Carbon capture in US forests
A new study by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is underway to assess the role US forests and soils can play in limiting emissions through carbon capture. The first phase of the study found that forests in the lower 48 states currently store about 90 billion metric tons of carbon and continue to capture about 30% of the country’s fossil fuel emissions each year. The study also posits that if properly managed, our forested public land has the potential to capture an additional three to seven billion metric tons of carbon. Citing the study, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has called for further research into how carbon sequestration works and how land-management can be improved.
New York City’s MillionTreesNYC project is a step toward increasing the City’s current capacity for carbon sequestration through increased forestation throughout the city, including plantings at the Freshkills Park site. The City’s trees currently store 1.35 million metric tons of carbon at a rate of 42,000 metric tons of carbon each year.
(via The New York Times)
Canadian landfill to be world’s largest pollinator park
Honeybee (Apis mellifera), photo by macropoulos via flickr
City planners in Guelph, Ontario have approved a master plan to transform a 200-acre decommissioned landfill into the world’s largest pollinator park. The former Eastview Road Landfill, which operated as a municipal dump from 1961 to 2003, has been capped and outfitted with a methane capturing system that converts landfill gas into usable energy. Filled land, which constitutes about half the site, will host some recreational amenities but primarily shrub and meadow plantings that provide habitat for pollinator species such as bees, butterflies, bats and birds. These species are surprisingly vital to food production: pollination research suggests that three out of four flowering plants require animal pollinators in order to produce seed and fruit.
Pollinator populations have been in decline in recent years. Honeybees, in particular, have experienced what beekeepers call “colony collapse disorder“; other causes for decline include pesticide misuse, light and air pollution, hive destruction and farming practices that destroy habitat.
In conjunction with non-profit group Pollination Guelph, the city is developing a plant palette with a wide enough range of blooming seasons to accommodate both early and late pollinators. Other park amenities include toboggan runs, a trail network, demonstration gardens, basketball and volleyball courts, soccer and football fields, a natural ice rink and a playground.
Eli Cohen on sustainability and phytoremediation
Eli Cohen gave a terrific talk Monday night on his work, as director of Ayala Water and Ecology, using plants to remove pollutants and contaminants from water, soil and air. We’re grateful to the huge crowd that poured into the Arsenal gallery for the event, to Laura Starr and Yamit Perez for putting us in touch with Eli and, of course, to Eli himself for sharing his work and his thoughts.
One of his bigger themes, telegraphed by the title of the talk, “Sustainability in Practice,” was his strong belief that “Natural Biological Systems”– systems constructed of plants, soil, rocks and other natural materials and supported by forces like gravity and sunlight–are not only just as effective as more expensive, technological solutions to environmental remediation, but also, literally, much more sustainable. He walked through a number of Ayala’s Natural Biological Systems, which filtered and cleaned runoff and sewage from a variety of sites including private residences, a dairy farm, a landfill, a cosmetics plant and an entire city (Hyderabad, India). His full slideshow is available as a PDF (6MB).
You can stream the entire audio of the talk, below, as you page through the slides. You can also download that audio directly as an MP3 (71 minutes, 66MB).
James Corner at Cooper Union, tonight
James Corner, founder and director of landscape architecture and urban design firm Field Operations, will speak about the firm’s current projects this evening at Cooper Union, hosted by the Architectural League of New York. In addition to designing the Freshkills Park master plan and first phase projects, Field Operations continues to tackle a number of diverse and high-profile projects including The High Line and the 4,500-acre Shelby Farms Park in Memphis. Should be an inspiring talk.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
7pm @ The Great Hall, The Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street in Manhattan
Free for Architectural League of New York members; $10 for non-members.
Discussion following the lecture with Corner and landscape architects Kate Orff and Ken Smith.
Orange County Great Park launches first phase
A rendering of the Orange County Great Park, including the park's observation balloon. The completed park will implement sustainable design in establishing a canyon, a perennial stream, a lake, botanical gardens and an aviation museum.
The first phase of development is underway for 1,347-acre brownfield transformation project Orange County Great Park. $65.5 million will fund the expansion of a 27.5-acre “Preview Park,” which opened in 2008 and features an observation balloon providing visitors a high-flying view of the entire site. Scheduled to be complete by the end of 2011, the new phase of construction will develop 200 acres and include sports fields, arts and cultural space, a 100-acre farm, a 2,500-tree orange orchard, a community garden and an agricultural pavilion. The park is being constructed on the site of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, which operated from 1942 until 1999.
Pop-up parks
LentSpace is a 37,000 square foot temporary park and cultural space at Canal and Sullivan Streets in lower Manhattan. The site opened to the public on September 18th–Park(ing) Day–and is on loan to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for three years from Trinity Real Estate, which hopes to build on it when the City’s real estate market improves. The video above depicts the site’s construction.
This particular economic moment seems ripe with opportunities to build parks like these–”pop-up parks”–where construction projects have stalled indefinitely or where there happens to be temporarily vacant land:
- The hugely popular Brooklyn Bridge Park-adjacent pop-up park that appeared in summer 2008 offered the only view of all four of Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls in addition to hosting a picnic spot, sand play area and an outdoor cafe and bar.
- In London, the site of a mothballed 48-story building project was the subject of a public design competition, the winner of which proposed Leadenhall City Farm, a temporary, low-budget park featuring a garden, market and soup kitchen.
- A three month-long art park in London called Wonderwood, which transformed an abandoned building into a public play space, won honors in the Leeds Architecture Awards new Temporary Works category.
- There were 51 participating parks in this year’s NYC Park(ing) Day:
(via The New York Times, Treehugger, and The Infrastructurist)
Pulau Semakau
About 5 miles off the coast of mainland Singapore, adjacent to two mangrove habitats, a small island is being created out of the country's waste, section by section, at a rate of just under 2000 tons per day.
Semakau Landfill, the world’s first offshore landfill and Singapore’s only waste destination, has been described by Singapore’s government as “Scenic Waste Disposal.” The site has been open to the public for recreational activities since 2005 and has been envisioned as an eco-park featuring renewable energy generation and educational facilities. Commissioned in 1999, the landfill was designed to work in harmony with the bio-diverse surrounding areas; it physically connects the islands of Pulau Sakeng and Pulau Semakau. A perimeter bund includes an impermeable membrane, marine clay and rock layers, which prevent waste and its byproducts from leaching into the surrounding water.
Initially expected to reach full capacity in 2040, the landfill’s lifespan has been extended due to the country’s efforts at waste reduction. Singapore now has a goal of recycling 60% of its waste by 2012.
NYC commissioners roundtable interview
Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Design and Construction Commissioner David Burney, Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe
In a roundtable conversation hosted by The Architects’ Newspaper, four New York City Commissioners–Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Design and Construction Commissioner David Burney, Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe–discuss recently designed and developed projects as well as what they believe is achievable during Mayor Bloomberg’s next four years, especially given tightening fiscal constraints. It’s a pretty in-depth interview, and it’s great to hear the shared thoughts of this group, who have helmed some major projects in the City over the last eight years, including the High Line, the pedestrianization of Broadway in Times and Herald Squares, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Yankee Stadium redevelopment and, of course, Freshkills Park.
Concrete Plant Park opens in the Bronx
Recently opened Concrete Plant Park, in the Bronx, sits on the seven-acre site of a concrete plant that operated from the late 1940s through 1987. The park has retained some of its industrial past in the form of newly-painted silos, hoppers and conveyors, structures that once served as mixing facilities and now distinguish the park as sculptural monuments to the site’s evolution. The Parks Department and the Bronx River Alliance partnered to clean up the site, which, for years, remained an abandoned strip of land and illegal dumping ground. The project garnered public support by hosting community festivals and launching public boat tours from the site into the Bronx River. The park’s amenities include a waterfront promenade, a reading circle, concrete lounges, a canoe/kayak launch and restored salt marsh. It will also be part of the Bronx River Greenway, a 23-mile long multi-use path planned to extend the length of the river through the Bronx and Westchester County.
(via NY Daily News)
High Line-inspired projects
Three High Line-inspired projects clockwise from top left: San Francisco's new Bay Bridge and the old structure that park advocates would like to save; The Embankment in Jersey City, envisioned as an open space oasis; and a proposal for a 3- mile greenhouse and hydrogen-generation facility to be situated on Chicago's former Bloomingdale Rail Line.
Inspired by the success of the High Line, proposals to reimagine abandoned rail lines have popped up all over the country.
- Faced with the replacement of a section of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, Rael San Fratello Architects have proposed the creation of the Bay Line, a hanging neighborhood complete with housing, cultural and commercial buildings and bike and pedestrian paths. Inhabitat notes, however, that the bridge section is being replaced for structural reasons and would have to be stabilized before it could be re-purposed.
- In Chicago, a design collaboration between Gensler and 4240 Architecture envisions the old Bloomingdale Rail Line as a 3-mile greenhouse containing a 100-acre urban farm and, on its underside, a hydrogen-powered generator. The energy source, dubbed the “HYDROGENerator,” would be placed along an old aqueduct that runs under the railway, and would be used to power local schools.
- Just across the Hudson from the High Line, The Embankment Preservation Coalition has been advocating for the preservation of an elevated stonework structure that runs a half mile and spans 6 acres in downtown Jersey City. The Embankment is part of what was once a freight railroad line comprising seven tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It’s envisioned as part of the 2,600-mile East Coast Greenway: a traffic-free path spanning from Florida to Maine.
(via Inhabitat, BLDGBLOG and High Line Blog)
