September 18, 2019 by LAM Staff
BY TIMOTHY A. SCHULER
An ambitious forest restoration project in Ashland, Oregon, aims to reduce the risk that wildfire poses to residents—and their water supply.
This week, LAM is joining more than 250 media outlets for Covering Climate Now, flooding the zone, as it were, with climate coverage in the run-up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23. Landscape and landscape architecture are deeply implicated in the future of climate progress, or a lack of it. Over the past decade, LAM has dug into climate issues of landscape in numerous dimensions, mapping the big resource picture as well as local attempts to fend off increasingly apparent hazards of global warming—from the procurement of materials to the integrity of the food supply chain. Each day this week we’ll bring you excellent stories from recent years that follow landscape architects acting and thinking about climate change and the landscape.
Though the warning signs had been present for months, the bad news officially came in March 2018, when forecasters at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (NWCC) in Portland, Oregon, released their long-range forecast of the upcoming fire season. Though it varied from state to state, in Oregon, light snowpack and higher-than-average temperatures combined to create a highly combustible landscape. “I’m worried about the 2018 fire season,” John Saltenberger, the fire weather program manager at the NWCC, told a Portland television station.
It was discouraging news for a state that, like California and other western states, has seen a growing number of increasingly intense wildfires in recent years. According to Oregon Department of Forestry statistics, 69 percent of the state’s largest recorded wildfires have occurred in the past 20 years. The largest, 2012’s Long Draw Fire, scorched nearly 560,000 acres of predominantly federal land in the southeastern part of the state. In the geological age known as the Anthropocene, the current epoch might one day be known as the Era of Megafires. A megafire is typically defined as a single wildfire that exceeds 100,000 acres. Such fires are “nearly commonplace now,” says Chris Chambers, who for the past 15 years has served as the forest division chief for the City of Ashland, Oregon. “Whereas 20, 30 years ago, a 100,000-acre fire was unheard of.” Continue Reading »
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Posted in ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, FEATURES, REGION, RESEARCH, WATER, WILDLIFE | Tagged Anthropocene, ash, Ashland, Ashland Creek, Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project, brush, carbon emissions, Chris Chambers, climate change, conifers, controlled burns, Covering Climate Now, ECOLOGY, Elkhorn Mountains, fire, firebreak, forest, fuel load, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, Jackson County, John Saltenberger, John Stromberg, Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership, land use, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, Logging, Lomakatsi Restoration Project, Long Draw Fire, lumber, mudslide, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, Nature Conservancy, Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, Oregon, Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Park, Paul Hessburg, Reeder Reservoir, Rogue River Valley, Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, SILVIS Lab, Siskiyou Mountains, smoke, Timothy A. Schuler, Tracy Peddicord, tree, U.S. Forest Service, understory, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washington, Water, Wenatchee, wildfire, Wildfire Mitigation Commission, wildland–urban interface, WUI | Leave a Comment »
September 17, 2019 by LAM Staff
BY BRETT ANDERSON / PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAHAR COSTON-HARDY, AFFILIATE ASLA
Disparate but urgent efforts to address sea-level rise in the Virginia Tidewater, one of the country’s most important strategic centers, are striving to keep up with visible realities.
This week, LAM is joining more than 250 media outlets for Covering Climate Now, flooding the zone, as it were, with climate coverage in the run-up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23. Landscape and landscape architecture are deeply implicated in the future of climate progress, or a lack of it. Over the past decade, LAM has dug into climate issues of landscape in numerous dimensions, mapping the big resource picture as well as local attempts to fend off increasingly apparent hazards of global warming—from the procurement of materials to the integrity of the food supply chain. Each day this week we’ll bring you excellent stories from recent years that follow landscape architects acting and thinking about climate change and the landscape.
The first question that sprang to Ann C. Phillips’s mind soon after she moved to Norfolk, Virginia, in 2006 was, “Why, when it rains, does the whole place submerge?”
She wasn’t referring only to dramatic weather events, although Phillips, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, landed in Norfolk during a bumper crop of those: Norfolk saw more major coastal storms and hurricanes in the 2000s than in the four previous decades combined, according to the city government.
Harder to fathom were the floods caused by light rains and “blue sky floods” triggered by lunar tides. Tidal flooding affects low-lying areas of Norfolk nine times per year on average.
These more regular floods were unlike anything Phillips experienced growing up in Annapolis, Maryland. They’re an alarmingly routine part of life in Norfolk and the surrounding Hampton Roads area Continue Reading »
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Posted in CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, ENVIRONMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, FEATURES, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, PARKS, PLANNING, PLANTS, SOIL, UNIVERSITY, WATER | Tagged Ann C. Phillips, Ann P. Stokes, Ann P. Stokes Landscape Architects, Arcadis, bioretention cells, Brett Anderson, Carol Considine, Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional Certification, Chesterfield Heights, cisterns, climate science, Covering Climate Now, Creek Watershed Project, Dale Morris, David Imburgia, David Waggonner, Donald Whipple, Dutch Dialogues, engineering, erosion, flooding, Fort Monroe, gate, Glenn Oder, grasslands, Hampton, Hampton Roads, Hampton University’s Department of Architecture, Haynes Creek Stormwater Park, HUD, Hurricane, Hurricane Florence, hydrology, Lafayette River, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, Larry Atkinson, living shorelines, Mason Andrews, Military, Mujde Erten-Unal, National Disaster Resilience Competition, National Historic Landmark District, Netherlands, New Orleans, Newmarket Creek, Newport News, Norfolk, oceanography, ODU Resilience Collaborative, Old Dominion University, Phoebus, Pippa Brashear, Portsmouth, raised road, Ramiro Diaz, RESILIENCE, Rockefeller Foundation, runoff, SCAPE Landscape Architecture, sea-level rise, Security Center for Climate and Security, Shereen Hughes, SHORELINE, Structures of Coastal Resilience, Terry O’Neill, Tidewater, US Navy, Virginia, Virginia Beach, Waggonner & Ball Architects, Water, water retention, waterfront park, watershed, Wayne Creek, wetlands, wetlands watch | Leave a Comment »
September 16, 2019 by LAM Staff
BY STEVE AUSTIN, ASLA
Landscape architecture can mitigate carbon emissions, but it is also implicated amoung the causes.
This week, LAM is joining more than 250 media outlets for Covering Climate Now, flooding the zone, as it were, with climate coverage in the run-up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23. Landscape and landscape architecture are deeply implicated in the future of climate progress, or a lack of it. Over the past decade, LAM has dug into climate issues of landscape in numerous dimensions, mapping the big resource picture as well as local attempts to fend off increasingly apparent hazards of global warming—from the procurement of materials to the integrity of the food supply chain. Each day this week we’ll bring you excellent stories from recent years that follow landscape architects acting and thinking about climate change and the landscape.
The Paris Agreement on climate change, created by the consensus of 197 nations, went into effect in November 2016 and has enormous implications for the practice of landscape architecture. If adhered to by its signatories, the agreement signals the end of the fossil fuel era by midcentury, well within the life spans of many landscape architects currently practicing. Though it may seem wonderfully “green,” this energy transition poses profound questions for the practice of landscape architecture at a time when the discipline is needed more than ever. Continue Reading »
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Posted in ECOLOGY, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, FEATURES, PLANNING, PRACTICE, RESILIENCE | Tagged Anthropocene, battery, carbon sequestration, carbon zero, cement, climate change, Covering Climate Now, decarbonization, electrical grid, energy, energy storage, fire, fossil fuel, green energy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, Paris Agreement, rating systems, Renewable energy, Solar Power, steel, Steve Austin, transit, wind power | 1 Comment »
September 15, 2019 by LAM Staff
BY MICHAEL DUMIAK
A Dutch vision of clean energy in northern water. Does it have a chance?
This week, LAM is joining more than 250 media outlets for Covering Climate Now, flooding the zone, as it were, with climate coverage in the run-up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23. Landscape and landscape architecture are deeply implicated in the future of climate progress, or a lack of it. Over the past decade, LAM has dug into climate issues of landscape in numerous dimensions, mapping the big resource picture as well as local attempts to fend off increasingly apparent hazards of global warming—from the procurement of materials to the integrity of the food supply chain. Each day this week we’ll bring you excellent stories from recent years that follow landscape architects acting and thinking about climate change and the landscape.
A tall blond man is walking a Russian wolfhound along a stream. The stream is moving through beach sand into a large lagoon off the Kijkduin promenade in a seaside suburb of The Hague, Netherlands. It’s not quite beach season, and it’s blustery. Over scudding clouds the sun coming up is bright, but the gray sea is running fast and flecked with white, and the wind blows foam up the beach. Over the man’s shoulder are tall, reedy dunes and the tips of towering chimneys, billowing clouds of steam.
These chimneys, up to 575 feet high, rise from the Maasvlakte 2 harbor complex, where the Port of Rotterdam sits across from the Hook of Holland. This point is where some of the most important interactions between the North Sea and its neighbors are happening and will happen over the next three decades.
Maasvlakte 2 is a massive human intervention, another grand bargain between Dutch ingenuity and the sea: In exchange for not swallowing them in cold saltwater, the Netherlands promises the sea a modicum of foresight, hardheaded commercial instincts, and very good engineering. With 365 million cubic meters of sand, Continue Reading »
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Posted in CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, FEATURES, PLANNING, REGION, RESEARCH, RESILIENCE, SHORELINE, TECH, WATER | Tagged Adwen, artificial island, Arwen, Beach, Belgium, biennial, Boskalis, cables, carbon emissions, chimney, climate change, climate change policy, Covering Climate Now, Delft University of Technology, Denmark, Dirk Sijmons, Dogger Bank, Doggerland, E. F. Schumacher, Ecofys, electricity, Energetic Odyssey, Erasmus University, European Union, European Wind Energy Association, fossil fuel, fuel, Germany, H+N+S, heat, Henk Polinder, IJsselmeer, INNWIND, Jan Bijhouwer, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, Maarten Hajer, Maasvlakte, MacArtney, Michael Dumiak, Nathalie Strookman, Natuur & Milieu, North Sea, Norway, offshore wind power, Paris Agreement, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Port of Rotterdam, Prysmian, Renewable energy, Research, Rommert Dekker, Royal Dutch Shell, RWE, Siemens, Statoil, The Naked Shore: Of the North Sea, The Netherlands, the UK, Thomas Winkel, Tom Blass, Utrecht University, Van Oord, Vesta, wildlife, wind energy, Wind Farms, wind turbines, Zandmotor | Leave a Comment »
September 12, 2019 by LAM Staff
BY TIMOTHY A. SCHULER
Can waste glass be repurposed as a planting medium for green infrastructure?
It is easy to paint landscape architecture as an inherent “greener” of communities, particularly when it comes to green infrastructure and the profession’s more recent emphasis on creating and sustaining urban ecologies. But every project has an environmental footprint, including, in some cases, the destruction of wilderness areas hundreds of miles from the project site through sand mining and soil removal, which provide the raw material for landscape soil blends. “We put ourselves out there as purveyors of sustainability, but meanwhile we’re kind of like these crazy organ harvesters, borrowing healthy soil and transplanting it somewhere else,” says Richard Roark, ASLA, a partner at OLIN in Philadelphia. “I was like, can we stop that?”
That is exactly what OLIN is attempting to do through a multidisciplinary research project known as Soil-less Soil. Led by the firm’s research division, OLIN Labs, the landscape architects and their partners are studying the feasibility of Continue Reading »
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Posted in CLIMATE, DETAILS, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, NOW, PLANTS, POLLUTION, PRESERVATION, RESEARCH, RESILIENCE, REUSE, SOIL | Tagged closed-loop, cullet, ECOLOGY, environment, environmental footprint, extraction, ferrous sulfate, glass, green, greenhouse gas emissions, Infrastructure, landfills, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape designer, materials, OLIN, OLIN Labs, pH, Philadelphia, planting, planting media, postconsumer glass, Rebecca Popowsky, reclaimed materials, recycling, Research, Richard Roark, sodium carbonate, soil, Soil-less Soil, Timothy A. Schuler, University of Pennsylvania, urban, waste glass, water conservation | Leave a Comment »
September 10, 2019 by LAM Staff
The things our art director, Chris McGee, hated to leave out of the current issue of LAM.
Photo by Sahar Coston-Hardy, Affiliate ASLA.
From “The Glass Is Greener” in the September 2019 issue by Timothy A. Schuler, about the use of recycled waste glass fragments as sustainable substitutes for soil.
“Soil solution.”
–CHRIS MCGEE, LAM ART DIRECTOR
As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 250 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.
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Posted in DETAILS, ECOLOGY, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, MATERIALS, ONLINE ONLY, PHOTOGRAPHY, PLANTS, RESEARCH, RESILIENCE, REUSE, SOIL | Tagged beads, cullet, glass, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, OLIN, planting, plants, recycling, soil, Timothy A. Schuler, University of Pennsylvania, Waste | Leave a Comment »
September 5, 2019 by zachmortice
BY ZACH MORTICE
M. Paul Friedberg’s Billy Johnson Playground. Photo courtesy the Central Park Conservancy.
M. Paul Friedberg, FASLA, on why cities should be places to play instead of places for playgrounds.
The granite slide in New York City’s Billy Johnson Playground is an illustration of M. Paul Friedberg’s design philosophy. Its 45-foot serpentine curve is nestled into a rocky outcropping, one of Central Park’s startling moments of geologic heft. The slide came from Friedberg’s observations of how his own children tumbled down the slate gray behemoths.
Located at the East 67th Street entrance to Central Park, the playground is inspired by the park’s landscape and context, expressed through rustic wood pole knots and stone blocks. The granite slide, like other elements of the playground, is less a discrete object and more “an incident in the park” that flows naturally from its setting, says Friedberg, the recipient of the 2015 ASLA Medal. “You wanted to make it look like you just came across this.”
By layering the slide on top of geology, the slide “doesn’t have to be in a playground,” Friedberg says. And it gets to the heart of his approach at Billy Johnson Playground. “Do you consider Central Park a place for playgrounds,” he says, “or is it a place to play?” Continue Reading »
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Posted in ACCESSIBILITY, ONLINE ONLY, PLAYGROUNDS, RECREATION | Tagged Abstraction, ACCESSIBILITY, Ada Louise Huxtable, adventure playgrounds, ASLA Medal, Billy Johnson Playground, Central Park, Central Park Conservancy, children, Christopher Nolan, context, Dene Summerhouse, Douglas Fir, Forever Green, form, Gapstow Bridge, immersion, Jacob Riis Houses, landscape architect, Landscape Architecture, landscape design, M. Paul Friedberg, maintenance, Manhattan, net climber, New York City, play, playground, playscape, Public Housing, rustic, slide, wood, Zach Mortice | Leave a Comment »
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