Tags: ecology

The aim of Dwell Magazine and Inhabitat’s recent ReBurbia design competition was to reimagine the American suburbs in the context of the current home foreclosure crisis and rising energy costs.  The competition’s cheeky winning entry posits the transformation of abandoned suburban mansions into wetlands and water purification systems for urban centers: the buildings become machines housing micro-ecosystems, and the front yards become micro-wetlands, providing habitat for wildlife. 

It takes a lot of money to clean up damaged environments, and justifying the cost of expenditure with measurable results hasn’t always been possible.  A new study published in the recent “Restoration Ecology” issue of Science quantifies the impact of ecological restoration projects on levels of biodiversity and ecosystem services in order to provide substance to cost-benefit analysis.

Mary Miss makes site-specific artwork aimed at making abstractions like site history and environmental function tangible to the public.  Her work, from the 1960s through the present, has engaged issues and practices of landscape, architecture, infrastructure and ecology.  She has participated in a number of park design projects, including proposals for New York City’s Riverside Park South and Orange County California’s Great Park.  

The National Parks Conservation Association has drafted a 53-page report describing “a potentially catastrophic loss of animal and plant life” in national parks due to climate change. The report urges the National Park Service to develop an overarching plan to better manage habitat and population shifts.

A consortium of scientists is at work compiling a Global Digital Soil Properties Map–an up-to-date, spatially-referenced soil information tool that can communicate clearly across a range of users and technologies–with the support of an $18 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Another poster child for the reclamation of disturbed lands: AMD&ART Park in Vintondale, PA.  By the mid-’90s, coal mining in this part of Appalachia had resulted in severe acid mine drainage (AMD) into waterways and general public resignation to a major environmental hazard. 

The WRT/Marpillero Pollak-designed infrastructure and public space project that we wrote about in June has broken ground in Long Island City, Queens.

There are a handful of skate parks built from recycled materials these days, but generally, these massive concrete installations have been as environmentally friendly as golf courses.  The Ed Benedict Skate Park in Portland, Oregon is trying to revise that image by managing storm water run-off more responsibly, absorbing it through integrated ‘biofiltration islands’ that have been incorporated as design elements.

Two recent efforts at sharing private green space: Hyperlocavore is an online ‘yardsharing’ forum that facilitates sharing of residential yard space, skills and resources for the collaborative tending of gardens and urban farms;  Community Supported Forestry is Roald Gunderson and Amelia Baxter’s attempt to build a member base for their 140-acre Vermont forest; membership is $550 for a year’s worth of unlimited recreational access, select access to forest harvests like wild mushrooms and sustainable lumber, and member workshops on topics like beer brewing, beekeeping and natural architecture.

The Bronx River Art Center‘s new exhibit features work by Staten Island-based artist Tattfoo Tan and Bronx-based artist Abigail DeVille.  The show is called Black Gold, a term that’s often used to describe compost, and the work–painting, sculpture, installation–circles around issues concerning the natural environment. 

We really enjoyed last Friday’s tour of the green roof atop the Parks Department’s Five Borough Technical Services Complex.  The roof is gorgeous and inspiring, and it’s worth checking out our flickr photos (and videos) of the tour if you weren’t able to make it. 

For our Freshkills Park Talk two weeks back, Dr. Steven Handel shared insights into the emerging field of urban restoration ecology, which focuses on the challenge of bringing ecological diversity back to degraded lands like brownfields and landfills.  He discussed his research at the Freshkills Park site and others in the region and went on to describe how his expertise has informed the design of Orange County, CA’s Great Park.

Next Friday, we’ll be taking a field trip to visit the green roof at the Parks Department’s Five Borough Technical Services Complex on Randall’s Island.  This is no ordinary green roof–it’s the fourth largest in New York City (at over 15,000 sq ft) and uses 13 different green roof systems.  

Another constructed wetland system, this time at the Sidwell Friend’s School in Washington D.C.  The Wetland Machine by Andropogon Associates, Kieran Timberlake Associates and Natural Systems International incorporates two self-contained systems to recycle water, one for wastewater and one for stormwater. 

According to Urban Ecologist Robert DeCandido, 60% of native plant species ever recorded in the State of New York can currently be found in New York City–a statistic DeCandido attributes to the City’s large public parks.  Even so, populations of native species are shrinking in every borough except for Staten Island. 

Urban Omnibus interviews designers Margie Ruddick, Sandro Marpillero and Linda Pollak about the Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project.  Some good discussion about the potential of the urban park, salvaging industrial history in the making of green spaces and the question of “How can something hard, urban and harsh operate ecologically?” 

One of the panelists at next Tuesday evening’s panel discussion on public art, The Challenges and Channels of Public Art Production, is Mierle Ukeles, who is the Department of Sanitation’s Artist-in-Residence and contributed to the Freshkills Park master planning process as a Percent for Art artist. 

Ballistic Architecture Machine’s (BAM) concept for a green roof installation, called Biornis Aesthetope, is an aviary for migrating birds proposed for the 70,000 sq ft rooftop of Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan.  Ornithologists at Harvard and Cornell Universities provided BAM guidance on the resting and nutritional needs for 12 species of birds, including diurnal raptors, songbirds and owls, whose migration paths along the Atlantic Coast Flyway bring them through New York City regularly.

The upcoming week is a busy one for us.  Three terrific public events focused on different aspects of the Freshkills Park site: waste, art and ecology.  They’re all free, and we hope to see you at one or more of them. 

The Hugo Neu Metals Recycling Facility, in the Hunt’s Point area of the Bronx, is getting a stormwater management makeover. The Gaia Institute’s new system for the 6.5-acre facility recycles stormwater that would otherwise run off into the Bronx River Estuary.