I stumbled upon Lorna Jordan’s work in a January 1997 issue of Landscape Architecture, where her Waterworks Gardens in Renton, Washington was given applause for embracing both aesthetics and ecology in creating public space — in the midst of a gritty sewage-treatment plant.  Self-labeled an ‘environmental artist,’ Jordan created eight acres of new open space, including onsite wetland, garden ‘rooms’, and an overall strategy to naturally treat stormwater and allow visitors to examine the ‘invisible infrastructure’ of the sewage plant. She was heavily influenced by the fusion of art and infrastructure seen at Herbert Bayer’s Earthworks in nearby Kent, Washington in 1982.

“This oil-polluted water is collected from fifty acres of roads and parking lots, then pumped uphill at 2000 gallons/min…flows beneath the Knoll’s entry plaza, assembled from red quartzite pavers, and can be viewed coursing beneath a rusted grate before cascading through three weep holes into the first of eleven settlement ponds containing 662,000 gallons.”

The five Garden Rooms:

1. The Knoll – a feature that ‘evokes the root of the plant’ through use of stone and metal in its underground watercourse. Stormwater spills into a grate-covered channel that cuts through the geometry of a basalt colonnade.

2. The Funnel – a series of terraced leaf-shaped ponds connected by the path (which is in the shape of a stem). going down the hill, landforms and plants get taller, ponds get smaller

3. The Grotto – shaped like a seedpod (or a bandshell, or a clamshell…), cleansed stormwater cascades here, at the base of the hill. with a fountain, water seeps, pools, evergreen plantings, shotcrete walls — a dank, fertile environment is created, and richly textured benches and mosaics are inlaid.

4. The Passage – runs along a calming row of Lombardy poplars and past 3 circular ponds (symbolizing the fruit of the plant)

5. The Release – cleansed water passes from pond system to wetlands to Springbrook Creek. Ribbonlike islands and channels are reinforced by bands of native plantings. path meanders through wetlands and connects with regional trail systems.

Although the biomimicry metaphor of traveling through the innards of a plant may have been taken to a slight extreme, there is definitely a clear sense of engagement and didactic value. In her first meeting with the engineers, they were very skeptical about meshing public art with sewage — “he kept trying to point me to where the ‘Object’ would go,” she noted.  A very  illuminating comment, after which she definitely set the record straight.

I picked up this book at Rotch a few weeks ago while on my shift, and my first move — as with every book I shelve, so it takes me about thrice as long as any other shelver — was to cursorily flip through to see if I was captivated by any of the images. What I saw was not the gallery of edgy TOD architecture  I had envisioned, but a wholly diverse conglomeration of public art, photography, infrastructure, and information-charged projects that all culminate into a ‘breathing city’.

Instead of dividing it up in terms of different modes of movement [roads, trains, planes, walking], the categories are of things that are actually being moved:

1. People
2. Goods
3. Geography
4. Information
5. Ideologies

“Breathing Cities brings together projects from a wide range of disciplines to explore the nature of urban flux…[it] deals with the ways in which cities work in the real world, with all of the grimy complications that implies” [Barley 7].

a quote that Nick Barley cites that make me squirm (with possibilities!):

“When it rains in Oxford Street, the architecture is no more important than the rain.” -Archigram

Projects of note to me, fingering one from each category:

-PEOPLE: Sights Unseen, by Julia Spicer.  She recorded her journeys through London using a camera concealed in her backpack, capturing images at random along the way. She created a sort of ‘test’ for herself, requiring her to re-acquaint herself with her environment. The photos are abstract and fractured, but convey glimpses of detail that “we frequently see without registering them at all.”

-GOODS: London’s New Convent Garden Market, The Global Flow of Fruit and Vegetables.  I am a sucker for infographics.

-GEOGRAPHY: Studio 333’s Dutch Mountain, Zaanstad, the Netherlands.  The project involves capping an existing waste dump [between Zaanstad + wetlands area] with 43,000 cu m of decontaminated earth to seal + reshape an area to be used for public space. Instead of a simple park, they are constructing a ‘rolling and swirling dune-like topography’ coupled with a bed analogy…complete with a first layer of earth mattress, pillows to maintain shelter against wind and noise, and a final duvet layer that covers the hill with patterns.

-INFORMATION: Kas Oosterhuis’s Saltwater Pavilion on Neeltje Jans. It captures raw info about water from nearby a weatherstation-buoy, and transforms it into a continuously-changing light display in the pavilion.

-IDEOLOGIES: Belfast. photos of ‘reality’ and ethnic residential segregation.

This book fascinates me.  As do many other ‘here is my architectural buzzword. now let’s throw all the projects i know that could potentially squeeze under this umbrella buzzword together into a book, add arresting photos, and publish it’ books.

my question is…

How can simply curating a list of examples or precedents be enough to become a thesis?

(Can it?)

Am I wasting time looking at these kinds of books?

by Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden

Occupying some place between a textbook, a manual, and a friendly neighbor giving advice, this book is a very enjoyable read.

Their mantra: simple techniques can make a real difference in the way that water is managed in designed landscapes. Through rain gardens, rainfall can be captured from buildings and sealed surfaces and then stored and released within the landscape. Seems doable!

why rain gardens are good: wildlife and biodiversity, visual and sensory pleasure, play, public space, enhance garden microclimate

(…but we knew all that.)

Much of the natural water cycle today is short-circuited [water that falls onto buildings/ground surfaces is shed rapidly into drains, then rivers/city water treatment plants, completely bypassing natural processes of infiltration] — and here are some reasons why:

-predominance of sealed surfaces – increased risk of flash flooding

-lack of vegetation – discontinuity between ground surface and underlying soil, no transpiration….

-our drainage infrastructure – too efficient?

-water running off sealed surfaces, collecting pollutants

all the possibilities:

retention/detention/storage: rain barrels, water butts, cisterns, ponds

infiltration: stormwater planters, porous/permeable paving, landscape swales, filter strips, gardens, green roofs

conveyance techniques: rain chains, outflows, gullies [rills, channels]

this book has made the stormwater chain is so exciting to me.  after reading it, I think I want my thesis to go in a different direction…

pavement to parks

Last Friday was all abuzz with Park(ing) Day, a ‘holiday’ created to celebrate public space. (Sad that it lasts only one day a year!)
In the spirit of reclaiming the streets, Allison Arieff discusses an offshoot of this — land banking.  The strategic acquisition of land in advance of expanding urban development, land-banking in this economic climate has resulted in vacant lots, empty storefronts, and general wastes of space that are baking in the sun just for people to come and rescue them.

San Francisco’s ‘Pavement to Parks’ program does exactly this — “seeks to temporarily reclaim these unused swathes and quickly and inexpensively turn them into new public plazas and parks.”  The temporary closure is intended to buy time to measure the success of these plazas and analyze what adjustments need to be made in the short-term, and ultimately whether the closure should become a permanent transformation for the public realm.

SF’s Pavement to Parks was in part spurred by Janette Sadik-Khan’s recent pedestrianization efforts in New York City — ‘excess roadway’ including streets like Broadway in Times Square have been morphed into plazas and seating areas, simply by painting or treating the asphalt, placing protective barriers along the periphery, and installing moveable tables and chairs. (Some consistently call out that these fixtures are flimsy, but I say it is a monumental improvement from the gas fumes that spewed out of bumper-to-bumper traffic 24/7.)

What Arieff is impressed by “isn’t so much the design, as the implementation” of the Pavement to Parks program — whose first and foremost goal is to ‘transform a sea of asphalt.’ A pro bono designer works on each park (currently 3/12 finished though 2010), using materials that the city already has to maximize greenery: composted soil from city landscaping, community volunteers for planting, etc.  The plantings also add storm water management capacity to streets.

Most innovatively, Arieff champions not a complete buyout of these asphalt oceans, but with a small budget and even smaller footprint, a friendly “borrow” should work just fine.

Via Arieff, Allison. “Pavement to Parks.” By Design, NYTimes.com. 22 Sept 09

a double book review

Dana Cuff reviews two books on public space in Harvard Design Magazine.

“For centuries, if not millennia, public space has been tied to politics, as the realm mediating between citizens and the state, or at least between individual citizens and the collective.”

Things that “we agree on” about the public sphere:
-boundaries between private and public are murkier than ever
-’the public’ is really multiple publics
-the terms public sphere, space, square, domain all imply different things
-so much has been said, that there is often a common “What new can be said about the public sphere?” (My question exactly, and I want my thesis to address this.)

As I looked through the two books that Dana Cuff reviews, their approaches are rather divergent. One extends a more philosophical (‘Habermasian’) discussion, about cultural geography, archipelagos and enclaves, politics of animation, ‘liminal spaces’, and the like.  The other provides a pictorial gallery of recent design projects to muse over, as an exhibition booklet punctuated with textual perspectives from architects and scholars.

“Nowhere is the perspective of each text as obvious as from the photos: OPEN is full of unpopulated aerial, abstract views so that the space itself is revealed; In Search of New Public Domain contains eye-level views into the swarm of humanity in airports, at the beach, in the mall. You can’t tell exactly where they are, but you get the feeling you’d like to join them.”

This leads me to mull over the best way to present a topic such as this for a thesis.

Analyze examples + sleek photos of precedence, or philosophical discussion + happy photos of people?  I will need to delve into both of these books a little bit more to formulate a more concrete opinion.

Via Cuff, Dana. Review of In Search of New Public Domain: Analysis and Strategy and OPEN: New Designs for Public Space (Sustainability) + Pleasure, vol. 1: Culture + Architecture Number 30, Spring/Summer 09.

Allan Jacobs, professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, laments  the current (well, as of 3 years ago) state of city planning and city planning education in large American cities.

He champions that urban planning’s first priority is about the physical environment of places — ‘what should go where, why, how to get it there, and when,’ as opposed to socioeconomic issues, namely legislation. He outlines that three physical scales are necessary to be effective and relevant: city as a whole, neighborhood/district, and individual project/site; and three time scales: long (4+ yrs), middle (1-4 yrs), and short (<1 yr). (Seems like a given to me.)

While lauding the results of the San Francisco General Plan for Urban Design and Transportation,  Jacobs cites his time as the city’s planning director as a prime example of his grievances.  He is disenchanted by the low priority and the lack of professional expertise of city planning departments, the compromised goals of public-private partnership redevelopment projects, but most of all, that so many people who teach city planning in university graduate programs are nonprofessionals.

(From a semantical argument, he notes the dropping of the word ‘city’ and ‘urban’ from what has always been ‘city planning’ or ‘urban planning’ — and the rise of the phrase “urban design” as a recent invention to ‘justify a concentration on what city planning once was, and what “planning” alone is not.’)

“But too often the emphasis is on how to make future decisions, not necessarily on making them or on developing creative ways to achieve them.”

He also looks down his nose at the new-found emphasis on verbal policy, citizen participation techniques (void of doing plans), and conflict resolution in master’s programs, while forgetting the design studio classes.

From my perspective, it seems as if he is mourning the departure of planning from the architecture + design stream in general. While interdisciplinary study has been crusaded in planning, it has been at the cost of embracing too tightly the academic skirts of the social sciences, and leaving the tails of professional experience trailing behind.

Via Jacobs, Allan. “The State of Planning Today.” Places: Design Observer. 15 Dec 2006.

Fred Kent, founder of the Project for Public Spaces, shares his thoughts on place-making initiatives and iconic architecture.

Citing the well-known and well-documented Bilbao effect, Kent argues that iconic architecture precludes the creation of good public spaces, by only promoting a design-centric philosophy where all that matters is the artistic statement conceived by an internationally recognized celebrity.

He raises his eyebrows at the longevity of this kind of ‘placemaking,’ where citizen input is minimal, and the spectacle of the monument reigns supreme. “Curb appeal” is also a term that he coins, where too little thought is given on how to continue attracting people to these places after their first visit.  Context is forgotten.

“We have praise for the building as a work of art, but not as a destination.”

Yes, everyone has issues with starchitecture.

Kent makes reference to a “New Architecture of Place” in this current economic climate, although what shapes that takes, exactly, remains amoeba-like.  On the upside, he gives a running list of great examples of iconic architecture that do create great public places. Among them include the Oslo Opera House by Snohetta, and Melbourne’s Council House 2.

He enumerates three ways to make great places:

1. move away from iconic architecture for iconic’s sake (take note, Pritzkers)

2. establish a new, deeper field (larger than both architecture + planning) that emphasizes the skills needed to work with communities in creating streets, and public places

3. always questioning the impact of context.  and delight.

Via Kent, Fred. “Moving Beyond the ‘Smackdown’ Towards an Architecture of Place.” Making Places. Project for Public Spaces. 18 Sept 2009.

Elizabeth Felicella, a NYC-based architectural photographer, did this series from 1997-1998 to explore the ‘landscape of security.’  It was a mode of inquiry into how public places are divided and marked to be shared or protected, along with emotions of territoriality or fear that comes with urban environments.

A set of 140 large-format photographs, Felicella approached it like a mapping project — she chose fifty locations from a randomly-drawn grid on bus maps from each of the five boroughs, and traveled to ten sites in each borough at two different times of year.

The Design Trust for Public Space funded this project, as part of a larger examination of security in the city’s parks and open spaces.  This initiative, like many others in the urban design realm, dances along that fine line between security in public areas, and maintaining their integrity as places belonging to the public.

As I am currently taking a photography class, this mode of exploration inspires me to embrace some kind of visual thesis.  I wonder if after Felicella randomly selected these places, she walked onto the site already anticipating feeling uneasy, or if the environment alone evoked uneasiness, or what combination of both?  In the end, did she document spaces or emotion? The utter dearth of people from this viewpoint of New York brushes me with a ripple of shuddering.

Via Felicella, Elizabeth. “Portfolio: Uneasy Spaces, Security and the Public Realm.” Places: Design Observer. 1 Jul 200o.

i left copenhagen about a month ago.  in the interim, ive spent some time with the home clan in new jersey, with the school clan at MIT, weekending at dartmouth, a little bit in new york city, and now i am settled in the bay area for the summer.

like i wrote in my Dear City essay, i am forever comparing each new place i visit back to my experience in copenhagen.  i wonder if this is irritating to my friends at home.

11am at 31st x 8th in new york. why are there only 3 people sitting and basking and taking advantage of these sunshine-drunken stairs??? if this was copenhagen, people would be all over that beautiful urban seating like flies on a caramel apple

while waiting for my megabus to boston, i couldn’t help but silently egg on the few lone bikers weaving in and out of the arrogant manhattan car traffic.

much improved! i couldn't believe my eyes when i exited the subway in times square. thanks to janette sadik-khan, the current Commissioner of the NYC Department of Transportation, and her admiration of Copenhagen's bicycle+pedestrian culture, this 'radical' pilot program in times square has finally gotten people strolling and relaxing without fear of becoming roadkill.

i’m working as Dwell’s online editorial intern for the summer in San Francisco, and my first blogpost was actually about the opening of the High Line in Chelsea/Meatpacking, and all this relatedly good stuff happening in new york.

jackson square/columbus ave near the financial district in san francisco -- a 5 minute promenade from the dwell office. fantastic variety of food choices in the vicinity (italian, thai, chinese, vietnamese, mexican, sandwichy, + more more more) but not enough restful green public spaces to sit and enjoy lunch outdoorsily.

this is the nearest park: the smallish transamerica redwood park filling in and around the base of said building.

after a semester of wanderlusting nomadicness, it’s nice to be sort of anchored for awhile.  i’ll be living in hayes valley soon, and hopefully riding my new pretty bike, courtesy of christine!), but for now, i’m currently settled in san mateo with john for june.  he has just finished U.S. Puzzle Championship, which occurred this morning from 10am-12.30pm.

next week, the Dwell crew will be trekking down to the Dwell on Design 09 conference in LA in two raucous caravans, and i’m so excited.

going to the Salone Internazionale de Mobile this year has been one of the most mind-boggling experiences of my entire life.

little did i know what was in store after capriciously buying my $80 EasyJet roundtrip ticket to Milan back in early February.  our first impression after exiting the unbreathably-sardiney metro at Rho: billowingly snakey, glass-net volumes that enveloped the fairgrounds with an overwhelming sense of expectation.

russell, abe, and i wandered around these halls for an entire day (with our eyes re-bulging after turning every corner), but there was just absolutely no way to see everything.  i think what was most overwhelming was the glamour of it all — we were in the middle of what was simply la creme de la creme of the design world, and we were able to touch, sit in, and sprawl over it all.

after studying interior architecture for the bulk of the semester, i found that i was often more fascinated by each store’s overall exhibit and its spatial/emotional effect, rather than the individual pieces themselves.  i probably spent the most time in hall 12, which housed most of the (few, but now expanding) furniture designers i was faimilar with.  in my whirlwind of wanting to retain it all, i just couldnt sketch fast enough, so i was relegated to jotting down soundbyte associations/metaphors for the pavilions that were most memorable to me.

some of the 'big boys' in hall 12

kartell: a celebratory photomontage [celebratory of their 60th anniversary, celebratory of 'diversity']

arkitepo: a purple, webby, atom of biomimicry

thut mobel: ribbons of woody fluorescence…edgy organic!

horm: snowflake tapestries

artek: presumptuous one-liner ["ONE CHAIR IS ENOUGH!" on shigeru ban's 10-unit system]

campeggi: tornado of compressible doghouses

edra: madonna pop-glam

giovanetti: white concrete igloo, laced with flower pods

emeco: another one-liner [this time less exuberant, more one-hit-wonder-esque, with gehry involved]

in and around milan - fritz hansen, 'design virus' at zona tortona, images from salone satellite, various showrooms, and the duomo

but it wasn’t just the fairgrounds at Rho — the entire city turns into a giant festival, with everything going on at zona tortona, the showrooms in and around the center of the city, at the Triennale…  i spent a day at each, and consistently, i was attracted to the smaller, younger exhibitors who were eager to talk to you and connect with you and explain their ideas.  my favorite part of the fair by far was the Salone Satellite, the area all the way at the very back of the fairground by halls in the 20s, where it was so inspiring to see ‘youthful, creative talent’ at its best, and be in awe of students who are the same age as me and have already accomplished so much.

russell and i explore some Ear Chairs at SuperStudio in Zona Tortona. "A group of Ear Chairs facing each other will create a place for private conversation. It is one of two collections Rotterdam-based Studio Makkink & Bey have created for the Dutch firm Prooff"

after three days, all i can say is — i want more.

last sunday, these three animals embarked on a journey to the irish countryside.  yearning to bust out of dublin, we lapped up a delicious irish breakfast [complete with black pudding] and were quickly on our way towards the glacial valley of Glendalough.

andrew, roger, and i had an unfair share of obstacles earlier in the weekend — including a roguish debit-card-chomping ATM machine, an 8am mariah carey hostel crisis, and a wandering australian named ben elliot.  but after playing among the rolling green hills like our adopted animal namesakes, gulping the (hopefully) pristine babbling brook water, and one ice cream cone with chocolate flake, these worries were all but forgotten.

andrew leads the pack on our 10 km loop

every old civilization seems to have a roundtower… Glendalough was once a monastery, and now the gravestones sit all angley and look as if some of the dead became chummy friends and some didnt

guide description: 'you might be able to catch a glimpse of feral goats on the miner's trail....'

roger looks

back in dublin city - the spire, which does not serve any real purpose other than 'being the tallest sculpture in the world.' it claims to be a symbol for urban revitalization. yet it's not even a monument saluting some profound historical achievement, but a seemingly blank icon, erected solely for the purpose of being an icon. successful dublin branding? donno...

ben and i have a pensive moment on one of my favorite parts of dublin: the palette of bridges that span the river liffey. each one is different, and makes for exciting 'just around the riverbend!' singsongy thoughts.

to me, dublin had its fine points (fiercely exciting historical stories, a few nice greens spaces, guinness, the best live street music i’ve ever heard), but it also had distinct sour spots (a river so polluted i could not see my reflection in it, temple bar’s uncanny likeness to an american frat party, heroin junkies sprawled on every other bench, a building color scheme of blacks and browns).  overall, it just couldn’t hold a candle to copenhagen’s charm.

it’s been quite exhilarating to be flying off to a new city every weekend, but a part of me just wants to stay put in copenhagen now.  with the lovely sun and my lovely bike, and with only three weeks left to this danish shebang of a semester, my desire to be continually jetsettery has waned some.

but!

not before Design Week at the Salone Internazionale in Milan this weekend =)