28th Jan2011

Visualizing Habitat Roofs

by Jason King

TERRA.fluxus is taking part in an exciting pilot project aimed at expanding the local knowledge of habitat roofs – green roof projects designed to aid in providing for the specific elements that will attract and support urban wildlife.  A project underway, as part of a collaborative project with local railcar and barge manufacturer The Greenbrier Companies, along with Andy Jansky of Flowing Solutions who tapped into the collective knowledge base of the Green Roof Info Think-tank (GRiT) to conduct research and help with design and materials procurement.

The initial project involves a 1000 s.f. structure, built in-house by the manufacturer, which will provide a platform for testing habitat potential.  The goal is to install a number of habitat elements appropriate to the sites location along the Willamette River – in the northwest area of Portland that consists primarily of industrial development.  The property owners on the Gunderson site aim to use this as a model for potential habitat roof implementation on a larger scale on this riverfront site.  TERRA.fluxus provided a graphic of the roof – incorporating many of the habitat roof elements – such as a diversity of native vegetation, woody debris, gravel, rocks, and topographic variation.

The realization of the project will come with a group design charrette giving final shape to the roof – followed by procurement of materials and installation slated for early March.  More details to come as we get into some of the innovative elements of the design and see this exciting project come to life.

Category : community, ecoroofs, environmental, graphics, habitat, landscape, mitigation, planting, portland, projects, sustainability, vegitecture
2 Comm
22nd Dec2010

REWIND: 2010, A Year in Review

by Jason King

What a great year.  Ok, while not a complete year (the firm began operations in mid-February), 2010 was a great start to TERRA.fluxus, with a number of highlights, projects, research, and exploration worthy of a recap.  Rather than a chronological walk through the year, there are a number of themes to be captured within the projects and activities of the firm, which ranged through the west from Washington & Oregon to California, and included a wide variety of explorations of planning, design, and urbanism.  Starting in the home office, I first moved to a shared space with Design Department, then finally to the current location at Tenpod, another  shared office space inside the Rocket Building on East Burnside, centrally located and packed with a range of creative folks.  The changes of scenery have been great, and the people I’ve met, make me feel fortunate to live and practice in Portland.

Starting a business is hard. This fact is not made easier by a tepid economic climate, but I felt I had the opportunity to grow and expand the nature of my experience and the potential for landscape architecture.  So I did so , because I thought I had something to offer clients and the community.  My business model is simple – do innovative client-based work in a range of areas, balanced with equal time for research and speculation of new ideas.  The ability to take on work that is meaningful, challenging, and vital is rare.  The opportunity to do it for a living is a gift.  So, in year number one, I must give thanks to my clients and collaborators, both old and new, who trusted me with their projects, ideas, sites, budgets, and visions.  I wholeheartedly appreciate it, and hope to continue to provide services in the upcoming year.

Green Above Ground

The work in the realm of Veg.itecture was front and center for TERRA.fluxus in 2010, including over 40,000 s.f. of projects designed and/or installed in 2010, augmenting the total ecoroof square footage i’ve worked on over the years to well over three acres.  Always trying to push the envelope for understanding vegetated roofing, I also compiled some new research related to the specific requirements of ecoroof irrigation in the Portland region in a presentation for an on-going group that I helped to co-found, the Green Roof info Think-tank, or GRiT, for short.  In addition, I published a DIY Guide to small scale ecoroofs, and also helped lead the Ecoroofs 2010 Tour as part of the annual ecoroof Vendor showcase that highlights the great companies in the industry throughout the region.

Built work included a number of great OHSU Projects including the Child Development Research Center (CDRC) which was constructed this year, and the Hatfield Research Center (HRC) and the main Hospital C-Wing projects that will be installed in early 2011.  Other projects include the ongoing development BPA 905 Building project, working with the GSA to provide stimulus-funded improvements to multiple roofs on this headquarters building in the Lloyd District.  This project will also happen in 2011.

A major highlight was winning the RFP and the award of the contract from Bureau of Environmental Services for the Ecoroof Design-Build Contract for the Green Above Ground Collaborative, along with wonderful partners Snyder Roofing, Teufel Landscape, Verde, and Cascade Design Professionals.  Our goal of 30,000 square feet of green roof, along with tours, education, a proposed video and mobilization of emerging, women, and minority-owned businesses will provide a ton of excitement through the next two years, expanding on our collective experience in the industry.   This award was also mentioned in local media publications such as the AGC Oregon newsletter and the DJC Oregon.

Media coverage was also thick for the arrival of Ty Pennington and the crew from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where the Green Above Ground crew participated in the fast-paced design of the vegetated roof for the Oregon Center for the Deaf in Salem.  It was wonderful to be involved in this great project that benefited so many, while giving green roofs some visible media coverage on a national forum.  A different small scale roof terrace for the Reliable Apartments went as well.  Outside of the region, I finished up Van Ness MOB (my first project in San Francisco) which will be built in 2011, and locally, got to see the completion of a few older projects done prior to starting TERRA.fluxus, such as the First+Main Building in downtown.

Visualizing Vegitecture

An adjunct to the built work around Green Above Ground, there are visuals to sell future projects.  Many of these were done, working with Tremco, for projects in California,  including the Wilshire-Rodeo roof terrace in Los Angeles, which re-envisioned a drab commercial rooftop into a lively outdoor meeting space.  Another LA project was for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where views from patient rooms overlooked a gray gravel roof, which also led to significant heat gain in the building.  Moving to Oakland, there was also the Washington Medical Center which combined green walls and roofs to provide aesthetically-pleasing (and sustainable) views from patient roofs instead of drab rooftops and mechanical equipment.

This concept expanded on an idea I believed strongly in, that of biophilic design, which engages our connection to nature and natural materials and processes in the creation of healthy and restorative spaces.   While green roofs are great for a number of reasons, the connection to building occupants through visible engagement with nature is one with a special power in hospital settings, where these can aid in many health outcomes.  These visuals aid in convincing decision-makers of the beauty and utility of these concepts.

Urban Agriculture & Food

Continuing the theme of rooftops, this time mixed with food, I had the opportunity to again be involved in the planning, design, and installation of the Multnomah County Hope Garden, a rooftop urban agricultural showcase that provides food for local hunger-relief agencies.  This project, in its second year, donates over 500 pounds of locally-grown produce, cared for by the County’s Green Team, in just a small  200 s.f. area on their rooftop.   The work in urban agriculture led to some great networking, capture here in a great blurb on the ASLA Sustainable Sites PPN blog, which discussed my presentation up at University of Washington on urban agriculture ‘Designing for Urban Food‘ – where I shared the stage with great minds like Deb Guenther from Mithun, Keith McPeters’ from GGN, and Jeffrey Hou from UW.

I also meet some great folks teaching at UW, like Brandon Born and Thaisa Way whom have offered additional opportunities for learning and interaction.  While my time on the Food Policy Council came and went, there were some other exciting projects like the community based remediation of the Emerson Street Garden – a brownfield site turned community gardening, and the site planning for the WVMC Hospital Garden in McMinnville, planned to help feed patients fresh produce at the hospital.

Another highlight was the opportunity to show off the Chicken Cube, our ecoroof topped coop design-build project on this years Tour de Coops, an annual tour of innovative chicken homes put on by local non-profit group Growing Gardens.  The tour had over 300 people, and the coop even garnered some TV time with a short spot on the local show Garden Time – which was a blast – a good use of my fifteen minutes of fame.  On the subject of coops, I also had a great opportunity to be guest juror for an internal coop-design competition sponsored by SERA Architects, as part of a fundraiser for local arts group PICA.

In addition to chickens, the food cart phenomenon was in full gear, and one of my first commisions came working on design for a food cart pod on a derelict brownfield site in Southeast Portland for one of my favorite clients, Urban Development Partners.  This forward thinking developer took a vacant parcel which will eventually be built-out, and constructed this pop-up site, opening in July with a few pioneers.  The site has quickly filled up with over 15 carts, expanding to include covered areas and heaters for all-weather dining.  This planning and design experience also included a quote in the recently released book Cartopia, authored by friends and colleagues Kelley Roy and Kelly Rodgers, which is literally flying off the shelves since it’s October debut.

Ecology & Site Remediation

An ongoing project is the Bradford Street Property where I am conducting multi-year evaluation of remediation plantings done on this waterfront site along the Willamette River in North Portland.  There is also a remediation component for the Emerson Street Garden and 2011 offers opportunities for more specific technical aspects of phytoremediation as this aspect of the lead-contaminated site begins in earnest.  Another ecologically notable project that has also continued is the work around the wetland area for the Asante Court Park in Medford, Oregon.  This multi-phase project, working with uber client Asante Health System, began with wetland mitigation plantings, this year followed with the installation of the new park area plantings to provide more sustainable design than lawn and non-native plantings.  New phases include continue this theme with additional common area plantings and the addition of the stormwater outfall garden, which are in final design and approval process, to be installed in Spring of 2011.

A great article showed up in Multi-Family News focused on sustainable landscaping, where I was able to drop some ideas on ecoroofs, efficient irrigation, appropriate plant selection, and ecological stormwater design.  These principles were also embedded in our proposal for the Min Zidell Garden at the National College of Natural Medicine, which unfortunately we did not get – but the experience working with the team and the great folks at NCNM was truly wonderful, and I’m sure the results will be fantastic.   Another small project includes LEED evaluation for Creekside Clinic in Medford, (operated by Asante).

This site-scale work continued with development of native plantings and LEED evaluation for the Reliable Apartments in Southeast Portland, and will continue into 2011 with some Metro-funded sustainable site improvements to the Move-the-House Apartments on 38th and Division.  The proposed work, in addition to flow-through planters and permeable pavement, will include a vertical wetland sculpture, habitat nodes throughout the site, a vertical green wall, and canopy ecoroofs.

The Urban Laboratory

The beginnings of the year continued the on-going activities related to the Oregon Solutions process for Community Gardening, along with the seminar class at University of Oregon investigating the ‘Urban Edge‘ of Portland.  Both of these projects were specifically representative of using the Portland region as a working laboratory for study.  In that vein, the work on Landscape+Urbanism also continued, with more focus on local issues and ideas as I study my home place in new and exciting ways.  The writing led to a great connection and interview with colleague Christian Barnhard for his great new podcast series LANDCAST.

Work also continues on the PDX Greenmap, to provide a resource for locating information on a range of sustainable resource throughout the Portland metro region.  Also, the next iteration of the urban laboratory to continue into the next year will be recently unveiled Hidden Hydrology Project – which will provide a more robust information gathering, analysis, mapping, and exploration of a range of topics concerning urbanism, water, and the definition of our place.

Community Building

Per my business model, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of community-based activities and projects around the region.  There are educational items like the  tour of sustainable sites in downtown for the World Affairs Council of Oregon as well as more expansive tours and workshops such as the great  Oregon Sustainability Experience that brings folks from out of town to learn from Portland about sustainability and urban agriculture.  I was also honored to be a juror for the BEST awards, which awards local businesses pushing the boundaries of sustainability.  Pro-bono work included the design for the Extreme Makeover Ecoroof, the Hope Garden Rooftop Agriculture, and the Willamette Valley Medical Center garden project.

Other projects include the afforementioned Emerson Street Garden included a series of workshops and alternatives that were developed over six months, culminating in the final design concept and groundbreaking in mid-summer.   My involvement in the garden sprang from the connections made during the Oregon Solutions Gardening project – which included representatives from the amazing Groundwork Portland – who have plans for many brownfileld sites throughout Portland.  A community-oriented proposal for the Seattle-based ideas competition Holding Patterns garnered an honorable mention from the judges as well, liking our take on the Urban Voids Matrix, a notion of ‘A Modular Approach to Building the Sustainable City’ that looks at the three typologies of the site, hole, and frame within a matrix of food, community, ecology, and materials.  This award-winning project offers potential for vacant properties not just in Seattle, but also in Portland, which will be explored further in the next year.

Check out the specific links for more information and references for this projects.

I, for one, can’t wait for 2011… it’s gonna be another great year.

Category : agriculture, biophilic design, brownfields, business, community, competitions, ecoroofs, environmental, food, graphics, heathcare, images, installations, landscape, living walls, los angeles, mapping, medford, mitigation, permitting, planning, planting, portland, press, projects, publications, research, REWIND, roof gardens, san francisco, seattle, subnatures, sustainability, teaching, theory, tours, ugb, urban voids, urbanism, vegitecture, water, wetlands
1 Comm
29th Nov2010

Brownfields to Veggies

by Jason King

The Emerson Street Garden was featured in a recent Portland Mercury  article “Gone to Seed: County Turns Empty, Foreclosed Lots into Urban Gardens” mentioning Multnomah County’s program ‘County Digs‘ which provides a mechanism for “giving away tax-foreclosed property to qualified organizations for use as urban gardens by governments, non-profits and religious organizations”

Joanne Green and Groundwork Portland's Cassie Cohen at the new Emerson Street Garden formerly home to Green's house.

The article, by Sarah Mink, offers some insight into the potential of vacant urban properties to be ‘remade’ as productive space.

SCATTERED AROUND Multnomah County are 384 vacant lots that stick out like little scars of a lousy economy. For years, the county has been trying to figure out what to do with these lots—empty land seized through property tax foreclosure. But now the county has finally hit on a new idea to bring life to the abandoned lots: turning them into urban gardens.

Joanne Green pointed to the freshly planted seeds that occupy one corner of the Northeast Portland vacant lot where her home once stood. Green lived in the house at 800 NE Emerson from the mid-1970s to the early ’80s, but after she moved, the house hit some hard times: It burned down and its owner stopped paying property taxes.

After entering property tax foreclosure, Multnomah County eventually took over the derelict patch and, under the new County Digs program, donated it tax free to nonprofit Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust (OSALT) who let Groundwork Portland turn it into a garden.

The vacant lots that County Digs is turning into foreclosure gardens aren’t properties caught up in the national foreclosure crisis—there are no banks with bad loans or mortgage defaults directly involved. Instead, these vacant lots are green spaces whose owners haven’t paid property tax in six years or more.

The properties could potentially be sold off to developers. But most are oddly shaped or poorly located strips leftover after the county either sold off or gave away more desirable properties to county offices, government entities, or affordable-housing groups. The smallest is a 62-square-foot triangle running along SW Hewett; another is a 566-square-foot strip bordering 12 homes along NE Beech and Failing that remained vacant because of a state mapping error. The largest is a 16,000-square-foot railroad spur on NE 87th.

Since 2005, Multnomah County has donated three plots, all in North and Northeast Portland, to the nonprofit OSALT to turn into gardens. The nonprofit gets the land for free, under the condition that it will always be used for agriculture. This month, the county is kicking the program into full swing, opening up 16 new properties that nonprofits can apply to start farming.

Someday soon, these tax foreclosures could be coming up roses.

Green and her neighbors planted their little garden, lined with hay bales and covered in a plastic tarp to keep off frost, this past summer. The fledgling Emerson Street Garden is part of a citywide Groundwork initiative to transform unused land into neighborhood resources. A team of Blazers Boys and Girls Club kids helped plant seeds last summer in the garden, after volunteers had stripped off the topsoil, which was contaminated with lead.

Now, plastic knives stuck into the soil read “potatoes” and “carrots”—Green even planted a cute little kale next to the garden water spout. “For the slugs,” she says.

“There was good times and bad times here, but I think the garden will be an improvement,” says Green.

Category : agriculture, brownfields, community, environmental, food, mitigation, portland, press, urban voids
0 Comm
13th Nov2010

Asante Court Park – Initial Plantings

by Jason King

Work on the second phase of Asante Court, a medical office park in Medford developed by Asante Health System, was recently installed, focusing on the small park area that is the cornerstone of the common open space amenities for future site tenants.  The design  fit low-maintenance plantings of sedges, rushes, and other native species within a network of landscaped areas that were already installed throughout the park.  This challenge of blending old and new, once established, will provide a rich tapestry of colors and textures.  The impetus for this concept was replacement for what was originally planned to be turf, and to connect the park landscaping to the adjacent wetland areas – showing Asante’s visible commitment to sustainable design principles

Landscape installation, as well as pads for future benches were implemented by Natural Systems Landscape from Medford.  The pads used an innovative product, Gravel-Lok to bind the aggregate while still maintaining permeability and providing an accessible surface.  The technology also offers the ability to use a range of different aggregate types for limitless possibilities.

The first phase (completed in 2009) was development of wetland mitigation along the linear corridors that surrounds the park.  This area mitigation was necessary due to construction of a crossing roadway bridge to connect the north and south sections of the property.   Future phases will incorporate common area plantings that will provide a transition from building sites to the wetland (seem below), blending development areas, to the right of the sidewalk, to the more natural landscape system of the linear wetland to the left.

This will continue through larger patch of remnant wetland landscape, with new landscaping wrapping and framing the already stunning natural amenity – augmenting and protecting the existing beauty of the existing ecological system.

The final phase (currently finishing design) involves the implementation of a new outfall for an intermittent stormwater drainage that exists on the site.  The open channel will be rerouted into a subsurface pipe that will daylight in a outfall feature that will dissipate flows while providing an amenity for the site.   Look for some concept plans soon on this latest phase, which is slated for construction in early 2011.

Credits for the project include the great folks at Asante Health System, landscape installation by Natural Systems Landscape (Medford), wetland mitigation by Schott & Associates (Aurora), and civil engineering from CEC Engineering (Medford).  Additional project credits for GreenWorks PC, where much of the early planning study and initial concept development was completed.

Category : environmental, heathcare, installations, landscape, medford, mitigation, planting, projects, sustainability, wetlands
1 Comm
25th Sep2010

Emerson Street Garden – Update

by Jason King

My last update on the Emerson Street Garden in Northeast Portland was in July – as the groundbreaking celebration was imminent.  There has been some progress on site, with the delivery of the garden shed, some additional earthwork, and installation of the water service.  I was on-site recently to check on the progress and take some field measurements, so snapped a few shots.  More info and to get involved contact Cassie Cohen at Groundwork Portland.

The garden shed, completed by Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. as part of their training programs, is beautiful (and heavy) – sitting in it’s temporary location until a base is prepped in it’s final resting place.

In addition, to get some productivity out of the site this fall, a raised planter bed was developed with strawbales.  The area behind that is taped off is the phytoremediation zone.

This zone is taped off, with warning signs due to the lead contamination.  This area will eventually be fenced, and planted with a range of species which will uptake the high levels of lead in the soils.

This has also given us an opportunity to finalize the site plan – to give shape to the phasing and potential of the site to guide future development activities.  (click to enlarge)

Category : agriculture, brownfields, community, environmental, food, installations, landscape, mitigation, portland, projects, urban voids
1 Comm
03rd Mar2010

Post-Industrial Landscape Mitigation

by Jason King

An on-going TERRA.fluxus project in North Portland involves a number of tasks related to the mitigation of a post-industrial brownfield site along the Willamette River.  This parcel abuts the river and used to be used for ship-building and repair activities, and has been out of use for some years.  Overall remnant contamination was removed, and some structures were removed to ensure that pollution was stabilized, in anticipation for future use.  In addition, an aggressive schedule of planting mitigation was required for selected areas to prevent erosion and provide vegetative cover.

Jason King  and TERRA.fluxus was hired to provide preliminary planting recommendations based on the mitigation plans prepared by environmental consultants.  This included consultation with property managers to consider types of planting, appropriate site coverage, and temporary irrigation systems.  The scope also included annual review and reporting on the health of plant materials through 2012.

The initial remediation plan included a identification of a number of areas within the site that needed landscape coverage, either in the form of plantings, bark, or rock.  These were in place to stabilize slopes and keep any exposed soil surface in place.  The map below shows a range of required areas delineated in the initial site assessment.

site landscape mitigation plan

A more detailed planting plan was completed for the buffer area to the SW corner of the site – including native buffer plantings that were required by regulatory agencies to mitigate site disturbance related to cleanup activities.  A wide array of native plantings appropriate for riparian areas and the Willamette River Greenway were selected, including Incense Cedar, White Alder, and Big Leaf Maple.  The understory was filled in with Red- and Yellow-Twigged Dogwood, Currants, Snowberry, Nootka Rose, Serviceberry and Evergreen Huckleberry – mimicking the dry upland edge of the river habitat.

mitigation area native plantings

After the initial planting, TERRA.fluxus provided initial certification of landscaping to City of Portland.  A number of site photos show the initial plantings after 1 year.  Overall there was some necessary replacement, but overall plant health was maintained and overall invasive weed coverage was minimal, particularly in the native planting mitigation areas.  Some minor repairs to irrigation was required, as well as installation of a few replacement plantings, although both were minimal, due to the diligence of the owners property management team.

view south along riverbank plantings

overall non-mitigation planting and groundcover

view east showing buffer plantings

north property line revegetated buffer

Stay tuned for more updates as annual reviews are completed, and an upcoming non-project related post about some of the unique site features of this parcel.  It’s interesting to think of what the eventual best use of the property will be, as the parkland to the south and Port properties to the North expand, and the need for more access to the Willamette River continues.

Category : brownfields, environmental, landscape, mitigation, permitting, planting, portland, projects, urban voids
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