waste systems." It certainly seems like the team has met the aggressive goals. Have they met the beauty mandate? That's a harder goal because it's of course in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I am not crazy about the look of the roof. But of course the design could continue to evolve."

The executive summary has been published, and Libby mentions some highlights here. Now to see if Portland can actually make this thing a reality.

Take to the Streets

I just passed a milestone of sorts... topping out at 500 posts (not to mention a few on the new Veg.itecture blog...). Seems like just yesterday I was starting this humble outlet for collecting thoughts - fighting with time to blog amidst time to work and occupying all of grey area in between. Often times, unknown to most readers, is the mirroring effect of my work and the topics of the posts on this blog so in this case, we'll call it a rest stop on a long road-trip. This is true the past weeks or so, as I've been working on an interview for a green main street project, and thus had streets, and what makes them great and green - on the brain.


:: image via Good Magazine

So a collection of some of the transportation related inspirations I've collected recently, with a slim thread of connectivity (hehe) between them. First off, the visionary who seems to be able to understand the place and potential of streets in our urban fabric, Jan Gehl - with a great quote spotted via People and Place. "He credits his vision of the livable city to his wife - he claims that when he married, years ago, his psychiatrist wife demanded, “Why are architects not interested in people?" I have a simpler response... because landscape architects are :)


:: image via People and Place

"So Gehl became interested in people. “Being sweet to people is really sweet to the economy,” he says. (Hear that, Toronto City Council?) But how to be “sweet” to a city’s inhabitants? According to Gehl, a sweet city is lively, attractive, safe, sustainable, and healthy. And we already know how to do this: limit cars, encourage bicycling, and create better outdoor public spaces so that people can walk on the streets of our city."

Gehl has made palatable the idea of the Dutch Woonerf - which has definitely been adopted by streets advocates as a viable alternative - with a few good US examples... tough to fit the Escalade down these, or more likely convice the local DOT that this is actually safer that the typical section.


:: image via Land+Living


:: image via Urban Greenery

Speaking of sections - one of the best resources on streets, even back when I was in college, is the visually simple yet telling volumes 'Great Streets' by Allan Jacobs. While I will always love the volume - there is a new digital resource from the Charrette Center featuring examples of Street Sections. In this case, and example from the "Via S. Romano Ferrara, Emiglia Romagna Italy - Pedestrian street in central historical district". Cool, and thanks to People and Place for the heads up on this one.




:: images via Street Sections

Jetson Green offers the visual and checklist of great streets (or should I say Livable ones) via Good Magazine. While this ring of cliche in the spirit of PPS public space elements, I guess here's all you need:

1. Allow street vendors
2. Provide pedestrian street lamps
3. Install curb extensions at crosswalks
4. Create dedicated bus lanes
   
5. Create dedicated bike lanes
   
6. Install raised, textured crosswalks
7. Adjust street lights to give lead to pedestrians
8. Install bollards at intersections
9. Nurture street trees and plantings
   
10. Use speeds bumps where necessary

:: image via Jetson Green

Zooming in a layer of detail, we often forget the illustrative potential of the plain black to gray street surfacing - a fine tabula rasa that is both functional and open to interpretation. A range from the serious to the dubious was found - including an elegant Crosswalk Memorial (via Urbanism) and a ridiculous albeit functional paving-repair-as-guerilla-advertising-by-dead-chicken-dude (via The Infrastructurist)


:: image via Urbanism.org


:: image via The Infrastructurist

And I guess if we can't make green and make great the streets - the alternative is to green your form of transportation, like David Gallaugher did with this grass-lined wheel... looks more appealing than a Prius to me.


:: image via Urban Greenery

LAM Blog Love

The latest issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine featured an article by Daniel Jost, ASLA, that was nice enough to include our fair blog in it's pages: "The Dirt on Blogging: How can blogs change the way we communicate about landscape architecture?" offers examples and advice on how landscape architecture professionals can utilize this simple yet effective technology for information, dialogue, and marketing.


:: June 2009 Cover - image via LAM

The opening excerpt, via the LAM page: “I had always been anti-blog,” remembers Jason A. King, ASLA, of Portland, Oregon. Like many, he equated blogging with keeping an online journal; he didn’t think the medium had much to offer him professionally. But about two years ago, King’s opinion changed dramatically. He was working on a design competition and needed a way to manage all the ideas, images, and web links he was gathering through his research. He realized blogging would be the perfect way to organize himself while giving him a chance to share his research with others. Today, King’s Landscape+Urbanism Blog has readers around the world. In the past year, it has been viewed nearly 500,000 times."

But it is only one of the many landscape architecture-themed blogs that have sprouted up in recent years. There are blogs focusing on many different facets of the profession, from garden design to parks, from sustainability to playgrounds. Some of these blogs are managed by landscape architects, some are managed by professionals with related degrees, and some provide a unique opportunity to hear opinions from people outside the profession—to hear from the people we serve.

What benefits does blogging offer landscape architects?"

:: image via LAM

The story goes on to cover a range of blogs, including Christian Barnard Landscape Architecture, Design Under Sky, Studio G, Sprout - A Green Blog, Playscapes, Places and Spaces, and of course Landscape + Urbanism. While not the entire pantheon of landscape blogging by any means, a cross section - and an indication (as two years ago, there were but a few). A few of these show up on the sidebar of links for L+U - both some others don't for very particular reasons. I make it a point to only link to sites that are not aiming for being a portal to a specific landscape architecture firm - for the simple desire that I want to avoid any potential perception that I'm 'advertising' for anyone. My company that I work for started a blog, and this is absent as well for the same reason, as L+U (and the new Veg.itecture blog) is a singular work on myself and just meant as a resource, not a clearinghouse of all things landscape (there's some good ones of those emerging as well).

Thanks Daniel from LAM for including this site in the article. If you'd like a sneak preview of the full article, check out the new online version of LAM (and subscribe to the digital format) to see and read more. Here's a snapshot:

:: image via LAM online edition

And as it was, what seemed to me, a large omission to the article, Pruned - which has been the inspiration for a number of bloggers in the landscape realm and beyond - is celebrating an amazingly productive and thoughtful 5 year birthday. Congrats Alexander Trevi on the amazing work and inspiring longevity.