Material Transcended: Concrete

{One of the reused concrete weirs at the Willow Patch Project, Cazenovia, NY.  Image: Source}

Rather then contributing to the development of “Everywhere USA” retail centers, the Willow Patch Project in Cazenovia New York represents innovation in material resource and environmental design which Landscape Architects should be championing.

The site, owned by The Cazenovia Preservation Foundation and funded by the Central New York Community Foundation used local labor and reuse of local concrete materials injecting money into its own community, while also giving second life to demolished sidewalks.

The project was designed and managed by a team comprised largely from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Faculties of Landscape Architecture and Engineering, led by Professor Matthew Potteiger and Tobiah Horton.

Willow Patch consists of 4 basins for the retention of stormwater. The basins are separated by weirs made from sidewalks from where the actual stormwater originates. The broken concrete replaces rip rap in an energy dissipation apron at the terminus of the stormdrain. A forebay was created, which is supporting growth of plants, frogs, and slowly filling up with sediment. This sediment will be tested to determine exactly what is being kept out of the rated trout stream, The Chittenango Creek. 

Willow shoots which are found throughout the project, will grow vigorously producing many very straight branches ideal for basket or fence weaving.  Willow can also be used as a biomass fuel - it is a carbon neutral, meaning that the amount of CO2 that the plant absorbs during its growning life is equal to the amount released by its harvest, transport, and incineration.

{Energy Dissipation Apron and Forebay at Willow Patch Project.  Image: Source}

{Stormdrain empties into forbey and Energy Dissipation Apron, comprised of concrete originated from the pipes storwater source in town. Image: Source}

+ Additional Project Photos

Botanical Gentrification

Situated in the north-western corner of Georgia, Abkhazia was once known as a prime holiday destination for the Soviet elite. The ornate railway station that once carried aristocrats to vacation homes has since been gentrified by thriving flora and fauna.

Abkhazia's battle for independence from Georgia since the collapse of the USSR has reduced the economy to ruins. The only things to thrive are the atmosphere of instability, Russo-Georgian rivalry for influence, and the vegetative takeover on abandoned infrastructure.

It would make for interesting Landscape Architectural experiment, in close coordination with Architecture, to design a system that intentionally allows this natural process of The World Without Us landscape succession to occur. The deliberate “overgrowth” could eventually become means of structural support and a by allowing the wild in, creating a true interconnection between ecosystem and architecture.

{images via: Environmental Graffiti}

If These Landscapes Could Talk

{Microphone records and plots bioacoustics: Image via Wired}

What if our landscapes could speak to us?  How would our environmental relationships and connections change if our impacts received a verbal response?  Perhaps we could finally answer the age old "If a tree falls in the woods" question.

Interestingly enough, scientists are intensifying studies to monitor ecosystems by microphoning and measuring biodiversity in soundscapes.  Sounds of individual species have been the traditional area of focus, but as Michigan State University Ecologist Stuart Gage states:

"I'm not particularly interested in species.  I'm interested in the biodiversity, species timing, habitat disturbances and communications issues.  It's using sound as a metric to look at ecosystem dynamics."

Like the coal miner's canary, by audibly monitoring the eclectic sounds of nature, in accompaniment with Agro-Veillance, might provide us insight into forthcoming ecological demise. But to hear and comprehend the warnings takes time, technology, and expertise.  I wonder if our ancestors and those less effected by swelling urbanism were more in tune and thus able to detect ecological shifts purely by sound.  How about the health of cities?  If scientists were to study acoustical patterns of street noise could an early detection be made of overpopulation and mass transit deficiencies.

There was a time we all had the inherent capability to listen and speak with nature, but at some point something was lost in translation and we simply stopped listening.

{Recorded microphone plots: images via: Wired}

Ecological Warfare Restoration

Southeastern Iraq, an arid region where the Tigris meets Euphrates is seeing a reemergence of ecologically vital marshlands destroyed by Saddam Hussein with the intention of ridding its inhabitants.

Once covering 9,000 square Km, the Marshlands of Mesopotamia were damned and drained by Suddam during the 1980-1988 war with Iran in an effort to destroy the ecosystem of the Marsh Arabs, or Ma’dan, whom he accused of treachery and rebellion.

Heirs to ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, the Ma’dan, once half a million strong, were well-adapted to the habitat. They built floating islands, houses, and boats with mud and reeds and survived by fishing, hunting, and herding water buffalo , inhabiting the marshlands for over 5,000 years. Thought by some scholars to be the inspiration for the Biblical Garden of Eden, the wetlands vast biodiversity has sustained its people which show a case for the importance of symbiotic ties between environment and culture. A connection well known by Suddam, he used this knowledge to commence ecological warfare, displacing tens of thousands.

 

Dwindling down to only 760 square km in the early 2000’s, locals began destroying the damns after the fall of Suddam. The United Nations joined in with a 14 million dollar restoration project, which has restored up to 50% of the wetlands. A rather significant success and a model for future ecological restoration projects whether from man-made or natural disaster destruction.

Restoring the region's native ecology has been an important part of rebuilding Iraq, and newly released satellite photos reveal that much of the environmental damage can be repaired. But can the recovery of the land spur the recovery of a people? At a time when more and more people are fleeing uninhabitable landscapes, what becomes of the Marsh Arabs will reveal how the health of an environment affects the success of the society that calls it home.

The Nomadic Landscape of Burning Man

Every year, as summer nears its end, the desert town of Black Rock City Nevada for one week gathers a community of progressives, hippies, gypsies and anyone else in search of a visceral experience of total freedom of self expression. The event they come for is Burning Man.

With various and often colorful backgrounds its nomadic inhabitants create an eclectic landscape of communal dwellings, land art, and sculpture.

No rules, HOA’s, or city ordinances exist. The ancient lake bed that houses the event called the playa, is a blank canvas of sorts. Temporary structures, often a mix of geodesic domes and traditional Mongolian yurts are conjured from pure artistic concepts and functionality of desert survival. The week-long homes of Burning Man’s visitors, as well as the elaborate and expansive land art accompanied, transcend the once empty plane of the playa into a primal landscape of free form modern expression.

I’ve yet to make it to Burning Man, and my days of festival stamina are dwindling, but what entices me about the event are scenes that for me reflect ancient nomadic tribes, where community came first, and man’s mark on the land was limited to simple artifacts left behind.

As quick as the town emerges, after the giant man burns on the final night, it disappears. Through an extensive effort of volunteers and festival directors not one piece of trash is left behind, returning the landscape completely to its original state and maintaining Burning Man’s commitment to remaining a Leave No Trace Event.

(image via The Burning Man Project)