Perspective -- Laudato Si' and Landscape Planning and Design: Great Hopes for Global Environmental Change

Baby Cardinal in Hand. Credit: Public Domain

Laudato Si’ is a call from the Catholic Church for all citizens of the earth to care for all of God’s creation. It is a landmark piece of ecclesiastic writing. This encyclical is sobering, full of truth about the problems of human-driven climate change, and it is also incredibly hopeful. To put the hopefulness in perspective; Laudato Si’ made addressing human-driven climate change a moral imperative for the 1.2 billion Catholics in this world—and they are doing things. Catholics are building rain gardens, fasting and praying rosaries for climate change action, and planting trees alongside ideas for a brighter, more sustainable future for the planet. Some Catholics are taking the Pope’s message more seriously than any of the previous calls to climate action - and when that “some” is a subset of 1.2 billion people throughout the world, the potential impact is huge. I find even more hope in realizing that it is entirely possible that Catholic-affiliated properties comprise the world’s largest non-governmental network of landholdings. Managing just a fraction of this land in an environmentally could have a global impact on the direction of climate change.

Leading up to the release of this encyclical, I found myself inspired to deepen the relationship between my faith and my education at Conway. Since its release, I have come to grasp in a very profound way how ecological design truly is a form of charity—it constantly gives to the communities that encounter and embrace it, as well as the ecosystems it lies within. The landscape is a place where the known and the unknowable can couple together to produce great designs. Landscape planning and design are co-creative acts because they inherently involve many elements beyond the designer’s control.  The verdant areas of academic explorations between faith and design illuminate questions about co-creative spaces of the landscape designer and how the controllable and uncontrollable work into the choreography of plans and designs across a dynamic landscape. Serious academic discussions about the spatial elements of virtuous acts and how spiritual paradigms intersect with design practices and theory provide fertile ground for future explorations. I am glad that Laudato Si' has helped till the soil for more of these discussions.

 

This Pope hears the cry of the poor and vulnerable in the face of human-driven climate change. I heard this cry in the Sahel of Mali, in West Africa, while working on agriculture and water infrastructure planning. It’s the cry that “if there is no rain, we die,” as well as a cry that braces for yet another devastating typhoon. It’s the cry of the victims of violence caused by climate-escalated conflicts related to unjust resource distribution. While climate change may be the most difficult struggle of our times, the potential positive impacts of the Catholic Church with its massive landholdings, large population, and organized structures rallying behind the cause of climate change action is a source of incredible hope. Part of that hope for me is that the world will continue to move toward a future in which the lives of all people are improved, and that consideration for the lives of the most vulnerable among us are placed at the forefront of discussions about planning and design.

Author: Molly A. Burhans
goodlandproject.org

Photo credit: Chris Hendershot, 2015. Well Digging in the Djangoulas [chris.g.hendershot at gmail dot com]. This photo was taken during our time in Mali in our final semester at the Conway School, while partnered with Mali Nyeta. The village residents had to dig 9+ meters to reach the water table and they said the distance was increasing every year. This decrease in water table is due to increasing drought, deforestation and desertification in the Sahel.

A Rain Garden's Ripple Effect: An Introduction to Green Stormwater Infrastructure and Why it Matters

CSO, or Combined Sewer Overflow dumps excess waste water into a nearby water body, posing a serious hazard to the health of the environment and people in the area.  [1] 

Water that falls on built surfaces, such as parking lots or roofs, usually finds its way into a storm drain and those drains either empty directly into a natural water body or into a larger sewer system. When the larger sewer system is overloaded during heavy rains it will dump its untreated excess water into the environment. If the system is a combined sewer overflow it will expel a mixture of runoff water, human waste water, and (sometimes) industrial waste water, directly into natural water sources, such as local lakes, rivers, and streams.

Riparian zone schematic typical of the Florida Everglades. [2]

Water that falls across a paved surface generally collects salt, petrochemicals, and other pollutants directly from asphalt and whatever has leaked out of on-site features, such as automobiles. Having this hazardous waste-water dumped directly into a natural water source poses a serious threat to the aquatic ecosystem as well as to residents and farmers that encounter the water body. Riparian zones, the area near the banks of waterways, often serve as habitat and migratory pathways for numerous threatened and endangered species. It is important to approach landscape planning and design with sensitivity to the consequences of point-source pollution to these areas, caused by adding water volume and pollution runoff into a sewer system.

Another consequence of directing water into storm drains is that the water that would normally be falling on the earth’s surface as rain and locally and being absorbed into the watertable is running off an area and being redirected directly into water bodies. When green stormwater infrastructure is installed the ecosystem’s natural hydrological processes remain more intact due to offset of rapid water input to waterbodies during rainstorms (which also means decrease in flooding, especially on downstream properties).

  A bioretention system, or rain garden, in Oregon, US, decreases runoff.*

An example of green stormwater infrastucture is an infiltration basin. These are created simply by grading the landscape’s topography towards an area where the water can collect and sink into the ground. The intercepted water no longer goes straight to a natural water source. The plants included in one of these intercepting depressions can be phytoremediators--meaning they remediate the soil from many of the harmful chemicals now being directed into the storm water catchment area.

The primary result of the addition of green stormwater infrastructure to a landscape is that water is slowed, it sinks and recharges the water table, and the toxic chemicals in it are filtered or remediated before it reaches an aquatic ecosystem.

Because of green stormwater infrastructure, the delicate aquatic ecosystem is no longer bombarded with dirty water from the property during heavy rains.  The pipe from drain to output area may become almost negligible to maintain in price. This can save tens of thousands of dollars in the long run, and this saving adds up quickly when many properties are being considered at once. To give an idea - as of 2008, the total reported water infrastructure needs for the United States included $63.6 billion for combined sewer overflow control and $42.3 billion for stormwater management. Green stormwater infrastructure reduces the need for complex sewage systems and uses natural processes to treat storm water throughout the landscape.


Author: Molly A. Burhans
goodlandproject.org


Sources

[1] Hartford, CT Combined Sewer Overflow. © Molly Burhans, 2015.

[2] Wikipedia. Riparian zone schematic typical of the Florida Everclades. From '' The Impact of Federal Programs on Wetlands - Vol. II'' source: http://www.doi.gov/oepc/wetlands2/images/fig12-1.gif {PD-USGov}

[3] A photograph of a bioretention system, or rain garden, in Portland, Oregon, US. Wikipedia, User:
EmilyBlueGreen.

City in a Garden: A Reflection on the American Society of Landscape Architects' 2015 Meeting and Expo

Photo Credit: Chicago Lakefront, Wikipedia User Name: Daniel Schwen

There is a very small population on this planet that finds discussions about bollards, botany, grading, and paving materials enrapturing. I am one of this odd population that delights in the parley of porous pavement who gathered in Chicago’s McCormick Center for the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) 2015 Meeting and Expo in early November. I was not entirely sure what to expect, because I am not a Landscape Architect. Instead, I am from one of the related, somewhat subversive branches of landscape planning and design known as ecological design, which is less focused on what you design, and more on the framework you use to design it. Ecological design frames the telos of design to respect an integral ecology, which, in turn, informs the whole systemic approach to the design process. I digress.

Thousands of people attended the ASLA conference. I had an enjoyable time, attending humbling education sessions about conservation strategies and listening to high-design conversations about monolithic water features that were one part aesthetically sublime and one part ecologically mortifying. I met people from architecture, design and planning who are engaged with inspiring work on the residential scale all the way up to nation-wide planning efforts. There were too many interesting talks and events to do justice to the insights they offered, but I will try my best to provide a glimpse of the highlights. Coinciding with each session I attended were several other fascinating sessions that I was only able to enjoy vicariously by listening to small talk in the expo.

Meetings should include a representative set of stakeholders. B. Batchelder '15

The first talk I attended was titled Designing with The Homeless, by Carol Mayer-Reed, Randy Hester, and Douglas Pardue, who discussed how to include individuals experiencing homelessness into the design process of public spaces. The homeless rely on many public spaces more than any other population of individuals, and their inclusion in a charrette is respectful and logical. I must admit, this inclusion was a new and brilliantly obvious notion that had escaped me until now. There was also discussion about designing spaces for the homeless that are dignified in appearance, in contrast to the all too common shelter spaces that succeed best at putting the “brutal” in “brutalist”. One of the speakers mapped homeless networks—this information could help inform the location of resource allocation and distribution to these populations. This session was both fascinating and moving. Some of the most vulnerable among us lack any social space in our society as it currently functions. The least we can do for them is provide humane spaces in the built world. It was inspiring to see people using their design backgrounds to do good work to make those inclusive spaces a reality.

Different bee life stages require different habitat. Cred: Molly Burhans

I also attended a pollinator education session, which is a topic that particularly interests me, since I was a member of a team of students at Conway that produced a city-wide Pollinator Vison Plan for a non-profit in Portland, Maine. I was naively hoping for a scientific lecture that could answer my questions about how to effectively integrate entomological behavior research into design for pollinators. However, I quickly realized that this was not what this talk was about. Although it was not the talk I expected, it was hopeful to hear about nationwide efforts to support pollinators and the vital ecosystems services they provide us.

Transformational Learning: Integrate Ecological Research Into Design was a session that caught my interest weeks before the conference. This talk discussed how to integrate research opportunities into landscape design, as well as how to thoughtfully apply scientific research to designs, in order to increase their ecological integrity and the surrounding ecosystem's health. Something that has occurred to me in the past is that one goal of lighting design within the landscape might be to help reduce the incidence of diseases that employ photosensitive insects as vectors. This thought was inspired by the research one of my former instructors who studies mosquito behavioral plasticity and photoperiods of artificial and natural lighting. This project made me reconsider the potential of using lighting, water, materials, and virtually any element of a design in experiments that might help to increase both scientific understanding and the application of that understanding to designs. Alexander Felson and his advisee Nikki Spinger, Thomas Woltz, and Kong Jian Yo lead the discussion at this session. Kong Jian Yo’s team is working on a project that will clean up an entire lake in China—the renderings of that project were aesthetically breathtaking and ecologically inspiring. Alexander presented the theory behind this integration as well as a discussion of his efforts to integrate ecology research and design. Thomas Woltz from Nelson, Byrd, and Woltz is also part of a team working to learn more about how different reforestation and conservation designs best promote biodiversity.

Woltz was also involved in an education session titled Conservation Agriculture: Quantifying Results and Expanding Territory. The Conway School is in some respects a gigantic education experiment, and a constant of that experiment involves permaculture and sustainable agriculture experts, ecologists, landscape architects, and conservation biologists all working with students on design. To be honest, I was not anticipating I would find a session at an ASLA meeting that could have been a studio lecture at Conway, but I did. This session placed a farmer, a conservation biologist, and a Landscape Architect on the same stage to talk about such diverse topics as food security, ecological integrity, cultural landscapes and aesthetics.

Geodesign: Visualizing Green Infrastructure presented by Stephen Spears, Mathew Wilkins, and Brooks Patrick was another outstanding talk. Once again, the software capabilities for design are absolutely mind-blowing—ESRI’s City Engine and the possibilities for visualized rule-based design, for example, provide a powerful way to approach planning. Geodesign is a framework for approaching projects that I first encountered during graduate school. One of my instructors, Paul C. Hellmund, was lecturing about a design framework and he mentioned that it was largely inspired by Carl Steinitz. He held up Steinitz’s book “A Framework for Geodesign: Changing Geography by Design,” which I quickly thereafter borrowed. After reading this book, my life was irrevocably changed and my entire learning experience at the Conway School was revolutionized. It is delightful to encounter academic work that is so impactful. It was a new and positive experience for me to be in a room with many people who were familiar with this work, and other geodesign work, and to learn how people around the world had applied and augmented geodesign frameworks.

I also attended talks on water, human resources in the context of Landscape Architecture firms, bioregionalism, public and private spaces, as well as a number of other subjects that slip my mind at the moment. I was pleasantly surprised to see hand-rendered designs at the conference. I love the technology available for design, and I do not shy away from it. However, I thoroughly admire the art of architectural drawing as well, and personally enjoy getting a break from my computer to draw and paint. It was useful to see how some firms are balancing their use of new technology with the traditional disciplines of the field.

For me, the sessions which included Woltz, and the talk on Geodesign were the highlights of my experience at the meeting. Not only did they touch on subjects that I deeply care about, the speakers were incredibly humble and willing to share their successes and failures in their efforts to work toward designs that genuinely make the world a more verdant and just place. These talks were extraordinarily informative, and I was humbled and inspired, taught valuable information, and filled with joy by these sessions.

In addition to the education sessions, there was the “Expo”, which had display booths for things like paving surfaces and lawn furniture. There was also playground equipment dappled through the Expo—if I had not been wearing a dress most days and if I could have found an adventurous friend to join me, I probably would have spent more time “testing” this equipment. I did test some exercise playground equipment, including one piece of equipment that seemed like it could more easily shred knee ligaments rather than help people shed weight—I gained a great deal of respect for the value of this Expo in helping individuals determine what should be included or not included in common spaces.

The American Society of Landscape Architects did an good job coordinating this interesting and valuable conference. I met a number of extraordinary people and obtained a much better sense of how others are making landscapes function for a greater good.

Author: Molly Burhans 
www.goodlandproject.org

Millennium Park, Chicago is one of the most iconic public spaces in America. Edward Uhlir of the Millenium Park foundation provided a narrative about the development of this space's design, sponsorship, and inmplementation. Wikipedia: by DDima

Can Gardening Really Help Save the World?

By Valerie Payn

Babylonstoren Estate. Paarl. An eco-friendly alternative to lawn. Photo credit: Valerie Payn.

People often say to me “What difference does it make how I choose to garden? My garden is such a small piece of land. Surely it’s a huge exaggeration to say the way I garden can help save Earth’s environment?”
 
I think questions along these lines miss the point. The world is faced with big problems, so we think they need big solutions. Most of us are just ordinary Earth citizens with limited means and influence, so we think big problems must be left to experts, governments and big international organizations with big resources to solve them. We forget, or ignore, that most of the problems the world faces today only became big because millions of people choose to act in similar small ways that individually might not make much impact, but collectively have a huge effect.

Lawn, the biggest cultivated crop in America

Take lawns, for instance. NASA, in 2005, estimated that lawns cover about 128,000 square kilometers, or 31 million acres, of the USA’s landmass. That is more land than the USA uses to grow corn. As Cristina Milesi, one of the world’s foremost researchers on the ecological impacts of lawn remarks ‘lawn could be considered the single largest irrigated crop in America in terms of surface area’. Milesi has calculated that keeping all this lawn at golfing green perfection requires approximately 200 gallons of fresh water per person per day.  http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Lawn/. The average petrol powered lawn mower is 11 times more polluting than a car, per unit of energy used.   Lawns also lack bio-diversity, an essential part of any healthy garden eco-system. 

 Japanese philosopher and natural farmer- gardener Masanabu Fukuoka once commented that, judging from the appearance of the average American garden, it would seem the main American dream is to live in a large country house surrounded by large trees ‘and enjoy a carefully manicured lawn’ (Masanabu Fukuoka. 1992).  He argued that people suffering from ‘lawn culture’ are so stuck on the idea of large immaculate lawns they won’t consider more eco-friendly possibilities for gardening.  The citizens of the USA are not the only ones on Earth who suffer from ‘Lawn Culture’, or a fondness for other unsustainable gardening habits. In my book An Ecological Gardeners Handbook I highlight a number of other unsustainable gardening ‘cultures’ including ‘WANA’, ‘Less is More’, and ‘Exotica’.

 New habits for a new millennium

Of course, individually, what we do in one tiny little pocket garden is hardly likely to make a dent in the state of the global environment.  But if millions of gardeners choose to garden in more sustainable ways it will certainly help transform our urban and suburban environments from polluting, energy and water guzzling environmental wastelands into resource conserving, biologically rich, productive urban ecosystems. Our collective actions have a tremendous impact. Collective action begins with individuals who see a new vision, choose a new path, and forge new ways of being, thinking and doing with other individuals who also buy into that vision.  Turning a small pocket of land into a garden with a healthy ecosystem is as good a place to start as any. As Australian folk musicians ‎Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly sing, ‘From little things, big things grow’.

Valerie is the author of An Ecological Gardeners Handbook; a book that explains how Nature gets plants to grow, without a human in sight, and how gardeners can use those same natural processes to create productive, flourishing, healthy garden eco-systems, wherever they live.