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Archive for the ‘WATER’ Category

NEW AT HQ: A PLAYBOOK FOR RESILIENCY

Posted in ASLA, CITIES, CLIMATE, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, LAM ONLINE, RESILIENCE, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2016 | Leave a Comment »

Credit: ASLA 2016 Professional General Design Honor Award. Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl / Lim Shiang Han.

Credit: ASLA 2016 Professional General Design Honor Award. Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl / Lim Shiang Han.

 

Resiliency is a word that has become fixed in the lexicon of landscape architecture, and for good reason. Resiliency means, among other things, protecting the 80 percent of the world’s population living near a coast from the onslaught of natural disasters and climate change—and there are rising hazards inland, too. It also brings increasing equity to the valuable roles of landscape architects. There’s a ton of information out there on how communities can become more resilient. To help navigate it, ASLA recently released Resilient Design, a web guide that documents the importance of focusing on resiliency (for the human and nonhuman worlds) and offers case studies organized into six general areas to show adaptations that try to anticipate the worst of circumstances. The guide, which was reviewed by several professionals deeply involved in resiliency issues, emphasizes layered defenses rather than “heavy-handed infrastructure projects.”

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DOUBLE DUTY

Posted in BROWNFIELDS, DETAILS, ECOLOGY, LAM MAGAZINE, PARKS, REUSE, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2016 | Leave a Comment »

BY BETSY ANDERSON, ASSOCIATE ASLA

A stormwater retrofit makes space for a new park on Puget Sound.

A stormwater retrofit makes space for a new park on Puget Sound.

From the September 2016 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.

A ferry ride away from Seattle, Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula is a deeply lobed fjordscape whose 216 miles of shoreline have provided the perfect laboratory for development of so-called end-of-pipe stormwater solutions: space-saving treatment occurring at the bottom of the watershed, near aging municipal outfalls. These stormwater retrofits were most recently tested in Manchester, a close-knit village piled up at the peninsula’s eastern edge. Here, a former gas station site was recruited to treat 100 million gallons of polluted stormwater each year, before it enters Puget Sound.

Tucked between homes and businesses and adjacent to a busy swimming beach, the half-acre parcel now known as Manchester Stormwater Park inspired the project team—a cadre of Kitsap County staff plus engineers and landscape architects from Parametrix, N. L. Olson & Associates, and GeoEngineers—to take a multifunctional approach. “People really wanted a green space here,” says Jens Swenson, ASLA, a landscape architect for Parametrix who led the hardscape, lighting, and plant design for the park.

The green space was hard-won. Funded by a million-dollar grant from (more…)

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LAMCAST: MISSISSIPPI BASIN

Posted in ECOLOGY, LAM ONLINE, REGION, WATER, tagged , , , , , on September 20, 2016 | Leave a Comment »

Horace Mitchell, whose title is lead visualizer of NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, has mapped sets of U.S. Geological Survey data on stream flows of the entire Mississippi River Basin, which, of course, includes the Missouri River and Ohio River watersheds. Mitchell traces the streams’ flows from source to mouth (though not at actual stream flow speeds). It takes a while for water to run from the continental divides to the Gulf of Mexico, but it eventually does get there.

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HIGHER GROUND? NOT SO FAST

Posted in CITIES, CLIMATE, HEALTHY COMMUNITIES, LAM MAGAZINE, NOW, RESILIENCE, SHORELINE, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 23, 2016 | 1 Comment »

BY KEVAN WILLIAMS

In North Miami, flooding and sea-level rise have spurred talk of relocation, as well as cries of “climate gentrification.”

In North Miami, flooding and sea-level rise have spurred talk of relocation, as well as cries of “climate gentrification.”

From the August 2016 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.

Before the city was built, the land around Miami consisted of a low band of limestone, the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, dissected by lower sloughs, marshy freshwater streams that eventually were filled in and developed. The Arch Creek neighborhood of North Miami is one such area. “Fast forward, [and] they’re what FEMA calls repetitive loss properties,” says Walter Meyer, a founding principal of Brooklyn-based Local Office Landscape Architecture, of the homes built in these vulnerable, low-lying areas.

After multiple claims, the homes are no longer eligible for the National Flood Insurance Program.

Meyer was one of nine urban planning experts convened by the (more…)

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DRIVING CONCERN

Posted in BROWNFIELDS, CITIES, DETAILS, GREEN ROOFS, LAM MAGAZINE, NEW YORK CITY, RESILIENCE, WATER, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2016 | Leave a Comment »

BY ALEX ULAM

The new Mosholu Golf Driving Range is part of a controversial water filtration plant project built at the edge of the bucolic Van Cortlandt Park.

The new Mosholu golf driving range is part of a controversial water filtration plant project built at the edge of the bucolic Van Cortlandt Park.

From the July 2016 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.

Many things are not exactly what they appear to be at the new Mosholu golf driving range, located in the northwest section of the Bronx in New York City. Behind high stone walls and a gate monitored by armed policemen there are carefully crafted illusions worthy of an Olmsted design. A driveway leading into this place looks as if it were carved out of wilderness. On either side are sunken beds of untamed riparian plants that pool with water after rainstorms. Up a slope, past a low-slung building faced in rust-colored steel, you are at the high point of the range. The greens below are composed of hillocks with carpets of turfgrass, plush enough for a nap, which overlook a bowl-shaped depression.

Beneath the driving range is the Croton Water Filtration Plant. At a cost of more than $3.2 billion, it is among the most expensive public works projects ever built in New York City. The driving range sits atop a nine-acre green roof covering the plant, which is said to be the country’s largest contiguous green roof. It replaces an old municipal driving range bulldozed more than a decade ago to make way for the underground filtration plant, which descends about 100 feet into the ground. The subterranean structure is designed to filter up to 30 percent of New York City’s water supply.

The need to purify water, especially water that humans have polluted, has become (more…)

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ART DIRECTOR’S CUT, JULY 14

Posted in BROWNFIELDS, ENVIRONMENT, LAM ONLINE, NOW, POLLUTION, WATER, WILDLIFE, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2016 | Leave a Comment »

The things our art director, Chris McGee, hated to leave out of the current issue of LAM.

Credit: GGN (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol).

Credit: GGN (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol).

From “San Francisco’s Overlooked Edge” by Lisa Owens Viani, in the July 2016 issue, featuring the reworking of San Francisco’s neglected shorelines into the Blue Greenway.

“San Francisco terminus.”

—Chris McGee, LAM Art Director

As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 700 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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ART DIRECTOR’S CUT, JUNE 23

Posted in LAM ONLINE, PHOTOGRAPHY, WATER, tagged , , , , , on June 23, 2016 | 1 Comment »

The things our art director, Chris McGee, hated to leave out of the current issue of LAM.

Credit:

Credit: Tim Waterman.

From “There’s Room” by Tim Waterman, in the June 2016 issue, featuring the Netherlands’ ambitious Room for the River plan that will help the country adapt to rising tides.

“Dutch flatline.”

—Chris McGee, LAM Art Director

As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 700 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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