Street trees line pedestrian walkways in Uptown Charlotte, providing cooler spaces for users. / image: photo by V. Westendorff
Part 1: Urban Trees as a Means of Reducing UHI Within Cities
Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. The largest city in North Carolina, and 22nd largest in the country, Charlotte has an average of 44 new people moving into the metro area each day (Peterson, 2017). Construction within the city and in surrounding towns continues to put pressure on the existing land and ecosystems. This is not unique to Charlotte—all over the United States, development and growth are increasing the size and scale of urban areas, with both beneficial and detrimental effects.
While urbanization increases density, reduces the need for additional infrastructure, creates more efficiencies, and provides jobs, education, and resources, the exchange of land from forests or plains to built surfaces causes a loss of urban ecosystem services. One result is increased heat in urban areas, known as the urban heat island effect (UHI), caused by impervious areas that absorb heat during daylight hours and holds it into the night, releasing it slowly so that the next day starts with higher surface temperatures than the surrounding, less built-up areas. More built areas bring more heat, creating a positive feedback loop that is one of the great challenges cities face.
View from Mission Dolores Park, San Francisco / image: istockphoto.com/Chris LaBasco
This November at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, you can meet 6,500 of your peers and choose from more than 130 education sessions, earning all the professional development hours (PDH) you need, at the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture.
The conference education program is organized into eight tracks, and is searchable by speaker, type of continuing education credit offered (LA CES, AIA, AICP, ISA, and more), and target audience, from emerging professionals to firm leaders and sole practitioners.
Exploring of the Changing Roles of Landscape Design in Nature-Based Solutions: A Reflection on Professional Practice over the Last Two Decades
Part 3: A Nature Positive Future
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions designed to work with and enhance natural habitats to take advantage of the ability of healthy natural and managed ecosystems to sequester carbon and support biodiversity recovery. The first part of this series focused on greening grey infrastructure; part 2 covered incorporating naturalistic landscape into the public realm. Here in part 3, we continue to explore how NbS can be pushed into the realms of social awareness and everyday recognition by policy makers and the public at large and in turn, support wider and longer term international environmental successes.
4 Towards a Nature Positive Future
4.1 COP26 Advocacy
Prior to the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) held in 2021, leading scientists presented a conceptual shift which puts forward Nature (the environment) as the context for all life, human society, and all human activities (including all economic activity). Similarly, at COP26, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the Prince of Wales, who has for over fifty years championed action for a sustainable future said: “…after billions of years of evolution, Nature is our best teacher – in this regard, restoring Natural Capital, accelerating Nature-based solutions and leveraging the circular bioeconomy will be vital to our efforts..”
Sunset at the Schoodic Institute / image: Christine Colley
The Transportation Research Board’s Standing Committee on Landscape and Environmental Design (AKD40) is seeking papers to be considered for publication and/or presentation at the 2023 TRB Annual Meeting. The theme of the Annual Meeting is Rejuvenation Out of Disruption: Envisioning a Transportation System for a Dynamic Future.
This Committee is concerned with design parameters that relate to protecting, conserving, restoring, and enhancing safe, sustainable, and livable transportation systems, facilities, and their associated environments. The Committee promotes research to advance design principles and practices that enhance:
safety and traveler experiences;
scenic, aesthetic, and visual quality;
harmonious integration of facilities within their natural, cultural, and social environments;
sustainable solutions and systems; and
the quality of life for transportation system users and surrounding communities.
The following categories were identified by the AKD40 Committee as being critical areas of research:
Energy and Sustainability – design, policies, and practices to protect the planet.
Policy needs related to the roadside environment and autonomous vehicle technology.
Resilience and Security – preparing for floods, fires, storms, and sea level rise.
Transformational technologies that will change how transportation environments could be retrofitted or rebuilt.
Roadside design to serve growing and shifting populations.
Exploring of the Changing Roles of Landscape Design in Nature-Based Solutions: A Reflection on Professional Practice over the Last Two Decades
Part 2: Incorporating Naturalistic Landscape into the Public Realm
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions designed to work with and enhance natural habitats to take advantage of the ability of healthy natural and managed ecosystems to sequester carbon and support biodiversity recovery. The first part of this series—on greening grey infrastructure—was published last week; here in part 2, on incorporating naturalistic landscape into the public realm, we continue to explore how NbS can be pushed into the realms of social awareness and everyday recognition by policy makers and the public at large and in turn, support wider and longer term international environmental successes.
3 Incorporating Naturalistic Landscape into the Public Realm
3.1 NbS for City Green Infrastructure
Qufu, a county-level city in Jining, Shandong Province, is the birthplace of Confucius and Mencius, the great Chinese sages of the Spring and Autumn period. Around 2010, impressions of Jining were of a coal-based economy and a city in need of a transformation. When considering a transformation towards an ecological future, an article published in 2001 by renowned Confucian scholar Tu Weiming, a professor at Harvard University and Peking University, called “The Ecological Turn in The New Confucian Humanism: Implications for China and the World” inspired a landscape concept called the ‘Ecological Turn.’
This concept by Lee Parks promoted an ecological image for a new streetscape, canal, and lake for the southward expansion of Taibai Lake District. It also provided an opportunity to put Nature-based Solutions into practice in Jining. Taibai Lake District landscape design development covers some 350 hectares where AECOM led the planning and design of a new lake and park, canal parkland, streetscape, and administration center. The project represents a shift away from formal urban streetscape planting in favor of naturalistic swathes of ornamental grasses and perennial communities. A proposed land use plan placed a large new commercial complex over a planned canal—this was challenged by the landscape architect, who subsequently shifted the development parcel 200 meters northwards, re-aligned roads, adjusted the land use plan, and restored the integrity of the planned green and blue infrastructure. Nature-based Solutions were employed to create vegetated canal embankments, provide purification of water, and ensure habitat creation through to the new lake.
Bobby Jones Golf Course before and after renovations / images: Bobby Jones Golf Course
The Bobby Jones Golf Course—Atlanta’s first public golf course, opened in 1932—was previously an underutilized course that suffered from dying trees, invasive plants, and eroded walking trails—it did not live up to the name of Bobby Jones. Marty Elgison, President and Co-Founder of the Bobby Jones Golf Course Foundation, became involved with the facility so that it might impact the surrounding communities, and was pivotal in pursuing a mission to turn something ordinary into something transformational. HGOR was selected by the Atlanta Memorial Park Conservancy to revitalize the area, establishing it as a destination where diverse crowds could gather and enjoy the sport while connecting with others.
Initial challenges varied in scope and included a lack of adequate parking and community engagement and the misconception that a renovation meant the removal of surrounding trees. An innovative approach was needed to solve several issues simultaneously.
Exploring of the Changing Roles of Landscape Design in Nature-Based Solutions: A Reflection on Professional Practice over the Last Two Decades
Part 1: Greening Grey Infrastructure
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions designed to work with and enhance natural habitats to take advantage of the ability of healthy natural and managed ecosystems to sequester carbon and support biodiversity recovery. Informed by a career dedicated to working with nature, this article explores the evolution of a landscape planning and design approach from single-purpose solutions to systemic thinking and holistic design, together with a change from experiential/qualitative decision making to quantified solutions. This evolution is presented in three phases of professional practice:
greening grey infrastructure,
incorporating naturalistic landscape into the public realm, and
a nature positive future.
Over the next three weeks, each section will explore how NbS can be pushed into the realms of social awareness and everyday recognition by policy makers and the public at large and in turn, support wider and longer term international environmental successes.
1 Introduction
1.1 Nature-based Solutions
Cities are facing an increasing frequency of disruptive events and many sustainable development challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, drought, extreme heat, wildfires, and water security. Our cities need more pioneering approaches to meet sustainability and carbon neutral goals and address biodiversity loss while also benefiting people’s health and well-being.
ASLA 2021 Professional General Design Honor Award. Orange Mall Green Infrastructure. Tempe, Arizona. COLWELL SHELOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. / image: Marion Brenner
A friend of mine who is a writer shared this article with me. It highlights how landscape architecture can be seen as a pedagogical term and as a problem-solving method. I think it will be of interest especially for those who are in the research area of our profession.
– Arnaldo Cardona, ASLA
When searching for information about “Landscape Architecture Education” or “Education in Landscape Architecture,” the results show mostly academic programs to study landscape architecture as a career and academic institutions that have degrees in that area.
However, they can be seen as two completely different concepts. While searching for “Education in Landscape Architecture” produces entries about colleges that offer degrees for students to become landscape architects, “Landscape Architecture Education” should really be seen as a pedagogical term. In the same way, “Education in Art” is about becoming an artist and where to study to become one, whereas “Art Education” is a pedagogical term about the study of cognitive gains, skills, and processes involved in art making.
Then, how has “Landscape Architecture Education” been defined?
