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CONSTRUCTING NATURE

TOWARD AN URBAN ECOLOGY

BY KATE ORFF/SCAPE; : MONACELLI PRESS, 2016; 272 PAGES, $50. REVIEWED BY ELISSA ROSENBERG

he city is part of nature.” In Toward an Urban Ecology, Kate Orff, ASLA, offers a con- “ T temporary look at the meaning of urban ecology for landscape Anne Whiston Spirn, FASLA, wrote these words some 30 years practice. Orff is the founding partner of SCAPE; an associate ago in her influential book, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Archi- and Human Design. There she argued for a new approach to tecture, Planning, and Preservation, where she has been serving urban design that would take into account the complex inter- as director of the Urban Design Program since 2015; and a co- action between social and natural processes. “Nature” and the director of the Urban Landscape Lab, a research incubator. She “city” could no longer be thought of as polar opposites. The is a coauthor, with Richard Misrach, of Petrochemical America 19th-century view of nature as a pastoral refuge from the city (see “What Kate Orff Sees,” LAM, May 2012) and a coeditor and that had come to operate as a default mode in urban landscape author of the book Gateway: Visions for an Urban National Park. design was replaced by a more integrated conception where Her newest book, a “manufestograph,” as she calls it—“part city and nature are inextricably connected. This is the basic monograph, part manual, part manifesto”—documents the shift that occurred with the rise of the discipline of urban work of SCAPE, the landscape architecture and urban design ecology, which Ian McHarg, Spirn’s mentor, drew from and practice that she founded in 2005. This hybrid characterization popularized in his groundbreaking book Design with Nature of the book’s format and goals reflects Orff’s identity as both (1969). McHarg applied ecological principles not only to the practitioner and academic; it also reflects the book’s ambition. planning of the seemingly pristine landscapes of his early In her introduction, she acknowledges the recent developments practice, such as Maryland’s horse country and New Jersey’s in landscape architecture theory and practice that have taken coastal dunes, but later, and perhaps more significantly, to the place as a result of the work of McHarg and Spirn, who made disturbed, complex, and constructed “nature” in the city. The ecological thought central to the work of landscape architects. key lesson from McHarg’s planning method and Spirn’s case She cites the emergence of landscape urbanism, landscape studies is that the design of the city cannot be separated from as art, and landscape infrastructure as examples of the field’s the natural systems on which its stability and survival depend. reinvention. But Orff does not directly align her work with any

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The book is divided into four chap- ters: “Revive,” “Cohabit,” “Engage,” and “Scale.” The hybrid form of monograph, manual, and mani- festo is held together by the book’s tight, though unconventional, for- mat. Each chapter follows a consis- tent structure that contains some of each: a short introductory text; a single project presented through extensive plans, perspectives, and photographs; a manual of one-page “strategies” that outline specific themes such as “water harvesting,” “bay nourishment,” or “consensus building,” each illustrated by a single ABOVE AND BELOW of these approaches. The book’s polemical tone and manifesto- project; two interviews with varied project participants, includ- For the Museum of like format set the work off from these frameworks, arguing for ing scientists and politicians; and a critical essay by contributing Modern Art’s Rising a vision of the urban landscape that is distinct, transformative, academic authors. This eclectic mix of genres and registers adds Currents exhibition, and urgent. This vision stresses the social and cultural potential conceptual richness and visual density to the book. The effect is to oyster farming was of urban ecology, based on an idea of landscape that is “design convey a sense of energy through the multiple voices that are rep- proposed to filter the contaminated water of driven, participatory, and science based.” The firm’s work is resented, stressing the dynamic and collaborative quality of the Brooklyn’s Gowanus presented as a broad call to action. work through the range of people, ideas, and processes that have Canal. A series of created it. Overall, the projects cohere into an impressive body floating chambers that What is most innovative in SCAPE’s practice is the way of work that has come together in a little more than a decade. circulate nutrient-rich that these three aspects—design, science, and community water encourages the participation—are engaged to create an activist, collaborative The academic contributions offer a critical discussion of the growth of the juvenile oysters. methodology. The practice is fundamentally research driven, projects and their larger themes: urban ecology, infrastruc- but also animated by a strong de- ture, and the meaning of public sign ethos. Ecological issues are seen landscapes. The authors include as a driver for community involve- Jane Hutton, an assistant profes- ment. They are not part of an ab- sor in landscape architecture at the stract agenda but touch on everyday Harvard Graduate School of De- lived experience in the city. SCAPE’s sign; Thaïsa Way, ASLA, an urban mission is based on a “collabora- landscape historian and professor tive, community-stewardship-driven at the University of Washington; methodology that acknowledges Emily Eliza Scott, a postdoctoral change and uncertainty.” A wide ar- fellow in architecture at ETH Zu- ray of techniques is used to generate rich; and Brian Davis, an assistant citizen engagement, including map- professor of landscape architecture ping, storytelling, and community at Cornell University. Interviews

organizing. with diverse figures such as Mayor DPC ARCHITECTURE LANDSCAPE SCAPE

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TOP LEFT Jim Gray of Lexington, Kentucky; Bart Chezar, a citizen sci- and the Harbor School, whose goals are to restore one billion Polypropylene “fuzzy entist involved in ecological restoration; and Eric Klinenberg, oysters to the New York Harbor and train local school groups rope” panels were a professor of sociology and social infrastructure advocate, to monitor their growth and survival. installed off the provide fascinating background on the ways in which the Brooklyn waterfront in March 2013. projects have taken shape. The oyster was already the subject of an imaginative proposal developed by SCAPE for the Museum of Modern Art’s 2010 TOP CENTER SCAPE’s largest and perhaps most innovative project is known Rising Currents exhibition that addressed climate change and By June the ropes as Living Breakwaters in , New York, which was the prospect of rising sea levels in . Oyster- supported colonies developed to provide coastal resilience and prevent flooding tecture, the somewhat tongue-in-cheek title of the project, of blue mussels and associated with predicted sea-level rise. This was one of six proposed recultivating the historic oyster beds that once a variety of other species. winning proposals in the Rebuild by Design initiative, a global covered one quarter of the New York Harbor. A massive new competition launched in 2013 by the federal government in reef would be created by seeding young oysters into a large TOP RIGHT partnership with local organizations after the devastation of armature of coarse rope floating in the . The The rope installation Hurricane Sandy. The project, designed by an interdisciplinary oyster larvae would be transferred from the contaminated, demonstrates that even team (with Parsons Brinckerhoff, Philip Orton, SeArc Ecologi- nutrient-rich Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, where they would simple materials can be used to help promote cal Consulting, LOT-EK, MTWTF, the Harbor School, and Paul be raised in floating rafts located along the edges of the canal. habitats in urban Greenberg), reimagines how coastal infrastructure could act These fantastical aquatic landscapes are also working land- settings. as a social and ecological catalyst in addition to reducing flood scapes; the reef would protect the shoreline, filter the harbor risk. A new system of breakwaters is proposed as part of a water, and provide a new public space for boating, walking, larger urban network that engages the waterfront neighbor- and marine habitat. Significantly, the proposal envisions hoods located along the shoreline in order to strengthen their oyster production as an incremental and community-based historical connection to the bay. The network includes a series enterprise, based on a cottage industry of weavers and knit- of “water hubs,” or neighborhood facilities for recreational ters. The MoMA installation included a mock-up of the rope activities and educational programs. The breakwaters are armature that was created in a community “knitting party.” designed not only to reduce wave action and slow erosion but This crowdsourcing approach was also used in an experimen- also to restore marine ecosystems by providing new habitat. tal pilot project at Sims Habitat Pilot Pier in Brooklyn that By using configurations and materials that mimic the “micro- tested the cultivation of new aquatic habitat in an industrial complexity” of the historic reef habitats of the Raritan Bay, the zone. Fourteen polypropylene panels woven by volunteers breakwaters are able to provide shelter and feeding areas for in a “Fuzzy Rope Weaving Evening” were used as “habitat local populations of finfish, lobsters, and shellfish. The project probes” that successfully created new habitat for colonies of

was planned in collaboration with the Billion Oyster Project blue mussels, green crabs, and other species. DPC ARCHITECTURE LANDSCAPE SCAPE

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constructed and natural elements. Urban ecological restoration is pre- mised on interventions that blur these boundaries, as in SCAPE’s constructed osprey nest structures, or mussel colonies forming on wo- ven polypropylene rope. In contrast to the abstraction that characterizes many of the projects identified with landscape urbanism, these projects ABOVE Other SCAPE projects promote a kind of citizen science locate “urban ecology” in everyday experience and urban Living Breakwaters through the creative use of mapping and educational tools, processes. They depend on the immediacy of the granular mimics the suggesting that greater environmental literacy is the key to microscale while addressing large-scale natural systems. The microcomplexity of natural reefs to provide developing both stewardship and a more entrepreneurial or firm’s research orientation is hands-on and field based, stress- diverse aquatic habitat. activist civic society. These take the form of manuals, urban ing empirical study and experimentation. These are the “safe- walks, and community workshops that all serve to raise aware- to-fail” experiments that the ecological planner Jack Ahern, BELOW ness about diverse ecological issues. They are intended to spur FASLA, claimed, in the journal Landscape Ecology, are the key Located on Staten local engagement that may take the form of citizen monitoring to expanding the knowledge base of adaptive design, which he Island’s southern of urban natural systems or debating alternative solutions to defines as “a process/approach where selected urban plans and shore, the project uses social and ecological pressing urban environmental problems at the neighbor- projects explore innovative practices and methods, informed elements in its coastal hood scale. One particularly ambitious program is Safari 7, by landscape ecology knowledge and research design, open protection scheme. a project conceived through Columbia University’s Urban to design innovations and creativity, and monitored and ana- Landscape Lab (with Janette Kim lyzed to learn from the experiment—with the goal of gaining and Glen Cummings of MTWTF) knowledge to apply to future projects.” for commuters traveling on New York City’s 7 subway line. The Sa- Experimentation is defined by its open-ended quality, and the fari is a self-guided tour of urban unpredictable results that often challenge the initial hypothesis. wildlife and vegetation, using maps In his interview, Bart Chezar, the citizen scientist/marine biolo- and podcasts to transform the sub- gist who individually initiated a number of small-scale restora- way into an urban classroom as it tion projects in the New York Harbor, attributed his successes to passes through New York’s little- his ability to work “on the edge.” Orff noted that this metaphor is known landscapes—for example, more accurate than thinking in terms of “top-down” or “bottom- the artificial Island in the up” dynamics. SCAPE embraces the ethos of experimentation, , a nesting site for the and, like Chezar, seems to inhabit the edge—mining a zone of double-crested cormorant, or the cemeteries and their fruitful exchange and overlap among diverse disciplines and decomposition cycles. Urban ecology crosses over into guerrilla players. This collection of recent work will inspire all those art. Similar platforms have already been replicated in other who love the city and believe in the unique ability of landscape cities such as São Paulo and Beijing. to contribute to solving its urgent problems.

SCAPE’s emphasis on the performance of the landscape ELISSA ROSENBERG IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR EMERITA IN THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, AND CURRENTLY presents a transgressive and inventive take on the relation- TEACHES IN THE GRADUATE URBAN DESIGN PROGRAM, BEZALEL ACADEMY OF

ship of city and nature, based on the productive crossover of ARTS AND DESIGN, JERUSALEM. DPC ARCHITECTURE LANDSCAPE SCAPE

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