Branching Out

Hi folks, been wanting to post for a while but a move and a drive across country (twice mind you) in the last month has rendered me temporarily indisposed, but, trying to get back in the swing of things and continue the brilliance that is Design Under Sky (kidding).

I've thought a lot about the limits of the reach of the Landscape Architecture profession over the past few years, especially now as I see so many around me faced with few job options in our chosen field.  My own frustrations have led me to ponder where can we go here? What else can and should we be learning and doing as spatial creatives.

I mean for this to be a mild critique on the profession, but more so as an open discussion (as it should be) on other's thoughts on how we can broaden our reach and become a more valuable commodity (or should we?). Why I personally chose LA (Landscape Architecture) was not because I gave two shits about what kind of bushes my neighbor had in their front yard, but saw the harmonizing integration of man and nature (for lack of a better term) as essential to our existence. While the Hargreaves, Van Valkenburghs, and Ken Smith's get to work on projects that deal with large scale ecological integration and people-oriented design, the quintessential projects of what you would envision a LA doing, the lion's share of LA's are working on less glamorous, small budget, and let's face it, to the low-budget clients, less needed projects. 

In my own professional career I've heard the phrase all too often "we don't do that." We don't design our furniture, artwork, and all encompassing outdoor elements. We leave it up to specs, we're always specifying some one else to do what we could be doing. We don't do that, the engineer handles that, the artist will do that, there's too much reliability, etc. And I use to attribute it to time constraints, there was simply not enough time for an LA firm to handle all the design nuances of a project. Well, I always felt that statement to be a bit of a cop out, and because we got way off track placing trees in dinosaur "everywhere USA" retail center parking lots instead of progressing many our own are finding themselves with nothing to do.

Solutions? What are other areas LA's could and should be branching out? One particular area that we've discussed in previous posts is Interaction Design. Personally I think this is a no brainer and that schools should immediately begin to incorporate into LA curriculum. 

If unfamiliar, Interaction Design is the the integration of technology and human interaction. For architectural use we are seeing ubiquitous computing concepts, in which technology is integrated into everyday physical objects where people can knowingly and unknowingly interact with their environments.

To me this is an extremely exciting area which I've seen architects experimenting with but little on the landscape front. The possibilities are quite endless, and awesome. For example, think instead of out of date physical educational nodes you see scattered through out a park, the one's I can envision my grandma reading but few else, with a brief paragraph about a native butterfly or something, seriously, in the grand scheme, who cares, a waste of money.

With technology integration however, we can vastly change the human experience by creating interactive spaces. Think bottom up user generated information and activity.  Instead, of one visitor walking through a space and reading a physical node, a device is placed in the environment which interacts with a mobile device which provides information about the area. An example, through a web-based hub, every tree type in a park is user-tagged and mapped allowing the visitor to instantly view and see the arboreal make up of the area. A mobile app which allows x-ray vision through the core of trees will show the health and interworkings of the tree itself.

These types of examples can reach a far range of possibilities strewn about both the urban and natural environments, they can be educational, environmental, utilitarian, or simple just engaging to the user. We've discussed several other examples here and here, many stemming from Greg J. Smith, author of Serial Consign and co-author of Vague Terrain to which we're big fan's.

Recently I found an iphone app entitled Phantom City, which let's you view visionary designs for the City of New York created by artists and architects over the last century. The app allows you to walk through the city and compare reality to what might of been and provide your own opinion through the "Rate this Future" function.

This type of project provides urban architectural learning, conceptual thinking, and social interaction. All of which have potential interactive revenue sources for its developers. It is something new to consider as we hope to progress the landscape architecture profession beyond plants and pavers.

Here are some of the other related posts we've covered at DUS:

+ WE are the Guardians of the Public Infrastructure

+ Fieldwork | Mobile Tree Identification

+ Landscape Architecture and Environment Gauging Mobile Technologies

+ L.A.W.U.N.

I'm curious as to what other LA's feel about this? What are some other areas we need to develop or gain greater expertise? Is this pie in the sky nonsense? Should we even try to broaden or improve our focus? Are their ways that we can create alternative revenue sources for our clients?

Need and want your thoughts and ideas. I'll also be covering more in regard to landscape innovation.

Rising Tide

Evolutionary {Recovery, by Yumi Lee + Yeon Tae Kim, of LANDplus Design, click for large PDF}

Despite what might potentially become our best efforts to reverse climatic change it is widely suggested that sea-levels will inevitably rise displacing the millions of residents inhabiting coastal lands.  But it seems its our human nature not to address the issue until we're swimming in it, so solutions at this point are relatively minimal.

Concepts will and should come from designers, and I would hope during this downturn that perhaps Landscape Architects volunteer our time to offer solutions. In that spirit, the Bay Conversation and Development Commission out in San Francisco recently announced winners of the Rising Tides Competition. The competition, which drew 130 entries from 18 countries, challenged designers to create waterfront strategies that envisioned a 55-inch rise in sea level over the next century.

Instead of awarding the $25,000 grand prize to one winner, the impressive jury (Michael Sorkin; Walter Hood, the landscape architect; Marcel Stive, scientific director of the Water Research Centre in Holland; Denise Reed, a professor and water researcher at the University of New Orleans; and Tracy Metz, an American-born Dutch architecture critic) decided to split the prize six ways. Below is at the winners’ ideas:

{Topographical Shifts at the Urban Waterfront, by Wright Huaiche Yang and J. Lee Stickles, click for large PDF}{100 Year Plan, by Derek James Hoeferlin, Ian Caine, and Michael Heller, click for larger PDF}{RAYdike, by Thom Faulders, click for larger PDF}{BAYARC, by a team of designers and engineers from SOM, click for larger PDF}{Folding Water, by Liz Ranieri and Byron Kuth, of Kuth Ranieri Architects, click for larger PDF}+Found at Metropolis Mag

Ecotone Hydro Park

[Hydro park adds a public park, animal habitats and water treatment to an existing dam ]Infranet Lab pointed us to a recent thesis project at McGill University by Tania Delage who takes Lebbeus Woods’ idea of the borderline and the ecological phenomena of the ecotone as an opportunity to cross-breed infrastructure, ecology and public amenities.

The borderline is the site where various systems collide, superimpose, or react to create a new condition. (Woods) These systems can vary greatly in scope; from social conditions to ecological and biological conditions. They may be tied to shifts in economic activity, technological advancements, obsolete or growing infrastructure, and environmental phenomena. Ecotones are the natural spaces where transformation and growth occur, typically at borderline site conditions. It is these sites of superimposed systems that provide the grounds for a new ‘mode of culture.’

At an ecological scale, the site is the Great Lakes basin and Saint-Lawrence River, the largest freshwater system of the world. The watershed is home to many ecological systems and provides important migratory routes for fish that spawn in fresh water only to return to their salt water habitat. Ringed by areas of intense urbanization, the watershed represents a major transportation artery for commercial navigation and provides a source of hydro electric power to the surrounding areas. The waterway also serves as an open sewer to cities along its shore, as it simultaneously supplies their drinking water.

[1 Aerobic filtration gardens, 2 Sedimentation gardens, 3 Fish ladders, 4 Visitor pathways]

The area of the project's focus is this mashing of man-made infrastructure and ecologies.  The summary of the project which you can read in full here, aims to reconfigure uses seen only as utilitarian and humanize them, creating multiple functions serving both man and nature.  

[Visitors walk on pathways, alongside fish ladders which help reestablish migratory routes displaced during the original construction of the dam]

The current hydro-electric damn becomes a shared ecology, withdrawing the focus of one element to one system but a holistic design approach to handling severely complicated infrastructural and ecological systems. "Elements of the landscape become submerged, no longer suitable for human inhabitation but become appropriate for different types of wildlife. Part infrastructure, part landscape, the park becomes a shifting exchange point between water systems, energy resources, human users and animal habitats."

Despite some negative feedback I've read on other blogs showcasing student work, I believe academics and student work to hold a strong importance in the Landscape Architecture world.  It's many of these ideas, while possibly not currently actionable, that lead others to the actual fruition and engineering of the concepts.

[View of finger-like aerobic filtration gardens, and ringed sedimentaion gardens, which together form natural filtration system for the river water]

Blending infrastructures and ecologies at fringe environments certainly seems a necessary future for further growth development.  Naturally we have heaps hurdles.  We'll undoubtedly incur sanitation issues combining transitions of natural wet to dry, fish/fowl to human.  And we'll need creative safety and noise reduction solutions to ever consider this park a place for people.  But we're not necessarily keen on current practicality here at D.U.S.  Landscape Architecture needs progressives and forward thinkers.  We need at least sometimes to think about the "what ifs?" rather then simply "we don't know how?"

[Inhabiting the Ecotone Hydro park]

Reburbia

In a competition dedication to the re-envisioning of the suburb sponsored by Dwell and Inhabitat, Reburbia starts today with entries seeking innovation in suburban housing.

In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability, walkability, and community? It’s a problem that demands a visionary design solution and we want you to create the vision!

Are population begins to grow and more housing will undoubtedly be needed.  We've discussed several different infrastructural concepts here at D.U.S., urban re-flight, satellite cities, and the hypocrisy of suburban nomenclature, but we should focus some study on what the hell to do with our existing failing suburbs.

If you're near the cusps of several large metropolitan areas its no secret travel and commuting is one of the major issues affecting our suburbs today.  How can these be reconfigured in order to reduce heaps of complicated problems.  Could large box grocery stores be retrofitted into local community markets, with produce grown from oversized parcels?  Perhaps the creation of local business centers with every necessary video conferencing and interactive communication tools would eliminate the need for long commutes, making the virtual office an easy walk or bike ride away.

With the extra added commute free time, we learn to actually make things again, for our own use and to buy and trade at local markets, drastically reducing long-distance transport fuel consumption and pollution.  Like the business centers, gym-like craftsmen shops allow shared knowledge and tools alike from expert to novice, reducing the need for excess equipment.

There's certainly no shortage of possibilities, and no time like the present, I personally would love to see Landscape Architects becoming an integral part of concepts and solutions.

What are some of your ideas?

Camping in the Urban Wilderness

I'm a fairly regular camper.  Growing up in southern Ohio afforded me plenty of open space and woodlands to explore the wild and in a small way disappear from society for a brief time.  Now in southern California, I am a short drives distance from some of the greatest camping spots in the country.

In our last venture to San Onofre State Park, a surfing camp spot, the location of the designated campgrounds was less nature and more urban, but certainly not less "wild".  As we constructed temporary nomadic tent city I considered the view, to the west, native coastal plant life and beyond, the pacific.  Directly behind to the east, not ten feet away were the parking spots and our cars, just behind the access road the amtrak tracks, and beyond that the 8-lane 405.

A less idyllic vision of the camping experience but I began to envision the future experiences of campers.  As pockets of true wilderness that remain become few and far between, overcrowded and restricted access for their protection, the reason to visit these parks becomes muted.  They become a place that no longer tests your manhood against the elements but acts as more as a museum for our ancestral frontiersman.

But a new wilderness is developing.  Cities are rapidly growing, becoming more complex, and rather then locking ourselves up in our protective boxes, what if we found a new way to to test ourselves in the throws of the urban wilderness?  Rather then becoming intimately involved with nature, listening and understanding the landscape, we rediscover urbanity in a completely new way.  Smells, sounds, people, paths, roads, parks, architecture all become things of exploration rather then simply parts of the sum.

Perhaps a traveler from Sydney to New York could more quickly become familiar with the genus loci by submitting to its extreme exposure.

Import Export Architecten designed a new type of ‘small scale’ urban camping. The mobile UC can be implanted in any city centre that likes to experiment with this new type of camping. UC is a place where adventurous city wanderers can stay overnight, meet other campers and find a safe shelter with basic designed practical facilities.

Imagine some of the architectural visions of future Utopian cities, vast, and completely intertwined with giant swaths of green spaces.  Forests, urban farms, and food providing plant life.  Travelers could continuously explore the new urban wilderness, traveling from camping station to station, living off the land as they go.

I also wonder, could this create a new breed of a nomadic culture, the homeless no longer homeless but joining a tribe of wanderlust vagabonds freed from the constraints of societal routine?

+All images via Office for Word and Image