T E R R A . f l u x u s

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

21st Dec2010

Hidden Hydrology – Portland Series Introduction

by Jason King

In the next year, TERRA.fluxus will be initiating a multi-phase project to explore the Hidden Hydrology of the city of Portland as the main research activity for the near future. I have been fascinated with this since my first glimpse of the Disappeared Streams map published by Metro (will get my hands on one soon and give a glimpse) and it’s eventual configuration into a 2006 ASLA Presentation on ‘Neighborsheds for Stormwater Management‘ as an preliminary exploration of the concept. The particular Metro map highlighted ‘historic’ streams that had been buried and piped through development of the City of Portland over the course of the last 150 plus years, showing existing as blue and those ‘disappeared’ in red. While many westside creeks still ran free, the entire eastside was vivid red, long covered by roads, industrial buildings, houses, parks, and more. While the methodology on that particular map was suspect (relying more on topographic analysis than hydrological markers), there are plenty of sources for historic waterways in maps, photos, and on-site investigation.

Thus the focus of the project, utilizing multiple sources to gain a more complete understanding of the underlying hydrological history of the area, with an aim towards using this information both in traditional planning and design manners, but also as the touchstone for a series of speculative works.

Portland, of course, has always been, and still is, a river city. We live around waterways and bridge lifts, and relying on water for our recreation and port traffic, as well as giving us the overall image of our city. Tucked along the banks of the Willamette and its confluence with the Columbia, the history of water mirrors the history of urbanization, from the initial settlement patterns and grids of the 1850s up to modern conditions. The early, or ‘pre-development’ snapshot is best captured in this compilation map of the 1852 Cadastral Survey, which was created right after the incorporation of Portland as a city in 1851. This map, and others (a great collection of which can be found at the Bureau of Environmental Services site), will play parts in analysis throughout the project.

You can spend hours looking at this map, and placing the vision of this early city compared to it’s eventual form. While Portland’s rivers and streams are beautiful – they are also highly troubled, with dual issues of industrial pollution and combined sewer overflows working in tandem to create issues for native fish (and people), landing many of our major waterways on lists of the most polluted rivers. The idea of hidden hydrology is evident not in the still visible (although they are intimately connected), but those ‘urban’ waterways that over the years have changed from open streams and creeks to become piped as ‘infrastructure systems’ to deal with expanding growth of the metropolis. Thus we look at the slow erasure of natural topography and hydrology at work in a political sphere, and begin to see what remains of this palimpsest.

The most urban example is found in Tanner Creek, the historic downtown river that wound through downtown for over fifty years, remaining intact (in form if not in quality) through urbanization, as seen in this 1881 illustration looking at downtown towards the northeast.

The proximity of this creek to development (and the Tannery) led to pollution and sanitation issues downstream, so as with many urban creeks, a period of modernization happened, in this case the 1917 implementation of the Tanner Creek Sewer project. This forever buried the main stem of this historic creek through the heart of downtown in brick vault sewer (many of which are still functioning, or have recently been replaced).

:: images via Bureau of Environmental Services

While the historic are interesting in their own right (and there are ample sources of material to digest so more to come on this), the interaction of the new and old is both dynamic and informative. Moving to the Southeast Quadrant, we can isolate the more detailed Cadastral maps (the survey developed the township, section geometry used today, thus giving us the ability to overlay old and new with a measure of precision). The coverage through the 1850s and 60s is quite extensive, and will be useful when reconciled with the existing GIS coordinate systems. An inverted version of the original survey maps gives an indication of their density of information. The study area will be in the upper right hand quadrant of this township scale map.

A series of maps utilize GIS layering along with historical mapping underlayment to create a modern ‘routing’ for a stream in the lower Taggart basin. First a section of the historical map (1852) was analyzed for hydrologic features (river, stream, wetland, etc.) based on the map features present at the time of the survey. These are accented to show their location for referencing to other maps.

The topography and street grid are overlaid to show the relationship of water features to current configurations. The addition of hillshade allows for fine-tuning of hydrological features to match remnant topographic that has not been leveled or erased through development.

Following this, the combined ‘hybrid’ map is reconciled into a workable base that is accurate to the historical location of ‘urban streams’ as well as current urban form. Additional layers are added, and the iterations of analyses are only limited by time and usefulness. Groundwater, soils, historical aerial photos, vacant lands, floodplains, and vegetative cover are just a few that spring to mind from glancing at Metro’s stock of layers. I am also already other gathering data for a planned comparison with BES Subwatersheds, which mirror directly the configuration of subsurface pipe infrastructure that replaced these open channels sometime in the last 100+ years. While our technology allows us to perform feats unbelievable to the 19th century Portander in lifting, pumping, and moving materials, there is still an inherent consistency and efficiency of using gravity to move water and waste that still makes these historic systems relevant as blueprints for existing conditions.

The other idea is to use this information for potential projects and interventions – looking opportunistically at the relationship of these systems over time and space. To kick of this aspect, the next phase of analysis for this area will also be to ‘ground-truth’ the map hybrids – through a series of documented urban explorations (in the spirit of the Center for Land Use Interpretation perhaps?), along with further refinement, historical research, and analysis throughout 2011.

Stay tuned for more info after the new year.

Category : announcements, community, graphics, history, images, mapping, planning, portland, projects, research, subnatures, urbanism, water, wetlands

3 Comm

24th Jan2010

Transformational Subnature

by Jason King

A recent post on Free Association Design (F.A.D.) illuminated one collaborative project with myself and Brett Milligan from last year to investigate the potentials for vacant lands in Portland. While many of the urban areas are relatively built-out, especially in proximity to the central city, there are many parcels available with the potential to become viable . We aimed to investigate the nature and potential of these parcels within the city as a methodology for discussing use and purpose of vacant lands, end uses of said lands, and productive intervals in between.

See the project location in proximity to the downtown core (marked in red).

The history of the site has included some development (the last trace of which included a building on the southern portion that burned and was subsequently removed in 2001) making the site completed cleared of structures, but with remnants of crumbling pavements and other urban detritus that was left over or . The 2+ acres encompassing a connected set of 200′ square blocks, have been left fallow and would by some be considered a weedy vacant lot, which after a quick view through property records, shows the value of this combined parcel. The site however hasn’t had much activity in terms of development proposals for infill, even during the more robust economy in the early 2000s.

While potentially perceived as a lifeless urban void, a close reading of the site evolving into what F.A.D. calls a ‘renegade dynamic ecology’ with dynamic vegetation groups and patches of diverse habitat providing an island of diversity within in the urban ecological matrix. There is also a break in the street grid allowing for a continguous patch, also denoting a termination of the Central Eastside Industrial District (at 12th Avenue) and the adjacent land-use transforming into residential to the east. As part of his daily commute, Milligan has been photographing this landscape an intervals for a few seasons (see more documentation of the site here) and references the sites innate Subnature (see review here):

“Subnatures are primarily experienced as aspects of the seemingly subhuman conditions of contemporary urbanization and its subcultural peripheries…Subnatures are those forms of nature deemed primitive (mud and dankness), filthy (smoke, dust, and exhaust), fearsome (gas or debris), or uncontrollable (weeds, insects, and pigeons).” from Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments, Gissen, 2009)

These subnatures are evident and evolving, not specifically natural or designed by occupying the middle ground. Consisting of pioneering species, the understory has completed closed in, with the exception of some areas where remnants of pavement and compacted gravel. While mowed periodically, there are also pockets that are harder to maintain in low areas or at the fenced marging that have sprouted with Ailanthus or other early successional tree species.

(a tapestry of microecologies – photographs by Brett Milligan – F.A.D.)

This parcel was identified for some interventions related to making visible this vegetative dynamic on the site and focusing attention towards this land as teeming with life and potential. Through the process of site visits and sketching some possible iterations of design, we settled upon a series of longitudinal bands which would not require full site coverage, provide a varied experience from viewers at different directions, and accentuate the natural topography of the site

(marking territoy – map overlay by Jason King)

The species Helianthus annuus ‘Lemon Queen’ was chosen for it’s hardiness and ease of germination in tough soils as well as allowing for tall growth and visibility of large seed heads to maximize impact.

After doing a fair amount of research and looking at available sources, we decided on this variety, and bulk ordered from the Oregon Wholesale Seed. The description from their website:

“Lemon Queen Sunflowers are tall growing, reaching heights between five and seven feet. They will develop 10” diameter blooms, are drought tolerant and require a lot of sun. Birds flock to these flowers as they provide a substantial amount of food for them. Sunflowers are good cut flowers. Planting should be done in the spring after the danger of frost is past.”

The amount of pure live seed was immense (enough to provide full coverage to the entire lot), both as a product of the inefficiency of hand-seeding and as a hedge against possible germination success (i.e. we really wanted these to work). Total application was for 6 lbs of seed (56,000 seeds per pound), applied in the bands via hand seeding withing a 3-4 wide area of each transect line.

The graphic below shows a representation of the proposed installation with banding of sunflowers bisecting the site. The bands would provide a dynamic visual massing, as well as use the natural heliotropic properties for additional daily and seasonal movement. The idea would be to augment, not obliterate the existing subnatural ecologies on site, but allow for a new focus on the site as a resource of possible productivity and beauty.

(photo montage by Brett Milligan – F.A.D.)

The tracery through the grasses is barely evident with multiple passes for seeding along these transects splitting the site in both directions. This also shows the relatively difficulty of seeding a site with a thick mat of existing vegetation that has been established for some time. While conditions were optimal for seeding, and our expectations were of some patchy germination, but the result of a visible growth of sunflowers was almost inevitable.

After a couple of weeks, with some periodic visits, we were expecting a start to see some growth. There were some signs (perhaps wishful thinking) of new greenery emerging within the bands, but these never grew into anything more robust than a wish for a single seed to grow. The wish never materialized and the results were less than inconclusive.

While disappointed in this failing of germination, the experiment was educational on many fronts: testing the efficacy for the existing ecology to accommodate disturbance, the experience of planning and implementing a guerrilla intervention in an urban void, and refinement of our method for future missions. If anything, we provided forage for many of the local bird species in the early spring, and I envision some of those seeds being sowed through dispersal throughout inner Southeast Portland.

While our visible impact was ephemeral and quickly erased, the experiential resonance was immense.