Resources: Portland Parks & Recreation. “Cully Park.” View the New Biophilic Cities City of Portland, Oregon. https://www. Film about Cully Park Hala Ghonaim (Sept. 7, 2018). “Spray portlandoregon.gov/parks/finder/index. paint moccasins at Huron signify First cfm?action=ViewPark&PropertyID=1174 Nations land and treaty.” CBC News. &searchtext=cully. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ Portland Parks & Recreation. “Native london/london-ontario-moccasin- American Community Advisory Council.” identifier-project-1.4813779. City of Portland, Oregon. https://www. LANDinc. “Trillium Park & William G. portlandoregon.gov/parks/63749. Davis Trail.” http://www.landinc.ca/ Verde. http://www.verdenw.org. ontario-place-op. Verde in association with The Let Let Us Build Cully Park! https:// Us Build Cully Park! Project and letusbuildcullypark.org. PrettyGoodProductions. Reclaiming Richard Longley (July 12, 2017). “Trillium Relationships: The Tribal Gathering Park: the magic carpet that flies us back Garden at Cully Park [video file]. https:// to the glory days of Ontario Place.” NOW letusbuildcullypark.org/park-feature/ Toronto. https://nowtoronto.com/news/ native-gathering-gardens. trillium-park-the-magic-carpet-that- flies-us-back-to-ontario. Boulder Outcropping Photo Credit: Tim Beatley BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 51
BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL / PROJECT PROFILE DEC Raingarden Installation Team Photo Credits: PUSH BLUE Medellín River Parks Photo Credit: Jorge Pérez Jara- PUSH Blue: Developing an Equitable Green Economy in Buffalo By Ken Parker, PUSH Blue Program Manager The 477-square-mile Buffalo and industry in steel, grain, plan to reduce overflows, of River watershed includes and chemical production. which $90 million is designated waters flowing from the Buffalo Furthermore, industrial waste for green infrastructure projects. River and its tributaries into was dumped directly in the Lake Erie near the head of the river leading to the Buffalo A critical partner in the city’s Niagara River. The watershed is River being named one of the effort to improve the health of widely used by City of Buffalo most polluted waterways in the the watershed is People United residents and visiting tourists for nation. These histories merge for Sustainable Housing (PUSH sport fishing, sailing, kayaking, with the more current effects Buffalo); a local membership- swimming, environmental of contamination of the Buffalo based community organization education and other recreational River and surrounding watershed with a mission to mobilize uses. It is also an important by antiquated Combined Sewer residents to create strong stopover habitat for migratory Overflow (CSO) stormwater neighborhoods with quality, birds. management systems in the affordable housing, expand local city. The BSA is currently under hiring opportunities, and advance The watershed, however, has a an EPA consent decree to economic and environmental history of heavy environmental significantly reduce CSO waste justice in Buffalo. stress from development by implementing its $400 million 52
Improving local water quality is a based water management landscape and green core part of that work, and PUSH movement. The team has infrastructure training programs, has addressed that through completed more than thirty PUSH Buffalo is a community growing its role in developing stormwater interventions on leader working to address regional green infrastructure. property it owns in the Green stormwater challenges while In 2013, PUSH launched PUSH Development Zone that include also creating good green jobs Blue Eco Landscaping (PUSH rain gardens, permeable pavers, accessible to Buffalo residents. Blue) to create a variety of storm living roofs, bioswales, and As part of PUSH Blue’s continued water retention interventions underground and above-ground commitment to the green job throughout PUSH’s Green cisterns. workforce, during the summer Development Zone on Buffalo’s Due to PUSH’s extensive of 2018, PUSH established a West Side – directly adjacent to experience in completing water training program in collaboration the Niagara River, which flows management projects on vacant with the National Green from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. urban land, the BSA included Infrastructure Certification The Green Development Zone is PUSH’s work in its plan to Program (NGICP). PUSH now PUSH’s thirty-block place-based reduce overflows. PUSH also offers regional trainings to just transition strategy that partnered with the BSA on its certify others under this national leverages community organizing, Community Water Partnership standard. PUSH’s workforce community control of land, Program, which included PUSH currently employs three affordable housing development, Blue’s completion of over 140 experienced and certified NGICP weatherization investments, job bioretention installations on professionals, who are currently training, and revenue generating nineteen acres of vacant lots the only certified individuals in social enterprise activities as a across the city and a scaling Western NY. Program Manager means of building community up of its green infrastructure Ken Parker is one of twenty-one wealth and enhancing resiliency. division, providing expanded people in the entire country, PUSH Blue is a team of opportunities for both training and the only person in New York stormwater mitigation and and permanent placement of State, who is a NGICP trainer. outreach specialists that are on successful trainees. Through PUSH Buffalo is committed to the forefront of the community- its comprehensive sustainable developing the most skilled and NGICP Instructive Session, Nov. 2018 Photo Credit: PUSH Blue, Buffalo BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 53
knowledgeable individuals in burden of water pollution. Such technologies, demonstrations of the field of green infrastructure. work also builds the region’s techniques and technologies that Through its training program, capacity to continue building and will be replicable throughout PUSH hopes to expand the maintaining this infrastructure. the region, and help to address number of people in the region The best plans and the ones with the significant stormwater certified and trained in green the highest likelihood of success challenges so many of our infrastructure. build on the assets currently communities face. In order for Buffalo, and other available and address the daily cities, to successfully implement needs of those currently living Resources: green infrastructure projects, the in our communities. Over the National Green Infrastructure Cer- city needs a skilled workforce last several years, PUSH has tification Program (NGICP). https:// to implement these systems. worked to develop a vision for ngicp.org. The NGICP certification offers an equitable green economy People United for Sustainable Hous- a training pathway for workers anchored by new public and ing (PUSH Buffalo). https://pushbuf- to access skills, contractors to private investments in green jobs falo.org. find the most skilled individuals and sustainable technologies. PUSH Blue. Facebook. https://www. to hire, and property owners to The PUSH Blue project proposes facebook.com/PUSHBlueWNY. know that those installing and strategies that meet these local maintaining their systems have needs, reinforces the positive the necessary skills to complete work that has been going on the work. Training Buffalo for several years, and works residents for these jobs also toward building comprehensive helps ensure that the dollars and sustainable neighborhoods spent on green infrastructure with opportunities for all who stay in the city and its economy, live here. Such investments, at as well as provide opportunities a neighborhood scale, provide to those who have borne a spaces for innovation in green disproportionate share of the infrastructure and use of new Project #77 Site Delivery Photo Credit: PUSH Blue, Buffalo 54
DEC Training, Aug. 2018 Photo Credit: PUSH Blue, Buffalo BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 55
BIOHPILIC CITIES JOURNAL / PROJECT SPOTLIGHT A Building That Blooms By Tim Beatley It would be a good thing if more buildings in cities would “bloom.” That is what Oasia Hotel Downtown does, a new twenty-seven floor high-rise in Singapore. It is another remarkable biophilic building designed by the architecture firm WOHA (Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell), and replaces ground level nature by some 1100%. There are four skyparks, including one on the 12th floor check-in level. Because of the structural design of the high-rise, with elevators and structural members on the corners, these skypark levels give the feeling of being wide open. In the case of the 12th floor, there is a commons in the center with trees, bushes and plants wrapped around it, and lovely couches, chairs and tables organized in sheltered clusters. There is, at times, quite a breeze on these open floors and Wong explained the priority given in this structural configuration to cross-ventilation. As a result, these open public areas are not mechanically cooled and in fact are substantially cooler than street level sidewalks. By far the most spectacular element of the structure is the nearly-complete mesh façades on all sides of the building that accommodate twenty-one different species of flowering climbing vines, chosen to ensure that something is always in bloom. There is no mistaking the building from a distance and the flowering façades help to cool and reduce the building’s energy needs. Oasia Hotel Downtown | Singapore Photo Credit:s Tim Beatley 56
Oasia Hotel, Singapore Photo Credit: Flickr | Bill and Dessa Barnes BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 57
BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL / CITY PROFILE Old Town Tallinn Photo Credit: Maria Tahamtani Pigeons in Tallinn and Turtles in Tartu By Maria Tahamtani When visiting Tallinn, Estonia, Soviet Union through a peaceful on the backs of the sculptures, revolution of unified song. jumping on and off of them and I expected to be met with the However, on my first journey running in between them, as if magic of the Christmas Market, along the narrow, winding they were playing hide-and-seek. to be entranced by the medieval cobblestone pathways that Content with these concrete fairytale atmosphere that meander through much of the reminders of nature, I smiled dominates its Old Town, and to city, the one thing I could never and walked on. They were, after feast on a variety of hearty foods have expected was perhaps the all, a pleasant surprise and a such as hand-stuffed meat pies, very thing that made me smile sweet addition to the storybook grilled game sausages, and ox the most: large pigeon sculptures quality of Tallinn. However, soup served in traditional clay repeatedly and strategically the further along I walked, the bowls. I also expected to feel placed in the streets of Tallinn. more sculptures I noticed and the history underfoot, and to The first time I came across a the more I began to question walk where courageous men couple of the birds, I watched their purpose. It took gaining a and women of the small Baltic as a few small children who, familiarity with the whole city country once stood, displaying no taller than the pigeons to finally understand that these their quiet power in the effort to themselves, danced and played pigeons were not decorative nor regain independence from the 58
Tallinn, Estonia Photo Credit: Maria Tahamtani Photo Credit: Maria Tahamtani Photo Credit: Maria Tahamtani BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 59
a temporary art installation, but Children Playing Among the Pigeons in Old Town, Tallinn in fact served a unique purpose Photo Credit: Maria Tahamtani within the city. As it turns Turtles in Tartu, Estonia out, the birds act as concrete Photo Credit: Cheryl Rofer barriers to vehicle traffic on certain streets and street corners Cranberries along the Jõhvi Promenade throughout the capital city. Photo Credit: zakrit_dver, Live Journal Tallinn commissioned local artist Seaküla Simson to create the original ninety-seven birds which were installed beginning in 2006. While over subsequent years some of the birds have been moved so as not to block the most efficient delivery routes for products and services, the spirit of the pigeons remain a testament to the ability of a city to keep nature front-and- center in the most unexpected of ways. Simson was given free reign when it came to choosing the animal that would be so prominently featured, but said he chose pigeons simply because they are, and have always been, such a prominent part of everyday life in Tallinn. Reinforcing the nature that is already so much a part of the culture of the city through these traffic barriers is not unique to Estonia’s capital. Just about every major city in Estonia also commissioned the creation of some sort of natureful traffic barrier that would be distinct to their cities. As a result, visitors will find large sculptures of turtles in the southern city of Tartu, large strawberries in Vilijandi, and small polar bears as part of the landscape of the city of Jõhvi. In fact, nature permeates the streets of Estonia and the lives of those who call the country home 60
in more creative ways than one. also kick-sled and skate hikes” www.tallinn.ee/eng/Uudis-Nature- Walk along the Jõhvi promenade, throughout 2018. In parallel, tourism-NATTOURS-is-launched. for instance, and you’ll be the Environment Department of instantly surrounded by the Tallinn concluded its two-year Pelechovà, E. (2009). Urban Nature. larger than life cranberry seating long effort called NATTOURS, http://www.evapelechova.com/work/ and lighting that were inspired which they led jointly with urban-nature. by the moniker “jõhvikas,” a the City of Helsinki, Finland, to word which not only means a provide more opportunities for Pulver, A. (2005, July 27). Seaküla resident of Jõhvi but also means nature tourism and education Simson lennutab tuvid Tallinnasse. “cranberries” in Estonian. Explore among the two closely linked https://virumaateataja.postimees. historical Old Town Tallinn cities. This environmental- ee/2276125/seakula-simson- instead, and you’ll most certainly tourism based effort included lennutab-tuvid-tallinnasse. come upon expanses of trees many technological innovations, interspersed throughout the city supplying residents with easy Rikken, K. (2012, February 8). Tallinn: around which parks have been access to educational information No More Migrating Concrete created, along with wide street on all objects of nature in the Birds in Old Town. https://news. medians that provide more space two cities, as well as maps and err.ee/105052/tallinn-no-more- for nature to flourish. This comes GPS-guided nature tours for migrating-concrete-birds-in-old- as no surprise, however, for a residents and visitors alike. town. country which boasts that half I was fortunate to be among of its land area remains forest, the masses of excited citizens Rofer, C. (2011, July 17). A Walk while another fifth of the land is gathered in Tallinn’s Freedom Through Tartu [Blog post]. preserved as national parks and Square counting down from Phronesisaical website: http:// nature reserves. 100 with Estonia’s President to phronesisaical.blogspot. This past year, the Republic of welcome in the 2018 New Year. com/2011/07. Estonia celebrated the 100 year What I didn’t realize then, in anniversary of its independence. that moment, however, was just Szmit, K. (2010, January 24). As part of their year-long how meaningful that countdown Tallinna Kivituvid [Tallinn’s Stone continued celebration, the would be for a country that is Pigeons]. http://karoszmit.blogspot. country also took the opportunity continuously advancing toward com/2010/01/tallinna-kivituvid- to define its future, proudly its future of green. tallinnsstone.html. unveiling the “Estonia 100 Hiking Series” in order to reacquaint Resources: zakrit_dver. (2014, January 10). residents with the wondrous About Estonia. (2017). https://www. Jõhvi - Йыхви. https://live-report. nature in their own backyard. eu2017.ee/about-estonia. livejournal.com/2117607.html. Estonia wanted its residents to The centenary year brings an know that natureful experiences extensive hiking series. (2018, Maria Tahamtani is Partner City like these need not require January 3). https://www.ev100.ee/ Coordinator for the Biophilic Cities travel outside the country’s en/centenary-year-brings-extensive- Network, Founder and President borders. The hiking series hiking-series. of the University of Virginia’s first featured an experience suitable Estonia 100 Centenary Week. (n.d.). Biophilic Student Organization, for just about any resident, https://www.ev100.ee/en/estonia- BiHOOphilic, and a Master of including both traditional 100-centennial-week. Urban and Environmental Planning hiking and more water-based Nature tourism - NATTOURS is Candidate at the University of adventures via kayaks and launched. (2016, March 18). https:// Virginia. canoes, along with “nature observation, mushrooming and berry picking hikes, car and other motorised vehicle hikes and BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 61
BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL/ PIONEER INTERVIEW The Future of Cities is Biophilic and Inclusive: An By Stella T Biophilic Cities Network Founder Tim Stella Tarnay: At the AIA Conference in New York Beatley and Biophilic DC Co-Founder you talked about a new blueprint for cities. You also Stella Tarnay met with American talked about an architectural revolution of relevance Institute of Architects (AIA) President What was it that drew you to the city scale? Carl Elefante FAIA, FAPT, LEED AP in Carl Elefante: At one level it was pretty basic. We October 2018 on the garden porch were in New York City. Having the opportunity to of UVA’s Colonnades Club to explore address architectural issues from within the living connections between architectural laboratory of New York and at its scale was an easy practice and biophilic cities, and to choice to make. discuss President Elefante’s forward- But there’s another aspect to it. Looking out, we looking speech at the AIA Conference have a global awakening to the importance of on Architecture 2018, in New York City. shaping cities to shape human culture, to shape human society, to shape the economy, to shape the 62 environment. As you know humanity is now more
Garden Porch of UVA’s Collonades Club Photo Credit: Maria Tahamtani n Interview with 2018 AIA President Carl Elefante Tarnay than 50 percent housed in cities and by the end living, biophilic building in just about every sense, of the century, almost nine out of ten people are even though it’s not Living Building certified. It e. projected to live in cities. So, human destiny is tied to replaces ground level nature 1100 percent. That is the shaping of our cities. We’re going to create these really remarkable. Twenty one different species of conditions for essentially all humanity. What are flowering vines grow on its planted facade. I’ve had the conditions that we need to make that work? For conversations with its designers and in particular people to survive and thrive? And frankly, architects Wong Mun Summ of WOHA, who likes to talk about have to stop just talking to each other. designing the facade for squirrels, which is sort of funny. But he also talks about creating a living city Stella Tarnay: Tim, as a planner you’re used to through a network of green roofs, sky gardens, and thinking at the city scale. But what do you think vertical facades. When we talked last, he said to me: about the role of architects for biophilic cities? you planners are not thinking much in the three- Tim Beatley: I think there’s a lot of potential. dimensional way. You’re not thinking about how And some great individual examples. Singapore building design can contribute to a larger urban goal. And he’s probably right. comes to mind. The Oasia highrise hotel there is a BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 63
Stella Tarnay: At the AIA Convention, Helena Van the right model. Let’s find the right model. Our Vliet, founder of DC’s sister project, BioPhilly, talked challenge is the same: to create cities that are about the potential of cities as multi-species wonderful places for everyone. habitats. Where we no longer think of cities as just Tim Beatley: To quote you: “Cities that are healthy places for people, but for multiple species beautiful, inspiring and joyful.” But you got your in the urban environment. How does an architect’s biggest applause when you talked about inclusivity, work change when we start thinking about cities in and the architectural profession rising to that this way? challenge. Carl Elefante: Well first, we’re not doing a good Carl Elefante: Right. AIA has actually been doing job yet designing for the human species. We need a lot of work on gender equity and equitable to address that. Recognizing that we’re biological practice. About how we support and promote creatures, that we’re part of nature, and that we’re firms that are adopting equitable practice modes. not better being taken OUT of nature, rather we’re AIA’s membership was energized by the Me Too better being IN nature. The second species that’s movement. We were able to catch that wave and starting to be thought about is birds. Because our advance AIA’s equitable practice agenda. And cities today are annihilating birds by the millions. frankly, we really need to do that. Tim Beatley: It’s great to see places like San Tim Beatley: Let me ask you more directly about Francisco adopting bird-friendly standards, so it’s biophilic cities. Can you say more about the role of out there. But I don’t see a lot of emphasis on it in nature in that future-looking vision of cities? the architectural curriculum, or in the profession. Stella Tarnay: And another quote from your talk Not much emphasis on designing buildings with that I like: “Cities as part of ecosystems, and birds, and other species in mind. inspired by nature.” I thought that was beautiful. Carl Elefante: So, let’s make it part of education. What did you mean by that? Education is such a good place to start. And let’s Carl Elefante: I think the move to biophilic cities make it part of code. This is a great example is the most fundamental mode change that is of how architects can be part of the relevance required for us to create the 21st century city. I see revolution. three dimensions to it. First, people are biological Tim Beatley: In your quite wonderful AIA talk you creatures. We live in nature, whether it’s a built referenced City Beautiful, which I thought was nature that people created, nature that nature interesting. We don’t always invoke that idea, that created, or somewhere in between. We’re finding history. Can you elaborate on it a bit? out more and more about how much impact Carl Elefante: That reference expresses everything people have had on their natural settings over the good and everything bad about it. It’s a bit of millenniums. I mean, here we are in this historic a cautionary tale. In the past, architects have University of Virginia landscape that is completely looked in the mirror and said, our job is to make human-created, with natural elements. Yet it works a wonderful place for everyone. Our job is to in that biophilic way. Architects are beginning to create beautiful cities. So who were those people understand, and perhaps rediscover, how that can and what was their image? They were extremely work in places like hospital settings, for example. privileged with a definite sense of manifest destiny How to make people feel better through design. of the white man. That’s the world they came from. Second, nature needs us to be thinking about it There were certainly some who were culturally when we design our cities. We’re still in that “doing and intellectually beyond that, but the mainstream less bad” mode, when we actually need to be in a was about the great white hope and hey, let’s regenerative mode, to design buildings and cities put Roman columns everywhere. So that’s the that are good for the environment. cautionary tale. We are now 21st century citizens, not 19th or 20th century citizens. We don’t need to create the City Beautiful 2.0. Because that’s not 64
Carl Elefante, 2018 AIA President Photo Credit: Carl Elefante BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 65
Oasia Hotel, Singapore Photo Credit: City-Reader There’s a lot of thinking going on about how to Singapore is a great example, to create a tropical make cities carbon sequestering, rather than just forest equal to the tropical forest that was there. carbon neutral. That’s good. How cities can be part The third dimension is of looking to nature as our of the solution. Not just less of the carbon problem. model. Nature as our mentor in designing the built We were talking about multiple species. We can environment. To understand how nature designs design for that with green corridors. And how about and to bring our industrial model and nature’s better water quality cities? We can design for that. growth models together. And to understand that And how about better air quality cities? Let’s plan nothing is really separate. for the opposite of heat island effect. Those are Tim Beatley: And thinking about how to integrate all design challenges and it’s perfectly reasonable these agendas for carbon neutral, resilient cities for us to say we should expect that of our built and what we call biophilic cities. There are so many environment. labels going around, it’s a bit of a challenge. 66
Carl Elefante: I think that they can be advanced at to think about that through the Committee on the same time, and they have to be advanced at the Environment at AIA, and some of the other the same time. We can’t work in silos. We can learn committees. For example, materials, and resiliency. a lot by looking in the past, and how people solved And design for health. But it should include problems regionally, in their own environments. biophilia as a much more central discussion rather Tim Beatley: That reminds me in a specific way of than sort of a sub-topic of design and health. the house I grew up in. It was designed to catch Tim Beatley: Biophilic design does seem to be a the breezes, and didn’t have air conditioning. If you concern for interior spaces. Looking at the numbers got too warm, you moved to another part of the of articles about biophilic office space design, can house that was cooler. That experience of thermal we leverage that? Can we go the next step and get change was a source of sensory pleasure. We have architects to think about the neighborhood and the a world where the built environment is designed city? To extend the sensibility of having nature in so there aren’t many opportunities to experience your office to the larger context? that, to feel those sensations. Carl Elefante: That kind of indicates that you Carl Elefante: Right! The current design standard always need an economic driver. In the case of of comfort for constant humidity and temperature corporate offices, you have worker productivity; year-round is nuts. I don’t think it’s good for us. you’ve got people who are willing to invest capital You know, I’m outside and it’s 95. I come inside funds into what ultimately will help them retain and it’s 65. Our bodies aren’t designed for that. talent and help that talent be more collaborative At the Center for the Built Environment at UC and creative and productive and so on. For the Berkeley they’ve been doing research on this and same thing to be created in our cities, we need they suggest there are more like 60 data points for policies and programs, extending to the regional human comfort. You know, is there air flow, where level, to support that. is the airflow? Is it on your feet, is on the back of your neck? Is there radiant heat and cooling? Carl Elefante FAIA, FAPT, LEED AP is a Principal Looking at how we function as biological beings of Quinn Evans Architects, and served as the 94th rather that these theoretical six-foot cylinders in President of the American Institute of Architects in engineering calculations. 2018. Tim Beatley: One of the things I like about Singapore’s Oasia building is that the lobby is open Stella Tarney is the Co-founder of Biophilic DC and air, without air conditioning. And it works. Executive Director of Capital Nature, a nonprofit Carl Elefante: The three of us here, we’re in a dedicated to bringing nature experience into the lives perfect situation right now. We’re sitting on the of Washington DC area residents and visitors. Stella back porch of this historic building next to garden can be reached at [email protected]. and trees, and every once in a while the breeze picks up. I mean, it’s a delight to experience. Stella Tarnay: I’d like to address cultural and Resources: professional connectivity. For me, as a civic organizer for biophilic practices in Washington, AIA National (July 17, 2018). Architecture’s Relevance I have found the Biophilic Cities Network really Revolution [video file]. https://www.youtube.com/ helpful in connecting me with peers who are also watch?v=doz-hYRkkKY. innovating. I’m curious about how you think the Capital Nature. http://capitalnature.org. Biophilic Cities Network can support architects who want to be active in designing for biophilic cities? Carl Elefante: I think that it’s a missing element in the architectural discussion. It would be great BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 67
BIOHPILIC CITIES JOURNAL / RESEARCH NOTES Mauerpark (Berlin) Playground Photo Credit: Jbdrm Designing Equitable Biophilic Cities By Julia Triman The research literature on and collective memories that vast majority of them presently inequitable access to nature in may have highly charged and are rated as not having high per- cities is well established (Wolch painful associations. Emerging capita green space relative to the et al. 2014, Nesbitt et al. 2019). in the years following the fall rest of the city. The mix of types Recent work is also charting of the Berlin Wall, Green Belt of spaces currently offered and paths towards tangible solutions Berlin is a multi-functional planned are intended to meet that might simultaneously greenway running along the a variety of demographic and make cities more equitable and northern section of the former cultural needs, providing a good natureful. From re-imagining border between East and West example of a project developing former military infrastructure Berlin with some established over many years to suit a wide to creating freeway cap parks, parks and connections and range of city dwellers. researchers are exploring many other features still in planning Another biophilic strategy with possible avenues to increasing and design phases. Kowarik’s the potential to foster equitable equity and designing urban research examines planning and out- nature connections at the same development processes for the time. greenway, and emphasizes how Klyde Warren Park (Dallas) the existing and planned features Photo Credit: Carol M. Highsmith In “The ‘Green Belt Berlin,’” Ingo of Green Belt Berlin increase Kowarik examines adaptive equity in the distribution of re-use of former military green space for local residents. structures in cities, in particular One way this is possible is the Berlin Wall (Kowarik 2019). through the distributed nature Kowarik describes how military of the greenway: neighborhoods installations, such as the Berlin and blocks immediately flanking Wall, often are associated Green Belt Berlin have mixed with traumatic experiences socioeconomic status, and the 68
Denver Central 70 While neither design solution Photo Credit: Colorado is the single key to more equitable biophilic cities, this Another biophilic strategy recent research highlights the with the potential to foster strengths and possibilities of outcomes is the introduction of each of these ideas, and suggests cap parks across freeways and complexities that planners and highways. Though not a new designers might consider when practice, Douglas Houston and implementing these sorts of Michelle E. Zuñiga conducted projects to increase equitable the first comprehensive study of outcomes overall. existing and planned freeway cap parks, which indicated that In contrast, they discuss how Julia Triman is Director of Biophilic both those in place and planned community members were Research for Biophilic Cities and a have significant implications continually consulted during Ph.D. Candidate in the Constructed for increasing park access for Denver’s proposed I-70 cap Environment at the University of underserved areas in cities park planning process (called Virginia School of Architecture (Houston and Zuñiga 2019). The “Central 70”), and though not a authors conclude that cap parks perfect example, includes specific Resources: may have a significant role to measures to reduce pollution, play in advancing environmental increase connectivity, and provide Houston, Douglas, and Michelle E. Zuñi- justice in cities by their ability to community space appropriate to ga. 2019. “Put a Park on It: How Freeway reconnect communities currently the needs of the people who live Caps Are Reconnecting and Greening divided by cavernous freeways, there. Divided Cities.” Cities 85 (February): reduce the incidence of noise 98–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. and air pollution, and mitigate cities.2018.08.007. disparities in city-wide park access, size, design, and quality. Re-use of former military Kowarik, Ingo. 2019. “The ‘Green Belt Houston and Zuñiga discuss installations and the design Berlin’: Establishing a Greenway Where that while Klyde Warren Park and creation of freeway cap the Berlin Wall Once Stood by Inte- in Dallas, Texas ameliorates parks both have demonstrated grating Ecological, Social and Cultural the ways the construction of potential ecological Approaches.” Landscape and Urban the freeway displaced and gentrification as well as Planning 184 (April): 12–22. https://doi. disconnected African-American planning processes that have org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.12.008. and Mexican-American people varying degrees of inclusion and Nesbitt, Lorien, Michael J. Meitner, and communities, the park is responsiveness to vulnerable Cynthia Girling, Stephen R.J. Sheppard, still implicated in economic and communities and community and Yuhao Lu. 2019. “Who Has Access growth-driven planning practices members. Creative re-use of the to Urban Vegetation? A Spatial Analysis without equity as the primary former Berlin Wall presents an of Distributional Green Equity in 10 concern. opportunity that other cities US Cities.” Landscape and Urban Plan- might follow to increase urban ning 181 (January): 51–79. https://doi. nature connections in a variety of org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.08.007. ways along a transect of different Wolch, Jennifer R., Jason Byrne, and communities, with sensitive Joshua P. Newell. 2014. “Urban Green solutions that fit each particular Space, Public Health, and Environmen- place. Freeway cap parks offer tal Justice: The Challenge of Making potential for re-connecting Cities ‘Just Green Enough.’” Landscape people and communities that and Urban Planning 125 (May): 234–44. were quite literally demolished https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurb- and torn apart when the roads plan.2014.01.017. were initially constructed. BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 69
BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL / THE BOOKSHELF Tanner Springs Park (Portland) Photo Credit: Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl Palaces for the People Review By Lucia Shuff-Heck Often when we think of infrastructure, our minds to remediate vacant lots in lower-income pockets in the city, an effort which has noticeably reduced jump to transit, roads, bridges, and the other crime and created healthy, maintained green hard infrastructural elements that make up our spaces for communities that have traditionally cities. These systems are necessary components been marginalized in the exploration of greening of a network that keeps our daily lives running initiatives. smoothly. Equally important, however, is a slightly more abstract concept: that of social infrastructure. Attention to social infrastructure can also be Palaces for the People, by Eric Klinenberg, explores incorporated into the more material projects that this concept, through its history, and its effect are desperately needed to address the growing on schools, neighborhoods, libraries, and other threat of damage from climate change. This includes elements of public life. plans such as Kate Orff’s Living Breakwaters project, as well as Singapore’s attention to public spaces Klinenberg argues that we have neglected designed to respond to water inundation. social infrastructure to the detriment of our communities. The idea of the “third place,” or space Palaces for the People is a comprehensive, in-depth to gather outside home or work, has persisted look at how communities benefit from shared space, as a requirement for a vital and thriving public. and even how it can increase resilience in the wake Unfortunately, despite numerous benefits, the of disaster. Through the lens of interconnection, amount of free and accessible public space has been Klinenberg explores how prioritizing social in decline. Many of the public spaces in cities are infrastructure can benefit our cities, communities, privately owned businesses, such as coffee shops and enrich our individual lives. and restaurants, and thus are not ideal gathering spaces, as they require payment for access. Eric Klinenberg (2018). Palaces for the People. New Meanwhile, publicly funded institutions, such as the York: Crown. library, are the first to be subject to cuts in the city budget. Lucia Shuff-Heck is a Communications Coordinator for Biophilic Cities, and an Undergraduate Student Biophilia also factors into Klinenberg’s vision majoring in Environments and Sustainability at the for creating more equitable, healthy spaces. University of Virginia Department of Global Studies Klinenberg highlights the Philadelphia initiative 70
Weathering the Decades with Wisdom Review By Jamie Trost Three and a half decades on Sprin’s work remains instructive and relevant Thirty-five years after its initial release, Anne Resources: Jared Green (Jan. 7, 2015). “Interview with Anne Whiston Spirn’s The Granite Garden: Urban Nature Whiston Spirn on the 30th Anniversary of The and Human Design reads with a wisdom that Granite Garden.” The Dirt. https://dirt.asla. seems as timeless as the elements of air, earth, org/2015/01/07/interview-with-anne-whiston- and water the book is framed around. A series spirn-on-the-30th-anniversary-of-the-granite- of contemporary case studies lands the book garden. squarely in the early 1980s, but the underlying Anne W. Spirn (1984). The Granite Garden. Basic reasoning for much of Sprin’s nature-based urban Books. design has roots in sources as ancient as the Bible, Hippocrates, and the Code of Hammurabi. The Jamie Trost is a Communications Coordinator for infusion of modern science and age-old custom Biophilic Cities and a Graduate Student in the gives The Granite Garden the holistic, tactical feel Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at of the Art of War. As Sun Tzu says of battle, Sprin the University of Virginia School of Architecture echoes in city planning—“Know the ground, know the weather; your victory will then be total.” Chillingly, many urban and environmental strategies advocated in The Granite Garden seem to have gone largely unheeded in the ensuing decades. This seeming neglect of good advice, combined with the divergent, science fiction-esque visions of the “Infernal” and “Celestial” Cities of the future Sprin closes the book with, give the book the ominous feel of a dark prophecy. But hope is inspired by the fact that, however late, many of the natural design elements Spirn suggests are appearing in cityscapes. Perhaps the more recent research on the psychological effects of nature on humans has compelled a re-visitation of the more environmental and physiological focused planning The Granite Garden proposed. In any case, there’s still much to be done, as Sprin herself lamented during a 2015 interview in The Dirt, “We need to truly reimagine the way we design cities.” BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 71
Remembering Mary Oliver By Tim Beatley The Black Walnut Tree Discovering Mary Oliver opened up a remarkable by Mary Oliver© new dimension in my life, as it did for many others. My mother and I debate: Oliver passed away on January 17, 2019, leaving an we could sell immense literary void for many of us who relied on her inspired stanzas for a measure of insight and the black walnut tree hope. to the lumberman, Poetry is, Oliver says in her A Poetry Handbook, “a life-cherishing force….” and pay off the mortgage. “Poems are not words, after all, but fires for the Likely some storm anyway cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as will churn down its dark boughs, necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” smashing the house. We talk It all really started for me as an experiment in slowly, two women trying summer writing. Poetry, and my attempts to try in a difficult time to be wise. on what it might be like to be a poet, unfolded Roots in the cellar drains, during the summer of 2011. It turned out to be the next natural extension in a personal I say, and she replies quest to explore all things natural (though this that the leaves are getting heavier exploration was anything but systematic). My wife Anneke encouraged and enabled these flights of every year, and the fruit ecological fancy: there was the summer I wanted harder to gather away. to be a mycologist, and another summer it was a But something brighter than money fascination with bats, and yet another summer an moves in our blood – an edge obsession with dragonflies. At each point my wife sharp and quick as a trowel humored me, purchasing a variety of books and that wants us to dig and sow. guidebooks (delivered as birthday presents) to help So we talk, but we don’t do along these amateur aspirations. anything. That night I dream Poetry emerged for me similarly. My first task of my fathers out of Bohemia in becoming a poet, I thought (and Oliver filling the blue fields recommends this in her Handbook), was to read as of fresh and generous Ohio much poetry as I possibly could. I had a sense that with leaves and vines and orchards. with poetry just about anything goes, but I wanted What my mother and I both know to see and read firsthand all the poetic approaches is that we’d crawl with shame and voices possible. Again, my birthday presents in the emptiness we’d made that year stoked that interest. In one popular in our own and our fathers’ backyard. anthology of poetry I encountered for the first time So the black walnut tree a Mary Oliver poem, and it has turned out to be my swings through another year favorite, The Black Walnut Tree (presented to left). of sun and leaping winds, I soon discovered what Oliver knew so well--that of leaves and bounding fruit, poems had real power, both in their writing and in and, month after month, the whip- their reading by others. For me writing a poem was crack of the mortgage. 72
part puzzle, part zen meditation. It was a chance of poems and gave them out as students handed in to work through the significance of something their midterm and final exams. It was a kind of gift, small that I had discovered (a Blue Jay feather), something I could give them of great value and I or heard or experienced (a storm, a snow event), know they were mostly appreciated. or just thought about (death and aging), and to In another class, Cities + Nature, I asked students create a nugget of expression, a compact package to keep an urban nature journal. Certain things of words that helped me to make sense of things. must be in those journals, including at least one I have enjoyed, as well, organizing the spatial flow original poem. I have plans to collect and publish of words on a page; poems are a kind of sculptured these poems because so many of them are so word art. For me, the poems are reward enough lovely. Writing a poem, Oliver taught me, is a way without anyone else reading them (though I am of communicating emotion and affection for wild hoping my kids may discover and relish them at places; something essential for urban planning some later point in time). students to learn in a world where the forces of Oliver showed that poetry need not be inaccessible destruction seem to have such a head start. or obtuse; indeed it should not be. It does not Once I had the idea that I was going to write an take an English professor to finely interpret what article about the power of poetry; about how her poems say or mean--that is not necessary. You poetry could save the world. I had to talk to know what they mean, and their impact is felt, Mary Oliver, I thought, and so I reached out to almost like a warm breeze or a bird call or the her publishing company. They referred me to her textures of the bark of an oak tree. They are crisp publicist who referred me to her agent (the precise and clear and understandable; powerful in their sequence is today a bit fuzzy). The word eventually meaning and intent and purpose. Her poems are came back that Oliver did not do interviews. I was paeans to nature; they profess a sense of reverence crestfallen but not surprised. I’ve wondered ever for and curiosity about the outside world, and a since what that conversation might have been like. sense of mystery as well, that lasted the entirety I am sure she would have been modest about her of her life. Her poems are deeply personal as she own role. And I suspect she might have advised me in a way introduces readers to a natural world that to spend less time pontificating about the need for consists of many close friends and kin, whether red more poetry and more time reading and writing it. bird or cricket or lily. And I am sure she would have advised me to get Oliver approached the writing of poetry not so off the phone and go outside. much as strokes of inspiration but as a craft to be Mary Oliver (1994). A Poetry Handbook. San Diego: worked. Poems had to be sufficiently labored over Harcourt Brace & Co. to be good. She talks of the typical “forty or fifty drafts” and the ”almost endless task” of revision. Hard work is the norm but the potential positive results are infinite. “It is good to remember,” she says, “how many sweet and fine poems there are in the world--I mean, it is a help to remember that out of writing, and the rewriting, beauty is born.” I have enjoyed writing some of my own poetry, Mary Oliver but more enjoyable still has been sharing poetry Photo Credit: Literary Arts with others. In my large introductory lecture class, I started to read a poem as a way of closing each class. It was not always easy to halt the outward rush of students anxious to move on to their next commitments, to hush them into listening. Probably at least half the time it was a Mary Oliver poem. In addition to reading poems in class, I made copies BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 | 73
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