Tag Archives: green infrastructure

Gardens Rising Wins ASLA-NY Merit Award

Our Gardens Rising Green Infrastructure Feasibility Study was selected for a Merit Award from the New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects! Tricia accepted the award during the ASLA-NY Design Awards Ceremony and Reception, sponsored by Victor Stanley, at the Center for Architecture in Manhattan. All of the winning projects are on display at the CFA through the end of April.

“From projects that examine a site’s historic and cultural influences to those that explore innovative design approaches, this year’s winning award submissions showcase the full range of the landscape architectural profession. There is a clear theme of resiliency and sustainability with the award winners that show appreciation for the long term value of landscapes – again embracing changing conditions of climate and urbanization in the urban projects to appreciation of seasonal characteristics of plants, light and weather in the residential projects.”

http://aslany.org/asla-ny-2017-design-awards-announced/

Brooklyn Greenway Case Study featured in Coastal Change Book

Tricia Martin’s essay on the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway is included as a case study in chapter 5 of “Coastal Change, Ocean Conservation and Resilient Communities” (eds Marcha Johnson and Amanda Bayley). The chapter explores how New York City is integrating storm protection and other climate change strategies into ongoing planning and design efforts in response to the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy.

Book Synopsis

This collection of essays and design case studies explores a range of ideas and best practices for adapting to dynamic waterfront conditions while incorporating nature conservation in urbanized coastal areas. The editors have curated a selection of works contributed by leading practitioners in the fields of coastal science, community resilience, habitat restoration, sustainable landscape architecture and floodplain management. By highlighting ocean-friendly innovations and strategies being applied in coastal cities today, this book illustrates ways to cohabit with many other species who share the waterfront with us, feed in salt marshes, bury their eggs on sandy beaches, fly south over cities along the Atlantic Flyway, or attach themselves to an oyster reef. This book responds to the need for inventive, practical, and straightforward ways to weather a changing climate while being responsible shoreline stewards.

Building Resiliency into a Community Garden District

A conceptual cross section illustrating each of the strategies in the Gardens Rising sustainability and resiliency toolkit.

At a time when national environmental efforts appear to be on the verge of reversal, we must find opportunities to address the risks of climate change on a local level. One such opportunity presents itself in our own urban “back yards”: activating a network of existing community gardens to support social and environmental resiliency.

In 2012, Superstorm Sandy devastated Manhattan’s Lower East Side with inland flooding, storm surge damage, and widespread power outages. In response, members from 47 community gardens formed a coalition, “Gardens Rising,” in order to secure funds and grants to implement resiliency strategies, both to protect individual gardens from future catastrophic events, and to strengthen resiliency for the larger area of the Lower East Side.

Over the course of the last six months we have been working closely with Gardens Rising to build a resiliency and sustainability tool kit for these 47 community gardens in the Lower East Side. The aim is to demonstrate, through specific hydrological metrics, the critical role community gardens can play in any city’s climate change resiliency plan.

Three key components make up the tool kit for the Lower East Side:

1. Community Engagement and Communication,
2. Green and Social Infrastructure Strategies (the tool boxes of the tool kit),
3. Quantifiable Evaluation Criteria for each garden that includes resiliency outcomes and an assessment of the organizational structure.

A net quantification by subdistrict of select benefits provided to the city by proposed sustainability and resiliency strategies.

Resiliency isn’t just about controlling the flow of water. The toolkit provides a set of sustainability and resilience recommendations for each garden that have been synthesized from both technical considerations identified during fieldwork, and the expressed objectives of the community gardeners. As they are, individual community gardens already represent multiple ecosystem services: providing habitat for pollinators and wildlife, improving air quality, reducing heat island effect, and improving the mental and physical health of community residents. With the support of volunteer gardeners, community members, local government agencies, and additional funding, a community garden network could expand green and social infrastructure services to benefit the city socially, ecologically, and even financially.

Due to the communal nature of community gardens, building social infrastructure along with green infrastructure could enhance the resiliency outcomes of the district even further. Lively and operative community spaces create social resiliency by bringing communities together. As social hubs, they could provision communities that are difficult for FEMA and Red Cross to access in an emergency. Vulnerability challenges such as language isolation and inaccessibility of elderly or disabled populations can be reduced when an established social network provides accountability and assistance in aid and relief.

Our goal, as lead Landscape Architects for the project, is to strengthen and maximize the potential of these gardens and their surrounding neighborhood, to change the perception from “cute gardens” to critical ecological and social components in New York City’s resiliency plan, and ultimately provide a replicable model for communities around the globe.

WE Design encourages you to get involved! Find, visit, and/or join your local community garden here.

Greenways are the New Black

Greenways are to the beginning of the 21st century what Parks were to the beginning of the 20th century. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, overcrowding and pollution due to rapid industrialization plagued American cities, raising tremendous public health concerns. Politicians, powerful business owners, and other elite traveling in Europe experienced first-hand the respite of large urban parks as buffers against increasing urban strains. Upon their return, these influencers lobbied for new park designs, and development in American cities soared. Throughout the United States, landfills, shanty-towns, and other undeveloped sites were transformed into urban oases, providing an escape from the discomforts of overcrowded housing, chaotic streets, and toxic air.

These first large urban parks, such as Central Park in New York City or City Park in New Orleans, were pastoral landscapes primarily designed for contemplative enjoyment. They emphasized strolling, carriage rides, and non-motorized boating. The need for active recreation and athletic fields would come later.

Central Park, 1879

During the mid-1900s, city populations plummeted as people fled to the suburbs to escape crime and pollution. However, a century later we are once again seeing a migration back into the American City. As urban populations increase, scarcity of space and the impacts of climate change put more demands on the parks of today. It is no coincidence that the urban greenway has emerged as today’s leading urban open space form.

The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in Boston, MA

In the densely developed environment of the city, new parks must be inserted into the leftover, abandoned, and residual spaces. Highlines, lowlines, bluebelts, underlines—these are a sampling of the new urban greenway typology. Long and thin, these linear parks weave through the dense urban fabric, stitching together fragmented urban neighborhoods while providing an armature for trees, pollinator gardens, green infrastructure, and alternative forms of transportation.

Punggol Waterway Park, Singapore. Integrating recreation and transportation infrastructure into waterway infrastructure is good for our environment and our health.

In the next series of posts, I will describe the benefits of different greenway types, and provide examples of each.

Pop-Up Under the Elevated

This past spring, students from Sunset Park High School got a taste of what it’s like to be a landscape architect while reimagining the underutilized leftover space beneath the Gowanus Expressway on 36th Street, just around the corner from their school. In four after-school sessions, six students explored the process of site analysis, schematic design, and defending their design before a larger group of stakeholders.

Upon completion of the after-school sessions, Tricia and her fellow Design Trust design fellows presented the schematic design to city agencies and the community during a three-day pop-up workshop. Some of the ideas generated by the students will be incorporated into building the pilot project, including moveable planters (pictured under grow lights) that maximize flexibility of the space, and a larger area for public gatherings and events.

Gardens Rising

WE Design is pleased to have been chosen by the NYC Community Garden Coalition (NYCCGC) to develop a feasibility study for the design and construction of green infrastructure in 47 community gardens located throughout the Lower East Side. This project, “Gardens Rising,” combines community participation with urban planning, landscape architecture, and engineering to increase the permeability and stormwater capture in these gardens, the majority of which are located within an area that was severely impacted by Superstorm Sandy, as well as adding native plants to support habitat and beautify the neighborhood.

We’ve had a blast getting to know the gardeners and their gardens at each of the 47 sites, and are now evaluating the potential for green infrastructure through research of existing and relevant documentation, onsite fieldwork, and extensive community engagement. Based on information gathered from this first stage, we will develop an outcomes-based approach toolkit that matches specific existing garden conditions with various green infrastructure strategies. Working closely with the client and community, we will then develop criteria for evaluating priority sites on which to test the toolkit, creating concept designs for the most at risk gardens.

This extensive project has the potential to demonstrate, through specific hydrological metrics, the critical role community gardens can play in any city’s climate change resiliency plan.

5th Fabos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning

On July 1^st, Tricia traveled to Hungary to present a New York perspective on Landscape and Greenway Planning with “Greenways as Resilient Infrastructure: The Brooklyn Greenway Case Study.” The peer-reviewed paper was part of a larger publication titled “Landscapes and Greenways of Resilience “ (Jombach et al, 2016). Tricia shared the stage with panelists from Colorado, Washington, Poland, China, and Serbia.

“The Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning is held every three years to bring together experts who are influencing landscape planning, policy making and greenway planning from the local to international level. It is intended to highlight recent trends and expand the literature about landscape and greenway planning. The aim is to explore how landscape architects and planners from different countries have approached greenway planning and to understand how greenways have been tailored to each county’s unique geographical, cultural, and political circumstances.”

More information here.

Resilient Waterfront Parks Summit

Tricia Martin (WE Design) – Greenways as Resilient Infrastructure from Regional Plan Association on Vimeo.

On March 16th, Tricia Martin and other leaders in parks design, policy, planning and community engagement participated in the Regional Plan Association’s “Resilient Waterfront Parks Summit.”

According to the RPA, “The goal [was] for participants to collaboratively explore issues and engage in cross-cutting, in-depth conversations about the challenges and opportunities for New York City’s waterfront parks – and the communities of which they are a part – in the face of climate change.”

Watch Tricia’s lightning talk “Greenways as Resilient Infrastructure” online for a 5 minute introduction to the ways in which greenways can protect and enhance their surrounding communities, using the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway project as a case study for resilient infrastructure.

Brooklyn Borough Presidents Press Conference

WE Design and The Brooklyn Greenway Initiative presented The Brooklyn Greenway: An Agent for Green Infrastructure, Climate Change Adaptation and Resiliency at the Brooklyn Borough President’s Press Conference.

Tricia Presents at Gowanus Design Summit

Tricia presented the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway’s Design Guidelines for Green Infrastructure, Climate Change Adaptation and Resiliency at the Gowanus Design Summit in October. The Summit brought together a dynamic group of design-oriented professionals who are shaping the future of the Gowanus Canal Watershed, with the goal of fostering dialogue, collaboration and innovation. Because of Tricia’s work on The Brooklyn Greenway, she was asked to participate as a panelist and engage in an active Q&A.