Projects: Five Themes
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Projects: Five Themes The projects featured in these Arriving at the full set of 25 projects for the book involved a pages were selected for Design long, collaborative process. We began by asking colleagues with Nature Now because each from around the world to nominate projects that they thought best exemplified and extended McHarg’s design in some way narrows the gap philosophy and method. The nomination process resulted between theory and practice and in a list of over 80 projects, and after much discussion, we opens up a wider horizon for the agreed on the final 25. The projects are organized into five themes: Big Wilds, future of landscape architecture. Rising Tides, Fresh Waters, Toxic Lands, and Urban Futures [each of which is represented in this special issue of Land Lines]. Although these themes cover a lot of territory, it will be obvious to readers that the collection does not represent all the types of work the professions of planning and landscape architecture do. We have included projects that engage large complex sites and pressing socioecological issues, and that variously translate into reality what could be referred to as a McHargian ethos of stewardship. It must be said, however, that some projects show the limitations of the discipline’s ability to effect change at the scale that is needed; the projects improve the social and ecological function locally, but may also be part and parcel of development patterns and infrastructural projects that are environmentally degrading at other scales. We wish the full collection comprised a greater diversity of projects from a greater diversity of places. Much as the collection identifies gaps in the thematic areas engaged by contemporary practice, so too there are glaring gaps in the geography of contemporary practice. In short, the project selection is imperfect, but we have found, and hope the reader will also find, that the collection is a good place to begin. — R. Weller, K. M’Closkey, B. Fleming, F. Steiner JULY 2019 13 Big Wilds MALPAI BORDERLANDS | ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO, USA IN THE BOOT of New Mexico and the southeastern brushlike tree is bad for grazing and highly tip of Arizona along the U.S.–Mexico border, flammable, serving as added fuel for forest there is a 3,238-square-kilometer (1,250-square- fires, which can further denude the land. Fire mile) plot of land, almost entirely unbroken by has historically kept the brush at bay, and highways or subdivisions. The Malpai Border- when a fire broke out on July 2, 1991, ranchers lands harbors an estimated 4,000 species of pleaded with the local authorities to let it plants, 104 species of mammals, 327 species of burn. They did not listen. In response, birds, 136 species of reptiles and amphibians, ranchers committed to stewardship of the and the greatest diversity of bee species in the landscape formed the Malpai Borderlands world. In this biodiverse landscape, 53 percent Group, which has succeeded in protecting of the area is privately owned and 47 percent is almost 80,000 acres from development. public—a split that has led to tensions among The success of the Malpai Borderlands government agencies, cattle ranchers, and Group can be credited both to their reliance environmentalists. on science to help manage the Malpai and to What sets the Malpai Borderlands apart from their commitment to educating others about other stories of conflict in conservation is how how grazing and conservation can coexist. these tensions have largely been overcome in The first scientist on the board, Ray Turner, order to conserve the landscape’s biological specialized in comparative photography, a and cultural identity. Fewer than one hundred type of ecological study that traces old families use this expansive land to graze their photographs to their origin and takes a livestock. Despite being long loathed by environ- new picture in the same location. The floral mentalists, these cattle ranching families have species in the photographs are then com- led the charge to keep the land from subdivision pared in order to paint a picture of the area’s and development. ecological change. Turner and subsequent In the early 1990s, the suppression of scientists have concluded, controversially, wildfire caused the land to revert to shrubland that a certain level of ranching can contribute dominated by the invasive mesquite tree. This to preserving the land’s biodiversity. Bill McDonald drives in cattle to a corral for branding on the Sycamore Ranch. Credit: Blake Gordon. 14 LAND LINES Ranches with conservation easements (shown in green). Credit: Darin Jensen. Project credits: The Malpai Borderlands Group is a nonprofit organization comprising land owners whose mission is to manage the ecosystem of nearly 404,685 hectares (1 million acres) of relatively unfragmented landscape. See www.malpaiborderlandsgroup.org/. JULY 2019 15 Rising Tides 2050—AN ENERGETIC ODYSSEY | NORTH SEA, THE NETHERLANDS 2050—AN ENERGETIC ODYSSEY, an immersive notable exception: a proposed cluster of wind installation consisting primarily of a thirteen- farms on Dogger Bank, an ecologically vital minute video with maps, diagrams, and sandbank submerged more than 50 meters drawing, asks the question: What would it look (approximately 55 yards) below the water’s like if the Netherlands and its neighbors were surface in the middle of the North Sea. To to switch to renewable energy production at a produce the necessary energy, a construction large enough scale to meet the Paris 2015 island and massive cluster of wind farms carbon emissions goals? 2050—An Energetic would need to be placed on Dogger Bank. Odyssey (the Odyssey) is not a plan; it is a Therefore, the proposed construction narrative that recasts the landscape architect method would minimize impacts on sea mammal as provocateur. It uses techniques of data navigation and avoid conflict with the migratory visualization to make complicated issues pathways of birds. The zone closest to the coast, understandable to a broad, policy-oriented which birds use for orientation, would be left constituency. untouched wherever possible, and wind turbines The Odyssey envisions 25,000 wind could be temporarily taken out of operation if turbines with a net coverage of 57,000 square sensors detected birds approaching. In addition, kilometers (22,000 square miles) that would the wind farm locations could be combined with enable 75 percent of the North Sea countries’ new marine reserves. Finally, the visual impact current energy to be converted to renewable of the windfarms would be mitigated by siting energy by 2050. Most of these turbines would the farms more than 19 kilometers (12 miles) be clustered on wind farms off the coastline of out from the coast so that the Earth’s curvature the North Sea countries. There is, however, one would reduce visibility. The Princess Amalia offshore wind farm. The wind farm consists of sixty wind turbines and is located in block Q7 of the Dutch continental shelf, 23 kilometers (14 miles) from shore. Credit: Siebe Swart, 2013. 16 LAND LINES Carbon dioxide map at one point in time in the North Sea region. Red shows highest concentrations of the gas. Credit: International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, 2016. JULY 2019 17 Spatial occupation of the North Sea, including shipping routes (blue lines), oil and gas rigs (red lines and dots), fishing areas, and international crossings (yellow lines). Credit: International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, 2016. Project credits: Commissioned by the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) in the context of IABR—2016—THE NEXT ECONOMY. Concept: Maarten Hajer and Dirk Sijmons. Realized by: Tungstenpro, H+N+S Landscape Architects, and Ecofys in partnership with the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Kingdom of The Netherlands, Shell, Port of Rotterdam, and Van Oord. 18 LAND LINES Fresh Waters WEISHAN WETLAND PARK | JINING, CHINA The first phase of the Weishan Wetland Park in ment, and a village community. Various types of the town of Jining in China’s Shandong Province wetland were restored or created from scratch, was completed in 2013. The impetus for this with the intention of attracting diverse species 39-square-kilometer (15-square-mile) park was of waterfowl and enticing tourists to the park. the adjacent development of a new urban center There is some access to the park by vehicle, but just south of the existing city of Weishan, near much of the sightseeing can be done only on the southeastern edge of the expansive Nansi elevated pedestrian walkways built with local Lake (also called Weishan Lake). This new south- recycled wood and steel. ern town will eventually have 50,000 residents in Although the water filtration and purifica- an area that was previously agricultural. The tion techniques used are not novel in the field Weishan Wetland Park will filter polluted water of landscape architecture, their scale and from the future development, and it is hoped integration into the new town mark a significant that it will be the centerpiece of a larger shift in thinking about water, both within the program of nature-based tourism in the region. Shandong Province and in China as a whole. As The proximity to Nansi Lake, one of the country’s of 2015, 1.3 million hectares (3.2 million acres) largest and most polluted lakes, makes the of new wetland park had been created and park’s purification function especially impor- 130,000 hectares (321,000 acres) of wetland tant, as the lake is a part of China’s ambitious, had been restored throughout the province. though ecologically and socially disruptive, China is in the process of rethinking its South-North Water Diversion Project, which water infrastructure in the face of rapid redirects fresh water from the Yangtze River in urbanization and climate change.