Public Space Design: A Service to the Community

Paley Park, Credit: Wikipedia.org, user: Jim.henderson

"Given the interrelationship between living space and human behaviour, those who design buildings, neighbourhoods, public spaces and cities, ought to draw on the various disciplines which help us to understand people’s thought processes, symbolic language and ways of acting. It is not enough to seek the beauty of design. More precious still is the service we offer to another kind of beauty: people’s quality of life, their adaptation to the environment, encounter and mutual assistance. Here too, we see how important it is that urban planning always take into consideration the views of those who will live in these areas."

- His Holiness Pope Francis I,  Laudato Si’,  par. 150

We can all think of gadgets that are poorly designed; they just don't quite work like they are supposed to, or their functioning works but is terribly awkward. We can also think of great gadgets that work incredible well. These exceed our expectations while allowing us to fully do what they promise they will allow us to do. Public spaces are just like any gadget, tool, or device, in this sense--they can be well designed or poorly designed. They can be beautiful, and that is important, but they also need to be much more than optical delights. As Pope Francis says, "it is not enough to seek the beauty of design." Public spaces need to be in touch with the needs and wants of the users. Public spaces need to make room for encounters and activities of humans and creatures in that space; they need to allow users to become a cocreative part of a design that's essence, as public space, is defined by their activity in the space. A public space must be appropriately mindful of psychology, histories, ecology and predjudices that, when ignored, can make the public space feel exclusive or be out of touch with the people of the place. In order to design public spaces, we also must be moving towards a set goal for those spaces that centrally focuses on the users, human and animal alike. When this goal is ignored, the aesthetics stop interweaving with a design of integrity, and the space can easily be designed as a decontextualized carbon copy of another idealized form of "design," embodying a vogue aesthetic of the times, rather than, at its heart, working with new or desired aesthetic styles to become a space that serves those that make it a public space in the first place, the community of the area.


Author: Molly Burhans
www.goodlandproject.org

Witnessing Climate Change in the Sahel

The photo above is from Djangoula Kita in Mali. The most vulnerable of the world, like the residents of Djangoula Kita, are the people experiencing the largest effects of climate change--they have little to no option to technologically adapt in the face of a degrading ecosystem.

This past spring, Molly Burhans, GLP director, and Christopher Hendershot helped plan water infrastructure with the NGO, Mali Nyeta, in Djangoula Kita and Djangoula Foulala, Mali, West Africa. Djangoula Kita is located in the Sahel region of Africa. According to USAID reports, USGS data, and interviews with village residents, the village has been experiencing significantly diminished rainy seasons for over two decades. They have no potable water in this village, except one drilled hand-pump well that reaches the aquifer 25m below the surface. Partially because of poor water quality, they have an infant mortality rate of 1/3. If the aquifer drops too much, that well will no longer be a viable source of water. Molly and Chris met the US Ambassador for Mali, Mary Beth Leonard, before working over-seas in this village. While discussing the environment she emphasized that increasing desertification in the region, as the Sahara encroaches from the north, is tied with social unrest. It is well documented that extremist militant groups, like Boko Haram, have increasingly more power over people as resources become scarce, and these groups become one of the few providers of resources. The ecological and the social are integrally connected--they must be considered together. Damage to the environment today, damages society tomorrow and vice versa. 

Author: Molly Burhans
www.goodlandproject.org

CO2: We Can Make a Big Difference.

One pressing message that can be inferred from the video below is that change that will effectively decrease CO2 concentrations needs to happen, now - we believe it still can, to a significant degree, and that a careful approach to the Church's land holdings could result in a globally positive impact on reducing CO2 concentrations.

In the face of climate change, we believe that it is essential for the Church’s large land holdings to be planned and managed in ways that can help decrease, or at least not contribute to, the effects of climate change. We are building mapping models and will be using spatial analysis techniques to make sure that changes on Catholic Church lands are optimized to have the greatest potential positive impact on local environmental and social factors. Analyses can reveal where small changes can make a big difference for the ecological integrity of a site or pressing social justice issues within an area. The analysis results will be presented as a series of environmental and social justice metrics and reveal how communities can best benefit from selections from a set of optimized design templates, land-use suggestions, and outreach opportunities. This will allow us to engage with Catholic communities and connect them with the resources and organizations that they need to work with to make the changes happen on site. 

Work, such as that accomplished by Project Drawdown, has highlighted the incredible efficacy, and necessity, of engaging land-based solutions to help to decrease overall CO2 levels. An ecological approach can not only help address pressing environmental concerns, such as CO2 levels; it can also help communities. Approaching the land with an ecological design foundation, we integrally value aesthetics and the social factors that create a space. We know that some sites can serve both people and the environment, without greatly compromising either the ecological integrity or the human experience of that area.

goodlandproject.org

Landscape Design and Laudato Si': Selective Maintenance

Graham Hogg, licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

"12. What is more, Saint Francis, faithful to Scripture, invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. 'Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker' (Wis 13:5); indeed, 'his eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of the world' (Rom 1:20). For this reason, Francis asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched, so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty[21]. Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise."

This paragraph from His Holiness Pope Francis’s most recent encyclical references the idea of intentionally selective maintenance regimes that can be incorporated into landscape plans: “Francis asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched.” Leaving an unmanicured or selectively maintained patch of open lawn or edge habitat that contains native plants, as small as 4 feet by 4 feet, can help everyday landscapes serve as vital stepping stones between habitat patches for various species endemic to an area [1].

The landscapes around the built environment are where the commingling of wild elements of the environment with the planned environment inevitably occurs. “Messy aesthetics” may be a concern about implementing Saint Francis’s wild little patch. However, we can assess space to determine how to integrate such patches in ways that enhance the natural beauty of the landscape, rather than leaving it with a seemingly ignored appearance. The design of landscapes is a cocreative act between the designer and the Creator; human design, living Creation, and the abiotic environment all come together to create a landscape. The wild and the meticulously planned elements of a space should be capable of working together to make designs that function for the people who encounter the site and the species that depend on the what is in the site. A well-placed selective-maintenance patch of native plants can do just that, by aesthetically and ecologically enhancing a site.


Molly Burhans
goodlandproject.org

Sources:
[1] Batchelder, Burhans, and White. Portland Pollinator Vision Plan. Conway, MA: Conway School of Landscape Design. 2015. Print.