The office was closed the second half of September to accommodate some long-awaited travels in Europe. Journeys included London, Barcelona, Rome, and travels through Tuscany including Siena, Florence, Orvieto, and Assisi. Regular posting to resume in October!
LONDON
BARCELONA
ROME
SIENA
ROME
Jason King of TERRA.fluxus will be giving a presention to the Portland Chapter of the Oregon Landscape Contractors Association meeting this upcoming Wednesday, February 2nd discussing Vegitecture.
The discussion will focus on some of the history and speculation about the future of green roofs and living walls within the landscape industry – an opportunity for companies to establish an expertise in installation and maintenance in this exciting growth industry.
Meeting is at the Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village (SW Portland) – social hour at 6pm, presentation at 7pm.
I am honored to be featured as one of the GreenSmith Sessions, an ongoing series of podcasts on sustainable practices and people done by my new office neighborhood Paul Smith from GreenSmith Consulting.
While most of his sessions span the country – our session ‘Green Roofs on Chicken Coops to Highrises‘, spanned from my desk to the conference room a distance of twenty-two feet – yet covered a lot of territory and offered some great opportunities to discuss topics ranging from green roofs to hidden rivers.
Some introductory text from Paul:
“With 3 acres of green roofs under his belt, Jason King of TERRA.fluxus has plied his trade from California to Washington, in a wide range of enviroments. Listen in as we discuss everything from the more common than you’d think practice of using chicken coops for testing grounds for avante garde green architecture, to the fact that NYC gets more rain than supposedly rainy Portland, Oregon. Keep an ear out for some interesting perspectives on sustainability, what it means, could mean, and how we could do better. Hopefully this conversation will, um, plant some seeds in your mind of what you could do in your community, or on your business. I noticed on his blog that he had some DIY resources for green roofing, so I asked for you if he had sites to recommend for you to explore. He had three!”
Check out the podcast here and later this week find the podcast on I-Tunes as well.
Over the next week, I have been outlining some of the inspirations and precedents related to the idea of Hidden Hydrology of Portland, as this project has been shaped and has evolves across many years to it’s present incarnation. As I mentioned in the preliminary overview, one of the main inspirations was the map of ‘Disappeared Streams’ that was produced by Metro. My first encounter with this map was during a presentation at DaVinci Arts middle school, as part of the preliminary planning for what would become their beautiful water garden. At the time I was working with local non-profit Urban Water Works – and the students were showing off many of their water-related side projects, including hand-made flowforms, studies of water movement, and mapping. One student had a GIS application that was showing the disappeared streams – which has stuck in my brain every since. Metro now publishes it in map form – available at the Data Resource Center – along with many other great maps.
As I mentioned there are a few methodological caveats to this map – as it is not a historical representation of actual streams, but looking more specifically at locations of potential water routes. From the map, some of this language:
“Development patterns in the Metro region have historically resulted in piping, culverting, or filling of streams and stream beds. A computer mapping program was used to evaluate the terrain in the region, and to generate areas where major streams (those draining 50+ acres of land) may once have existed. While this does not represent an authoritative analysis, it does visually describe the effects of urbanization on the regions natural systems. This exercise indicates that an estimated 388 miles of previously existing streams are now underground.”
The coding of the map is pretty striking (the choice of ‘blood’ red I think fitting) when viewed as a whole (above) particularly noting the core area of Portland that has been denuded of streams over the course of 150 years (below, closeup of City of Portland), where flatter areas were developed for Eastside residential, and margins on the Willamette filled in for industrial development.
You can also get a close-up view,including the central business district – seen in closeup below. Notice the existing pattern, where streams are kept somewhat intact in the west hillsides (topography being somewhat of an antidote to piping), then quickly buried when they reach the urbanized area. Tanner Creek, one of the hidden streams we will be studying closer, is captured as it originates from the Oregon Zoo and cuts through the northwest corner of downtown.
A relatively simple map that is more evocative than accurate, but does much to reinforce the ideology of what is hidden beneath our developed urban areas. As I mentioned, it has stuck with me (and I’m glad Metro still has these available). One of the stronger and original inspirations for the project, it continues to entertain and inspire investigation into our hidden hydrology.
Another inspiration for the Hidden Hydrology of Portland is the writing of David James Duncan (author of a couple of my favorite books, the Brothers K amongst the best). In a book of essays from 2002 entitled ‘My Story as Told by Water‘ Duncan tells some stories with a Portland area spin about his youthful explorations in the area. The idea of oral histories providing an additional layer to mapping and other on-the-ground study is intriguing, as the narrative is both informative and evocative of what these lost urban waterways meant, and what was lost along with them.
image via Wikipedia
Early in his childhood, he mentions growing up on Mount Tabor (the volcanic outgrowth in East Portland – not the biblical version, seen above between downtown and Mt. Hood in the image), and his quote worth discussing hints at the disconnect between the modern city and the natural processes which shape and feed these places:
“My birth-cone’s slopes were drained by tiny seasonal streams, which, like most of the creeks in that industrialized quadrant of Portland, were buried in underground pipes long before I arrived on the scene. … I was born, then, without a watershed. On a planet held together by gravity and fed by rain, a planet whose every creature depends on water and whose every slope works full-time, for eternity, to create creeks and rivers. I was born with neither. The creeks of my birth-cone were invisible, the river from somewhere else entirely.” (p.4)
The water system from early in Portland’s history, was stored at high points like Mount Tabor and piped to surrounding neighborhoods. This shot from 1912 shows one of the reservoirs that are still in operation today (for how long, is a good question).
image via Vintage Portland
The artificiality of the watershed is evident in Duncan’s discussions, as he makes do with building creeks using the hose and the power of gravity (much to his mothers chagrin) – using with water delivered to reservoirs and coming to his tap, as is common in many cities, from distant locales while burying the remnant hydrology that exists. A map of the water system shows the existing Bull Run watershed in relation to Portland.
Continuing this discussion on Johnson Creek on a youthful visit, showing the degradation of some of the existing waterways that has been occurring for many years. “It was just one of Portland’s dying creeks. Really, one with a much-needed but long-lost Indian name. Johnson Creek was now its anemic title. But it was twenty-six miles long, hence a little too big to bury.” (p.10)
image via OregonLive
It’s heartening to see the restoration of the creek, which is one of the few to remain on the east side in some natural form, through the work of a number of local groups such as the Johnson Creek Watershed Council, and recently there were reports of dead coho salmon found 15 miles upstream – which is significant as it is the furthest upstream anyone has noticed these species in many years, and a testament to the work on restoration and improvement. Something Duncan would appreciate, no doubt.
image via OregonLive
While water and rivers was of importance to Duncan, the main driving force for him was fishing – which drove the explorations to the wilds of the city. After leaving Mount Tabor, the family moved further east towards Gresham, and lived for a time on Osborne Road, the future route of I-205. Duncan mentions the lure of possible fishing holes, but the inaccessibility: “A spring a quarter-mile from our new house flowed into a series of backyard trout ponds for neighbors, but these ponds were picture-windowed, guard-dogged, private. The closest fish-inhabited waters to my house, so far as I knew, were the Columbia, three miles due north.” (p.17)
The story continues around the small town of Fairview, under Halsey Street, where Duncan spotted a kid and discovered a hidden world amidst the underbrush: “…the shocking thing, the magical thing, was that he was standing knee-deep in clear, lively creek water. A creek surrounded on all sides by briars so dense I’d never noticed it before.” (p.17) Later in the same spot, he saw a guy catching a trout there “a secret trout stream” and found his new exploration spot, as mentioned “Fairview Creek, it turned out, was five miles long, two-thirds wild, and amazingly full of life.” (p.18) See the location on the far right edge as it interfaces with the Columbia Slough watershed.
Following the course, he found gravel pits headwater at Mud Lake that were stocked rainbow trout, near the Kennel Club, a pond with bullheads, and always adventure in the streams. “In the plunge-pool below the Banfield Freeway culvert, I caught a thirteen-inch Giant Pacific Salamader that stared straight into my eyes, flaring and hissing like something out of Dante Volume one, till I apologized, cut my line and released it.”
The approximate area is interesting to see and compare – although the historical imagery from Google Earth (which is awesome btw) only goes back to 1990, there’s a telling transformation in a twenty year time-span (although still a fair amount of stream left intact with development. I remember this area, as my mother used to live just North of the Salish Ponds park (south of Halsey) and we took the trails through behind the Target and over into Fairview, which is a real gem and one of those places that, like Duncan, you may walk by many times without realizing it’s there. I’ve highlighted Fairview Creek in Blue.
The same area in 1990 where you can see the residential development along Fairview Creek
The denouement to this story of youthful exploration comes after a few years of fishing these urban creeks and streams:
“At six-thirty or so on a rainy April morning, I crept up to a favorite hole, threaded a worm on a hook, prepared to case – then noticed something impossible: there was no water in the creek. …I began hiking, stunned, downstream. The aquatic insects were gone, barbershop crawdads gone, catfish, carp, perch, crappie, bass, countless sacrificial cutthroats, not just dying, but completely vanished. Feeling sick, I headed the opposte way, hiked the emptied creekbed all the way to the source, and there found the eminently rational cause of the countless killings. Development needs roads and drainfields. Roads and drainfields need gravel. Up in the gravel pits at the Glisan Street headwaters, the creek’s entire flow had been diverted for months in order to fill two gigantic new settling ponds. My favorite teacher was dead.” (p.22)
A case of disappeared streams, captured in a moment of time from someone that was there. The sadness in this loss is palpable, as it isn’t just a line on a map, but a leaving & breathing part of someone – both their history and their essence. This sort of study of writings offers many opportunities for exploration through history, and can reveal much about a place in the past. Combined with oral histories from residents and other qualitative study, it offers a dimension that maps just can’t on their own. Thus looking beyond the map to the history is vital and inspirational going forward.
(all page references are to: Duncan, David James. My Story as Told by Water. Sierra Club Books, 2002.)
As I mentioned in the previous post, there have been a number of inspirations that led to the current work on the Hidden Hydrology of Portland. I will take this week outlining a few of the past words and images that have led to the current work. A seminal work, by Anne Whiston Spirn, is part of the great book ‘The Language of Landscape‘. This particular text was adapted into a short prose piece in Arcade Journal – although I can’t seem to find the exact issue (so anyone who knows give me a heads up).
The imagery has stayed with me, and the resonance is echoed by Spirn in a different quote in the book about the revelatory power in searching for and expressing hidden hydrology: “Revealing the presence of the buried creek is an important part of the proposal because many who live here do not even know the creek exists despite its persistent influence on their lives.” (Spirn, 2000: p.213)
…One day the street caved in.
Sidewalks collapsed into a block-long chasm.
People looked down, shocked to see a strong, brown, rushing river.
A truck fell into a hole like that years back,
Someone said. A whole block of homes fell in
One night a long time ago, said someone else.
They weren’t sure where.
Six months later, the hole was filled, street patched,
Sidewalks rebuilt. Years went by, people left, new folks moved in,
Water seeped, streets dipped, walls cracked.
Once a creek flowed—long before there was anyone to give it a name–coursing
Down, carving, plunging, pooling, thousands of years
Before dams harnessed its power,
Before people buried it in a sewer and built houses on top.
Now, swollen with rain and sewage, the buried creek bursts pipes, soaks soil, floods basements,
Undermines buildings. During storms brown water gushes from inlets and manholes into streets and,
Downstream, overwhelms the sewage treatment plant, overflowing into the river from which the city
Draws its water…
…Signs of hope, signs of warning are all around, unseen,
Unheard, undetected. Most people can no longer read the signs whether they live in a floodplain,
Whether they are rebuilding a neighborhood or planting the seeds of its destruction,
Whether they are protecting or polluting the water they drink,
Caring for or killing a tree.
Architects’ drawings show no roots,
No growing, just green lollipops and buildings floating on a page, as if ground were flat and blank,
The tree an object, not a life.
Planners’ maps show no buried rivers, no flowing, just streets, lines of ownership, and
Proposals for future use, as if past were not present, as if the city were merely a human construct,
Not a living, changing landscape…
…Humans are story-telling animals, thinking in metaphors steeped in landscape:
Putting down roots means commitment,
Uprooting, a traumatic event.
Like a living tree rooted in place,
Language is rooted in landscape. Imagining
New ways of living means relearning the language
Which roots life in place.
The meanings landscapes hold are
Not just metaphorical and metaphysical,
But real, their messages practical;
understanding may spell survival or extinction.
Losing or failing to hear and read
the language of landscape threatens body and spirit, for the pragmatic
and imaginative aspects of landscape language
have always coexisted.
Relearning the language that holds
Life in place is an urgent task.
My work is dedicated to its recovery
And renewal.
Always a fascinating topic, some of the more technical aspects of the irrigation of irrigation for vegetated roofs (aka ecoroofs) will be a topic of discussion at tonights Green Roof information Think-tank (GRiT) meeting, happening at the Lucky Labrador Taproom on 1700 North Killingsworth in Portland – starting at 6pm . Should be a lively dialogue.
I’ve done some comparative analysis of cities before, but decided it would be interesting to update and expand on the data as the industry has grown. Thus I captured precipitation data from a number of cities around the United States and the rest of the globe. The table of values is found below (click on it to enlarge it to a more readable size).
The color coding gives high and low ends to precipitation, to show times of significant input and times of drought conditions. Blue areas denote months that receive 4 inches or more of precipitation, and brown areas show months with 1″ or less of precipitation. This shows our bookended precipitation scheme in the Pacific Northwest, with a distinct rainy winter and a comparatively dry summer. Obviously the distinction is most common by comparing say Phoenix to Miami – but there are some interesting elements that emerge, particularly in comparisons of cities that have similar rainfall amounts as Portland, like Chicago and Washington D.C. These may be the perfect analogue to a consistent 12 month rain period that is common in Europe (often leading to a common North American misconception that irrigation isn’t necessary).
Depends on where you live – and the disparity between precipitation and evapotranspiration in our summers is pretty immense, as shown in the following graph.
Our Portland area (and the western US in general) follows this interesting downward graph shape that is almost opposite to a summer rise in evapotranspiration. A comparison of cities that are indicative of the trend:
The distinction is more obvious when there is some comparison between groups of cities with more stable precipitation through the year. This hold true in the model green roof pioneering zones of Northern Europe:
And also in a range of cities throughout the United States, including some of the leaders in green roof implementation.
It is, of course, a macro-level analysis, but is really telling in fine-tuning large scale assumptions about green roofs to the more regional variations in climate and precipitation. While the ever-evolving idea of sustainability is rightly generating an ideology of water-consciousness, there is an innate lack of homogeneity that exists throughout cities around the world and even within the US. The goal is obviously not to pour lots of water on these systems, but rather to come up with a balance of how much irrigation (at strategic times during drought periods) is necessary to maintain ecological function and meet project specific functional and aesthetic needs. There is a continuum of goals that must be taken into account that is misguided by blanket declarations of correct answers for implementation of any system.
Thus instead of a specific ‘no-irrigation mandate’ that is encourage by sustainable purists and/or oversimplified rating schemes, there needs to be a resource cost/benefit analysis of the value of resource to the overall collective benefits for a project and external benefits to the community at large. Then we can begin to fine-tune the concepts of using only as much water as we need, test designs and efficacy of no-irrigation roofs, and refine technologies for re-purposing reclaimed rain and greywater, getting to a net-zero scenario that makes use the available resources.
Readers of the blog updates for TERRA.fluxus will recognize that a good portion of the work is focused on rooftop-related design (i.e. vegitecture) such as terraces, green roof, and ecoroof projects. In this vein, and in keeping with my love of interesting infographics, I thought it would be interesting to chart my past and current rooftop greening projects to see how they stacked up as a cumulative body of work. This consists of work done independently, as well as work completed at previous firms (noted by color differences in the main graphic bar). It also incorporates physical projects that have been installed (green acreage color bar to the left) – with a caveat that the most recent project is ‘almost’ done, so I moved it prematurely into the actual. Other projects that are currently in design process or awaiting building construction show up in dot pattern towards the top of the chart to show recent work (date range and cumulative square footage is on the right). I’ve left out other projects that were designed, in various stages, but did not proceed to become real projects for one reason or the other.
It’s interesting to note the tipping point from late 2009 through 2010 for projects. From the first project in 2001, it has been a relatively slow progression, with a couple of projects a year resulting in around 10,000 square feet of total rooftop area – culminating in a bit over 80,000 square feet after 8 years. (note: I’m including the entire roof area that was part of the scope including paved areas, plazas, etc. and not just the vegetated areas) This isn’t surprising over all, as the city of Portland, particularly downtown where most of my work has been focused, is characterized by small (200′x200′) blocks, meaning that with site constraints, it’s rare to see a project exceed 20,000 s.f.
Converse to the economy, in the past year, the size and overall number of projects increasing (total built and designed – to be constructed) is almost an acre this year – with expected construction of all projects – with the exception of Van Ness Medical Center which is slated for 2012. This may be an indication of a slight market recovery, or perhaps a reflection on the health of the ecoroof market utilizing combined incentives plus requirements from municipalities. Is this a sign that the forces are aligning for making green rooftops a more economically viable asset to construction? Perhaps it is an indication that the design-build market may be finally starting to bear some fruit through the bundling of services under one banner?
Another aside (not reflected in the graphic but interesting nonetheless) is the breakdown of new construction to retrofit projects (for all those naysayers bent on nixing the viability of retrofit roofs). Of the 135,770 s.f. installed and designed, 70,100 s.f. of this is retrofit roofs done in conjunction with re-roofing of an existing structure. This amounts to over half of the projects (51.6%) that are retrofit, not surprisingly many of these are current projects – as the slow-down in new construction has limited that range of projects.
With more expansive data, it would be interesting to crunch some of the local and regional data (not just my projects) to tease out some trends in the overall industry. Perhaps a project for another day, as I have some ecoroof projects to work on.
The array of solutions to Seattle’s call for ideas ‘Holding Patterns‘ have been unveiled, and the TERRA.fluxus proposal (along with Kelley Roy from Sassafras Consulting, and Kelly Rodgers from Confluence Planning) for Urban Voids Matrix and its ‘Modular Approach to Building a Sustainable City’ has garnered one of 13 honorary mentions to complement the 13 winning solutions. An image showing various iterations of temporary usage for sites from our proposal is found below.
Check out the amazing collection of ideas that this quick competition generated – and soon begin to see some of these ideas pop up in selected sites around Seattle. And more locally, look forward to more work on urban voids, as a much more expansive idea for identification and use of vacant sites is underway with a range of contributors.
After working in offices for the past 13 years, the thought of working at home was both welcome and somewhat disturbing. Knowing my ability to diverge from the task at hand, and coupled with a veritable ‘zoo’ of furry co-workers, the time has been indeed lovely. Alas, our 600 s.f. house is quite cozy without the addition of an office, so after a couple of months of hanging out in the living room office, I’ve finally found a home away from home in a spacious and wonderful warehouse space in the Central Eastside Industrial District – located at 1315 SE 9th Avenue (map).
image via DESIGN DEPARTMENT
The space is home to some awesome creative types Ben Hufford and Eric Black - known as DESIGN DEPARTMENT which “…was founded in 2008 as a collective design approach. We believe that design encompasses all projects from t-shirts to master plans. While there are firms that specialize in particular types of project, we design special projects. Our approach is rooted in making. Our shop is an unconventional mix of high technology computing and hands’ on prototyping and construction.”
They also will help me with my ping-pong skills.
image via DESIGN DEPARTMENT
The focus on collaboration in a loose creative space, along with the ability to develop some prototypes fits into the research side of TERRA.fluxus – as it will give the space to develop some prototypes of a number of products that are currently in process.
image via DESIGN DEPARTMENT
Part of the space consists of a storefront gallery painted with the very visible ADX - (which is currently the Olinka Broadfoot Gallery operated by my fabulous friend Kelley Roy from Sassafras Consulting) – which makes for a wonderful entrance to the studio space.
image via DESIGN DEPARTMENT
Starting next week – feel free to swing by and check out the space. More details to follow.
