SUPPLEMENTARY BOOKLET FOR: Re(create) Flux: The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area as Park Prototype CORNELL UNIVERSITY’S ENTRY IN THE PARKS FOR THE PEOPLE COMPETITION FOR THE CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER NATIONAL RECREATION AREA SITE i TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface The National Park Service Analyzed via Six Topics Matrix for Site Selection Round-One Proposal: Disruptive Technologies Five Initial Strategies History and Context of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area Examples of Process Mid-Term Review Site Visit Proposal Summaries Conclusions Preface The Parks for the People competition, announced in the Summer of 2011 by the Van Alen Institute in collaboration with the National Park Service, aims to “reimagine America’s most spectacular public places — its national parks — by using design as a catalyst to creatively rethink their connections to people and their role as revered natural, social, and cultural destinations” (Van Alen Website). The Van Alen Institute, an independent nonprofit architectural organization, promotes innovative thinking about the role of architecture and design in civic life through activities such as design competitions, lectures and symposia, exhibitions, publications, research and advocacy (Van Alen Website). Five students from Cornell University’s Landscape Architecture Department, under the supervision of Marc Miller, decided to enter Van Alen’s competition in September of 2011, with the dual aim of completing the masters thesis and exploring the themes suggested by the competition, which were of great interest to each student. Before the first group meeting, each student considered the stated design principles on the competition website, which read: “reverence for place, engagement of all people, expansion beyond traditional boundaries, advancement of sustainability, informed decision-making, and an integrated research, planning, design, and review process” (Van Alen Website). These design principles guided the group throughout the following months of group and individual work. The five students, Bryan Harrison, Erik Jones, Chelsea Miller, Rebecca Montross and Christina Twomey, along with advisor Marc Miller, began the process in the Fall semester by reading and discussing texts related to the history of the National Park Service, the historic and contemporary role of “large parks” in the United States, and the role of landscape architects in shaping and imagining open space in the United States. The discussion of these more general themes, outlined in the following section, were fundamental to the conception of the first-round competition entry, entitled “Disruptive Technologies,” also included in this booklet. The Van Alen Institute and the National Park Service had identified seven sites nationwide which would be the focus of semester-long work by the chosen schools. Instead of selecting one of the seven sites based solely on geographic convenience, the Cornell students considered each site’s relevance to the themes they had identified as most significant, i.e. the thesis topics. The site which proved most robust in terms of applicability to the project themes was the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Atlanta, Georgia. After being selected as one of the nine studios nationwide to continue on in the Van Alen’s “Parks for the People” competition, each student read and analyzed studies related to his or her chosen thesis topic. A group trip to the Chattahoochee River in March 2012 deepened the group’s understanding of conditions on the ground, and led each student to the selection of part of the park to be recommended for programming and design. Each student’s contribution to the design proposal seeks to address issues facing current or future users of the National Parks, and suggests that the National Park Service will benefit by privileging topics such as the role of technology in the park, the site’s cultural history, and the health and well-being of park users. The projects attempt to address the concerns of multiple organizations, including the National Park Service, the Van Alen Institute, and the Department of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University. Included in this supplementary booklet are summaries of the themes explored, discussed and debated throughout the year (and written by individual members), experiences of the team at Cornell and on the road, and several conclusions drawn. Each student’s individual thesis project is here presented in a protracted form for the purposes of this competition entry. The team is extremely grateful for the support and time of the Cornell Landscape Architecture Department, the Van Alen Institute and the National Park Service. 1 Fall Semester 2011 - The National Park System via Six Topics -Park as Curation: What is the role of the park and what determines its legibility? -Park as Lab: Can the park be seen as an experimental space, a field in flux and/or painterly space? -The Emergent Park: How are uncertainty and adaptive management incorporated into park planning? -Park as Economic Incubator: Can the park be a revenue generating entity and/or self-sustaining? -Park as Network: How does the park incorporate technology and create social, infrastructural, and natural networks? -Parkitecture: How does architecture influence park experience, legibility, and identity? Is it the sole means to designate place? -Park as Curation: What is the role of the park and what determines its legibility? Topic Summaries: Park as Curation One of the goals of the National Parks Service is to provide visitors with a memorable experience though image. The aesthetic inspiration provided by natural systems is extremely important for a park’s success and popularity and, like the technical workings of a park, is a primarily anthropocentric system. Within the context of the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area, what imaged experience should the Parks Service seek to provide? How should the vernacular qualities of the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area be expressed and exposed through design, in terms of landscape architecture and architecture? Can virtual interfaces create effective methods of experiencing the site? The concept of the Park as a work of “curation” evokes certain qualities that parks share with places more traditionally associated with “curation”: museums. Both parks and museums are inventions of a romantic age, places which display the mark of the human hand upon a variety of materials, from canvas to clay to soil to concrete. Both parks and museums have significant societal implications, both positive (as democratic, accessible sites of recreation and education) and negative (as exclusive, classist, elite institutions, at times stifling or stifled by rules). While some parks and museums face crowd-control problems (ie Yellowstone National Park or the Museum of Modern Art in New York City), others are essentially unknown and almost irrelevant. As a result of their association with relatively antiquated ways of living (read: pre-internet) both parks and museums today find themselves in something of an identity crisis. Though loved by many, the challenge before parks and museums is to reach out to and connect with a generation of potential visitors who understand “artifice” and “virtual realities” in a way that past generations never have. The challenge is therefore to integrate the active, participatory aspects of “virtual reality” with the park experience. Park “curation” must be “adaptive,” and responsive to the needs and desires of a growing generation of urban visitors. Landscape architects are now charged with the task of curating potential uses, or flexible park “programming.” Open space must be more open than ever, while maintaining qualities traditionally associated with parks: safety, tranquility, and ecology. One advantage of designers and planners is the prevalence of ideas of “sustainability” and “green-ness” in popular culture and educational curricula. This means that even if the romantic ideal of sublimity or inspiration via contemplation of the wilderness is less popular, young people are still interested in visiting parks for contact with vibrant ecologies, as well as for exercise and recreation. Curation now deals with the selection and juxtaposition not only of materials, but with the organization of experiences and programs, as well as the “curation” of ecological systems and cultural references. Of course, these various systems have always been considered, or at least documented, in park design. But the opportunity before landscape architects is to reveal and share the “curation” of these systems, thus making park design more coherent and engaging. Park as Lab To discuss the Park as a Laboratory the fall class looked at two landscapes that exemplify the park as a place of research. Parks, as manipulated and changed environments, allow humans to exert a level of control which allows for experimental methodology to be expressed. There is a need for data collection in order for the work of remediation in the future, and to understand natural/man-made ecological systems. Also critical is the understanding that large parks do not behave in the same manner even within cities. “Experimental landscapes” or experimental landscape interventions go beyond the idea of designer ecology, which has its place as an educational component and which can result in a paradigm shift in society. However, in thinking 2 of a park as a “lab,” large-scale parks have the potential for great effect (both positive and negative). The amount of space in a large park allows for variation and experimentation on a grand scale. Large parks can be utilized to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge in ecology, restoration, and human impacts on the environment, while serving the needs of the public in the land’s capacity as park. There is a need for analysis of the interventions that designers make upon the land. This knowledge will add to our ability to create adaptive ecological designs, which can be resilient to the changes that are both natural and human-induced. Two of the projects reviewed in the Fall semester were the ART@AMD park and the Pontine Marshes project. ART@ AMD refers to Acid Mine Drainage.