Mary Scipioni – It’s (Not) About Landscape Architecture

Scipioni gives an insight into landscape architecture, working with allied professionals and makes many observations about interdisciplinary studies and the integration into landscape architecture. Scipioni discusses landscape ecology, landscape perception, messy landscapes, environmental psychology, healing landscapes. Scipioni pushes us to advance our thinking and move beyond our own disciplines.

How to attract Bird to your backyard

Birds

Bird Nesting

All birds need food, water, shelter, and breeding space to survive. Providing nesting materials and shelters in the existing area can be a strategy to attract birds. Enough food sources can also play an important role in attracting birds to nest. Spring is the most common nesting time for birds. 

Birds use twigs, leaves, bark, hair, mud, thread, and grasses to build the nests. Usually, these nests are used only for raising young birds and used only once. Birds prefer to select an area where can be well hidden and in dense foliage.  Providing birds nesting material may help to attract birds to the area. Birds may select the suitable material to build nests. As a garden manager, you should leave materials over trees or shrubs near bird sheltered spots or food sources area where birds may build nests. 

It is a good idea to leave a small mud area for birds to use. Some birds will use mud as a  “glue” to stick the materials they collected to build their nests. Human hair and animal hair (pets, horses) are soft and insulating material for birds to use. If possible, collect some human hair or animal hair, then cut them in 4-6 inches lengths. Then hang the hair on the trees. 

Don’t use pesticides, fertilizers or other potentially toxic chemicals in a garden. The US Fish and Wildlife Service reports that 72 million birds are killed by pesticides in the United States each year. Some pesticides may kill earthworms, which can reduce the natural food source for birds. Some may come in granular form, which may be strong enough to kill a small bird. Some may reduce the number of chicks that hatch successfully. 

Shelter

Dense shrubs provide safe nesting space for birds to shelter in bad weather. During the winter time, evergreen trees and shrubs are needed for birds. Common birds shelter include trees, shrubs and scrub brush piles. It is important to provide shelter at different levels for birds, because they prefer both high and low shelters. More dense planting area is popular with small and medium bird species. For larger birds, they prefer perches where they can scan nearby areas for predators and other dangers. Shelters should be built near feeders since birds can quickly retreat if they feel threatened while feeding.

Building a brush pile is a fast way to provide winter shelter for different types of birds. To build a  brush pile, choose both large and small branches to form the bulk of the brush pile with plenty of air spaces for roosting and keeping warm. Using evergreen trees for extra shelter and protection. Keeping the brush pile away from children, because the sharp branches may hurt them, and the noise from children may scare birds. Figure 3 shows the steps to build a brush pile.

Water

Water is one of the most important features to attract birds in a garden. Birds use water  for preening and drinking. Water is difficult for birds to find in winter. Much of a bird’s energy is wasted searching out open water sources in winter. A bird bath heater is suggested for birds use in winter, which can also be used in summer. It not only helps the birds, but also increases the variety of birds visiting by providing a bird bath heater in the Literacy Garden. 

Food

Providing natural food sources is an ideal way to attract birds to avoid constantly refill feeders or purchasing seed. It is expensive to plan the best bird-friendly landscaping, but choosing plants to provide food for birds may actually save money in the long run. Some open areas are desired for ground-feeding birds (mockingbird, blue jay, hummingbirds) but should have nearby shrubs and trees for ready cover. During the nesting season, birds will consume a large number of insects. 

Durham Central Park Co-housing Community

Durham Central Park Co-housing Community

The Durham Central Park Co-housing Community is a group of individuals, couples and families creating an urban, green, intentional cooperative housing community in downtown Durham, North Carolina. 

This community has built a 4-story building of 24 urban condominiums, designed for aging in place. Its 1, 2, and 3 bedroom units have access to the common dining room, kitchen, great room, meeting rooms, guest bedrooms, gardens, and rooftop patio. The physical design encourages a strong sense of community in the emerging urban surrounding area of Durham. Community members are active and engaged.

In order to foster sustainable living and energy-conscious design, the project will “think small,” “think green,” and “think conservation.” The design will de-emphasize cars and emphasize living outdoors. Here are the strategies to achieve the goals:

1. limit the size of units from 800 sq ft to 1,500 sq ft

2. seek maximum use of solar energy and conservation measures in physical spaces including but not limited to the use of CF lighting and star energy appliances, and conservation of water

3. seek to utilize solar opportunities for heating and cooling of units and common space and for the heating of water

4. seek opportunities for resource sharing, e.g. community-owned vehicles, shared tools (garden and other), shared laundry facilities

5. encourage behaviors that reduce the need to use cars , e.g. carpooling, creation of a local grocery, DCPCC owned vehicles 

6. advocate with the developer/builders to have access to the roof and an option for a balcony space for each unit

7. advocate for a DCPCC community ground(s) with gardening and composting opportunities.

Older members seek an opportunity to grow old with grace and to age in place. In order to achieve the goals:

1. Both private and common spaces will foster friendships and companionship for elders. In later life, we will live “not home alone.”

2. The building will be built with universal design features throughout to promote aging-in-place.

3. Community members will encourage mental stimulation, sharing, learning new skills and physical exercise for its members.

4. The community will encourage connection with neighbors who will notice “if one hasn’t opened her blinds in the morning.”

5. It will help us learn about how to care for one another in our later years.

The Durham Central Park Co-housing Community has provide opportunities for the site to maintain sustainable landscape development, moreover, the co-housing has encouraged people to learn how to respect elders and how to live in a Eco-life. Different form the Co-housing in suburban area, this project make use of the surrounding elements to achieve the goals of co-housing community.

Stephen Epler Hall

Stephen Epler Hall is nationally recognized for its storm-water design and has won several awards. In 2001, landscape architects from Mithun designed an educational residential courtyard in Portland State University. The goal of this courtyard is to educate and to serve the users’ needs and demands. 

Pennypacker  described this area as—a particularly engaging rainwater treatment and harvesting system that is―found in an intimate plaza enclosed by Stephen Epler Hall and King Albert Hall . 

Pennypacker then goes on to describe how storm-water travels across the courtyard: ―First rain descends from the roof of Epler Hall via downspouts that follow three of the building columns. At the bottom of each downspout the rain disappears into a raised concrete basin filled with river rock. People walk through the storm-water courtyard will notice that the water flows from the roofs of the buildings down to the river rock before it moves through scuppers at the bottom of each basin. The rainwater flow is then directed through the plaza into three separate runnels. Curious onlookers will find that the water will eventually flow to the courtyard planters. This project demonstrates a suitable way to treat storm-water, and also provides an example of how this treatment functions in a learning facility.

Naturalistic approaches to landscape design

Naturalistic approaches to landscape design involve the replacement of more traditional horticultural maintenance by techniques of vegetation management through the application of ecological awareness and knowledge to design and management of landscape and has been defined as an alternative to the restricted, artificial and expensive creations of conventional design. The naturalistic landscapes may vary in the degree to which native or exotic plants are used, and the extent to which they imitate natural communities and the amount of human intervention. Probably more important is the complexity of the plant communities and the degree to which the plants are able to interact with each other and form dynamic patterns. Hitchmough and Dunnet consider origin of component species and issues revolving around native and non-native species, biodiversity, the use of chemicals in establishment, the structure and appearance of vegetation, and the development of ecological processes as important to the application of the term ‘natural’ to designed vegetation in the urban context. Although naturalistic approaches initially focused on the use of native plants, increasing interest has been shown by landscape professionals in naturalistic plantings of exotic annuals and herbaceous perennials as well as native species in recent years. Impetus has been given to this trend by a number of publications in which the use of exotic species is encouraged to maximize flower color, flowering season and visual diversity in ways that are not possible using just native species by themselves. There are various, subtly differing, reasons given by professionals from both academic and practical platforms for the greater focus on naturalistic or ecological styles in the design and management of urban landscapes. These are involved with the search for landscape solutions to meet complex goals, such as nature conservation, community involvement, environmental education, sustainable development, aesthetic quality and more cost efficient establishment and management. 

Different planting styles have different consequences for sustainability in terms of diversity and dynamism and naturalistic plantings and ecologically inspired planting design are generally seen as more sustainable than traditional planting styles. In most cases, naturalistic planting is also claimed to encourage natural regeneration of spontaneous vegetation on site and allows distinctive urban common vegetation to develop. Furthermore, naturalistic designs contribute to sustainability as they are better associated with community participation in the design process, flexibility over final use and the use of locally derived materials while reducing labour input. Native species often tend to be accepted as most appropriate plants for sustainable planting as they are often seen to be pre-adapted to site conditions and are also assumed to harbour a wide range of associated wildlife. However, whilst native species may be the first choice for the countryside they are not always pre-adapted to urban condition and a more relaxed attitude may be needed in many urban areas (Spray and Spray, 1984 ). Exotic plants have also been part of people’s lives, landscapes and civilizations for a long time especially in Europe and it is therefore important to consider what the public think of as appropriate.

In 1969, Ian McHarg, of the university of Pennsylvania, published his influential book Design with Nature, in which he outlined a theoretical and technical basis for ecologically based planning and design. McHarg stressed the importance of systematic land-use planning according to the relative ecological value and sensitivity of each part of the landscape: “ The distribution of open space must respond to natural process…The problem lies not in absolute area but in distribution. We seek a concept that can provide an interfusion of open space and population.” McHarg’s method was based on a system of transparent map overlays. Each overlay represented a different category of nature feature, such as hydrology, geology, and plant communities. 

How to improve the landscape in MSU

College and University campuses are entrances for people to know about them. Campus environment changes everyday in both dramatical and inconspicuous way. In responding to such changes, college and university make minor and important, casual and formal, rational and irrational decisions to maintain a dynamic interaction in landscape on campus. Mississippi State University is famous for its strong sense of community and tradition. Its traditions arose from the intertwining of history and legend and are often evident in architecture form in the University's cultural landscape. However, with the development of modern college and university which are designed for ecological and educational propose, campus naturalistic or ecological culture is becoming a sort of culture in which human kind gets along well in harmony with the natural environment. 

In order to carrying out scientific outlook on development in an overall way and realizing interpersonal harmony of MSU campus, it is suitable to bring in naturalistic or ecological landscape design, which also can be helpful for intelligence development of university students, because when students access to a well-designed naturalistic landscape, it may stimulate the aesthetic appreciation of a student, and provide students a great experience of nature. From the construction perspective, MSU landscape environment is lacking of dynamic. For example, Starkville, where MSU located in, has a 5 inch precipitation each year. It is a good chance to create a ecological system to manage the large amount of water, people may know the importance of storm water collection and they may develop an awareness of water protection.

Naturalistic landscape is often mentioned with aesthetics, and aesthetic appreciation can differ from person to person. The most common discussion about naturalistic landscape areas are associated with appearance. The appearance of a landscape area is always what people would like to focus on, if emphasis   too much on appearance but ignoring the functional part, people may regard the design as a art form. That is why naturalistic education is needed, which gives people a better understanding of a certain area.

Rogier van der Heide: Why light needs darkness

Lighting architect Rogier van der Heide offers a beautiful new way to look at the world — by paying attention to light (and to darkness). Examples from classic buildings illustrate a deeply thought-out vision of the play of light around us.

Edi Rama: Take back your city with paint

Edi Rama took this deceptively simple path as mayor of Tirana, Albania, where he instilled pride in his citizens by transforming public spaces with colorful designs. With projects that put the people first, Rama decreased crime — and showed his citizens they could have faith in their leaders. 

Kent Larson: Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city

With city overcrowding becoming a global problem Kent Larson asks the question “How can we fit more people into cities without overcrowding?” Kent goes on to show off folding cars, quick-change apartments and other innovations that could make the city of the future work a lot like a small village of the past.

Candy Chang: Before I Die I Want to…

This is an emotional video which is sure to pull at your heart strings and by the end of it, you’re going to want to start a similar initiative in your neighborhood.

Artist and TED Fellow Candy Chang took abandoned house, created a giant chalkboard on the side of it and posed the thought “Before I die I want to ___.” Her neighbors’ answers — surprising, poignant, funny. 

Mitchell Joachim: Don’t build your home, grow it!

Vibrant speaker, TED Fellow and urban designer Mitchell Joachim shares his vision for sustainable, organic architecture: eco-friendly abodes grown from plants, change the way we think about design.

Erik Schlangen: A “self-healing” asphalt

In this short talk Erik gives us a brief yet effective experiment that can lead to a whole generation of self healing roads, with a little help from a heating apparatus. If successful pot holes could become a thing of the past and countless amounts of resources could be redirected for better use.

The 4 commandments of cities

The mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Paes shares four big ideas about leading Rio— and all cities — into the future, including daring infrastructure upgrades and how to turn the city into a “Smart City”.

Marla Spivak: Why Bees Are Disappearing

Marla Spivak reveals four reasons for the colossal downturn of the world wide bee population, proposing it as a major problem that must be addressed for the health of us and the planet.

Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA

Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. In this inspiring talk Ron gives us all a reality check and offers us a creative alternative to public interaction within the city landscape.

Duplitecture

The best knock-offs in the world are in China. There are plenty of fake designer handbags and Rolexes but China’s knock-offs go way beyond fashion. There are knock-off Apple stores that look so much like the real thing, some employees believe they are working in real Apple stores.  And then there are entire knock-off cities. There are Venices with complete canals and replicas of the Doge’s Palace. A Paris with an Eiffel Tower and an Arc de Triomphe. In the suburbs of any Chinese city, there are endless examples of “duplitecture.”

                                                                                           Photo by Fan Yang

In premodern China, imperial rulers used copycat buildings to show off their authority, making replicas of landmarks in cities they had conquered, or importing flora and fauna to recreate foreign landscapes within their own domain.

In keeping with that tradition, one of the most copied buildings in China is the very seat of western power itself: the White House.  Serving as hotels, restaurants, courthouses and homes, White Houses are all over China, morphed and varied in different permutations. Still, they all have those signature columns and square portico.

Design concept for Pelahatchie

It is about 200 years ago, where the city of Pelahatchie located was belonging to the Choctaw Indians. After the signing of the treaty at Doak’s Stand, the Choctaw Indians ceded to the United States 5,500,000 acres of land in the central and western part of the State, thus opening the door for white settlers to move into this part of Mississippi. It is a very important history for the city to show. The Indian feathers are represented to Indian culture. The patterns and shapes are the elements which will incorporate in the design concept to show the value of Indian’s history. 

For over 30 years, Muscadine Jubilee has been Pelahatchie’s premier event. This event has attracted more and more people come to the city. In this way, muscadine will be a good landscape design element to reinforce the influence of the event and impress people. 

In my design concept, I will incorporate both of the two elements to the landscape. It will mainly shows in the form of land, path way division, and the functions of each sections. 

Haas&Hahn: How painting can transform communities

Arttists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn create community art by painting entire neighborhoods. It is a wonderful idea to change the view of a community. Those art paints make a community more dynamic and inspire people who see it. Their job actually make a better life for people.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

I visited Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last April. I was impressed by the sustainable design in the center, and the natural plants gave me a wonderful feeling.

The Wildflower Center is committed to sustainable practices in both its buildings and landscapes. 

Environmentally responsible, sustainable landscapes are characterized by their materials, their approach to soil and vegetation, their support of wildlife, and the way they use water and energy.

The sustainable design are:

1. Using local materials has continued to be part of the Center’s mission on many levels as it has become a national advocate for landscape sustainability.

2. Soil is the foundation of a sustainable garden. It provides a variety of benefits, including removing pollutants and cleansing water, storing water for plants, wildlife and people, and providing habitat for organisms such as microscopic bacteria and earthworms that transform wastes into nutrients for plants

3. The Wildflower Center is dedicated to the preservation and re-establishment of native plants in natural and planned landscapes. The value of native plants stems from their ability to confer a sense of regional identity, and the benefits they provide such as wildlife habitat, possible water savings and connection to nature.

4. Reducing our energy footprint is important for sustainability.

5. Gardens and landscapes play a critical role in promoting biodiversity and supporting animals.

6. Water is a tremendously important, finite resource. Using potable water for irrigating landscapes depletes the amount of freshwater available for everyone. Though we are a botanic garden that requires water to effectively showcase diverse Texas native species for educational purposes.

Green way design in Starkville

In order to provide a safe and healthy space for people in Starkville, the greenway is design to encourage people to have more outdoor activities. Highly tree coverage offers a natural feeling for people. Separated pedestrian way and biking way ensure the safety. This greenway is designed for people at different ages. People will experience a relaxing space after heavy working and studying pressure.

Personal interpretation

With the aesthetic strategies introduced by the article, I have a general realization of incorporating them to my design. By paying attention to these terms, it may provide a wider perspective for me to achieve the aesthetic design requirements. If I could use the strategy in a design, I would regard these terms as a whole, each strategy connect to one another, for example, the naturalistic aspect coexists with a geometrical and numerical order. Because a naturalistic landscape is always followed by a well-designed combination of landscape elements. These elements are arranged by an aesthetic order, which will meet the human beings’ need towards the outdoor environment. Symmetry, regularity and proportion are the basic strategies applying in landscape design to demonstrate a designer’s understanding of the design, in this way, the naturalistic aspect has connected to ‘beautiful’ improvement. On the other hand, creating  a naturalistic landscape which means making an ecological or sustainable environment. With the development of the modern society, people are like to face nature. How to make a landscape sustainable is becoming an issue left to landscape architects to solve. Stormwater management, infrastructures maintenance, vegetation protection, we cannot ignore these components in a sustainable design. To sum up, I would be dedicated myself to the cooperation of multiple aesthetic strategies in future professional pursuit. I strongly believe that the profession of design is going towards the direction of complexity and comprehensiveness, since the contemporary projects are mixture of various problem solving processes. As a response to that, a dynamic of thoughts should be tightly embedded into a designer’s mind. And a embracing habit of approaches is a necessity that contributes to a successful career of a designer.

Improvement For High Line

Naturalistic aesthetics

The selection and arrangement of grasses and perennials performing as a natural object are incorporating to the whole project. This naturalistic approach creates a wild and dynamic landscape. Living in New York such a dense city, people need a green and human-enjoyable area to escape from the city. Vegetation is the most important element in landscape, not only for its improvement of air condition function, but also for the delight feeling provided by the well-done combination of different plants species. In my opinion, the feeling of planting order could come from wildness. The status of wild growing plants is what people see in nature. The combination of different plants would obsessed people its layer, color, form and texture. Using wild plants is a common strategy for designers to create natural environment, because wildlife will be attract to this area making more dynamic ecosystem. The landscape of the High Line is dominated by several varieties of tough, drought-resistant grasses and wildflowers, the beauty of the combination just appeals to people’s needs, and the naturalistic scenery matches the aesthetic needs.

Function

Every design has its functions, most of them focus on people. People are always the judgers to evaluate a design beautiful or not, but everyone has its own taste towards beauty. Therefore, the function has become an important element to define a design. For me, aesthetics and function should work together, a design would be a failure without each of them. The intent of the High Line is intensifying the existing context and design it as an immersive experience, episodic walk and surreal journey in the City. In this project, preservation and innovation come together through the adaptive reuse of the existing structure as a new and compelling public space. With the functions to be met, the designers well-balanced the relationship between aesthetics and function by reducing the changes in the  design.

Beautiful improvement 

This section of High Line is narrow and straight, if just a normal street, people walk on that may feel fatigue with the continuing and repeating scenery. Moreover, it would be hard to control the discomfort feeling with the tall buildings around and heavy traffic underground.  In this project, the designers deal with the problems to a large extent, they minimize the impacts from these discomfort elements by guide people to the design and more beautiful scenery. Along with the pathways directed towards views of the Hudson River, visitors will have an authentic New York experience from the neighborhood streets and iconic city monuments. With the elevated 30 feet above the ground, the High Line provides a unique urban experience from the height.

High line

The High Line (Section 2) is my selection for a contemporary landscape in this report. The High Line has created a wonderful public space by reusing an elevated railroad. This open space connects the neighborhoods and brings the new combination for greening nature and urban environment. The High Line has changed the way people used to see the city, which is becoming an icon for innovative design and sustainability and an inspiration to other cities.   For me, the High Line could be a very good example to encourage me incorporating the new idea to my future design and provide more quality life for people.

Background

The High Line is located on Manhattan's West Side, connecting and interacting with 3 distinctive neighborhoods. The railroad was built in the 1930's to remove dangerous trains from the streets below and then abandoned since 1980. With the development of opportunistic landscape at that time, the imagination of a few New Yorkers is changing the railroad to a park. The High Line Park is built from 1999, owned by the City of New York. Section 1 opened in June of 2009. Section 2 opened in June of 2011, doubling the length of the park to 1 mile in length. 

The first section of the High Line has celebrated more praise than everyone's expectations, so for Section 2, it is a challenge to build something new and exciting. The site itself provided the inspiration. The railroad in section 2 is narrower and straighter and around by an eclectic mix of historic warehouses, residential buildings and new development, these characteristics make the site more unique. This intimate and intense scale is creating a feeling of being nature and more immersed in the neighborhood. 

Design Description

Preservation and recycling is the core idea for the High Line. In terms of politically, ecologically, historically, socially, and economically sustainable, the High Line becomes a significant and meaningful project. Half a mile of infrastructure has transformed into parkland in section 2, reducing the heat island effect and creating significant habitat. Over 300 species were carefully selected to create a native landscape working with specific environmental conditions. Using the combination of plants makes the site more dynamic, and most importantly, it provides more enjoyable environment for visitors. Recycled materials are promoted including reclaimed wood, recycled steel and local aggregate for precast concrete.

Bio-swale

Bioswales are landscape elements designed to remove silt and pollution from surface runoff water. They consist of a swaled drainage course with gently sloped sides (less than six percent) and filled with vegetation, compost and/or riprap. The water's flow path, along with the wide and shallow ditch, is designed to maximize the time water spends in the swale, which aids the trapping of pollutants and silt. Depending upon the geometry of land available, a bioswale may have a meandering or almost straight channel alignment. Biological factors also contribute to the breakdown of certain pollutants.
Here is a section I made for bio-swale.

Rewilding

In George Monbiot's presentation, he advocates an increase in wildland experiences and increased wonder in our lives. He also advocates a restoration process that he refers to as rewilding. The example that he gives is the trophic effects of the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park.

From lecture I  found the most important comment is rewilding provides us opportunities to bring back some loss species, and it is always the nature the has the possession to decide.

My is example is Tianjin Qiaoyuan Park, which rewild the nature wetland park into the city and it makes better environmantal situation for the city. Tianjin Qiaoyuan Park is a park of 54 acres in a northern city of China. Because of the rapid urbanization, the city has changed a peripheral shooting range into a garbage dump and drainage sink for urban stormwater. Before the site was built, it was heavily polluted, littered, deserted, and surrounded with slums and temporary ricked structures. The soil is quite saline and alkaline.

To put the wild wetland in the city can provide a diversity of nature's services for the city and the surrounding urban residents, stormwater detention and purification are included. Moreover, the design improves the saline-alkali soil through natural processes, restore the regional landscape with low-maintenance native vegetation, and provide opportunities for environmental education about native landscapes and natural system, landscape sustainability.

Art Installation for urban decay

Art Installation Model

For the design theory and criticism class, I made a model to show how does urban decay happen in cities and draw people’s attention to know what we do could make a destroyed city better or even revitalized. I was trying to make a abandoned area, like a ruins. So I collected some materials discarded by people, like food package bags, broken wood sticks, cardboards, iron wires. I also want to tell people something we think useless can be made to art. 

In this model, I mainly want to create three parts of urban decay, they are rail road, building decay, and commercial ruins. As I just mentioned, construction of railroad lines always bypass urban decay. Changes in means of transport, from the public to the private—specifically, the private motor car—eliminated some of the cities' public transport service advantages, e.g., fixed-route buses and trains. When the economy depressed, the railroad and the railroad station are abandoned. A perfect example of Urban Decay in America known as Detroit's abandoned train station. A.K.A. Michigan Central Station. Michigan Central Station once was a thriving epicenter for the city of Detroit and the whole Midwest. Now the abandoned train station sits with most of it's windows broken. Some buildings were also torn down in the area, construction materials formed a ruins. It’s totally different to what it was. 

With the development of economy, urban population was booming, it also attracted some commercial investment. Some restaurants were built, some foods were import from other places, which became an important part of people’s life here. Like McDonalds, this kind of fast food really developed at that time, this cheap and delicious food meet works’ need. However, when urban decay happened, those commercial areas were abandoned and those new-come brands were buried underground.

Urban decay

1. Urban Decay Formation

Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair. It may feature deindustrialization, depopulation or changing population, economic restructuring, abandoned buildings, high local unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and a desolate, inhospitable city landscape.

Another characteristic of urban decay is blight—the visual, psychological, and physical effects of living among empty lots, buildings and condemned houses. Such desolate properties are socially dangerous to the community because they attract criminals and street gangs, contributing to the volume of crime.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, major structural changes in global economies, transportation, and government policy created the economic and then the social conditions resulting in urban decay. 

Urban decay has no single cause; it results from combinations of inter-related socio-economic conditions—including the city's urban planning decisions, tight rent control, the poverty of the local populace, the construction of freeway roads and rail road lines that bypass the area, depopulation by suburbanization of peripheral lands, real estate neighborhood redlining, and immigration restrictions. 

During the Industrial Revolution, from the late eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, rural people moved from the country to the cities for employment in manufacturing industry, thus causing the urban population boom. However, subsequent economic change left many cities economically vulnerable.  These cities began to suffer industrial decline—high unemployment, poverty, and a decaying physical environment .

2. City revitalization

Highly vacant neighborhoods present challenges for balancing social, environmental, and economic considerations for land reuse. Since the 1960’s, many post-Industrial cities such as Detroit have seen extreme population decline, creating severe economic loss and disinvestment in their communities. Strategies and opportunities for stabilization and revitalization, especially those that can be created and implemented by community groups, have become particularly important in these cities. 

Social capital is a key component, as it acts as a form of currency to facilitate human interactions and develop social networks for city development. This in turn may increase social equity as social interactions create opportunities for neighborhood redevelopment. Key to city revitalization is the environmental justice perspective, which holds that social equity is greatly affected by infrastructure and the built environment. This position is illustrated by the goal of good urban planning to increase equality of access to resources for all neighborhoods. Infrastructure and built environment and the natural environment are closely related as aspects of the physical environment, and are most effectively addressed during ecological planning for climate change. “Cues to care” are particularly important to the social context of neighborhood appearance. Cues to care are a visible form of landscape intervention that indicate neighborhood investment. Cues to care can be used to support healthy neighborhoods by allowing people to understand the importance of ecology through an orderly frame. By providing this well cared-for frame for ecological functions, cues to care can promote environmental stewardship. 

Landscape care is an important concept for promoting the long-term cultural sustainability of ecological functions in the landscape. What is ecologically healthy is not aesthetically attractive, and therefore may not be valued. Linking cues to care to healthy ecologically functioning areas by design can communicate long-term value, and promote environmental stewardship through design. Care is also an important concept for promoting the long-term cultural sustainability of ecological functions in the landscape. Because what is ecologically healthy may not be attractive, and therefore may not be valued or cared for, linking cues to care to healthy ecologically functioning areas by design can communicate that these places should be valued in the long term.

A diverse range of activities are important to bring people to city and assure it remains occupied throughout the day and week. Traditional activities such as offices, government centers, and retail are important but must be supplemented by civic uses such as libraries, post offices, police stations, and churches; entertainment and cultural uses such as taverns, nightclubs, movies, performing arts, and museums; and downtown housing which has become increasingly important to strengthen the local market and enliven the city.

Revitalizing city areas can be a difficult undertaking. Significant investment is required from local municipalities, businesses, and the overall community in order to bring about the desired changes, but questions remain about what investments are necessary and which are most effective. As the private development industry relies on market preferences, cities have recognized the importance of marketing tools and quality of life improvements to attract people and increase overall activity.

HOBOKEN SITE AERIAL

With a focus on high-density urban environments, OMA's driving principal is one of integration. The tools of defense should be seen as intrinsic to the urban environment, and serve as a scaffold to enable activity-much in the same way that the dam is the genesis of the city of Amsterdam. This will necessitate an approach that is both holistic and dynamic; one that acknowledges the complexity of systems at play; and one that works with, rather than against, the natural flow.

Hoboken exemplifies the conditions desired for a comprehensive flood defense strategy. It is susceptible to both flash flood and storm surge, but its single water shed, single jurisdiction, and combination of high impact factors (high density, value, influence, and potential) lend themselves to creating a multi-faceted solution that both defends the entirety of the city, and enables commercial, civic, and recreational amenities to take shape.

Qunli stormwater wetland park

In Chinese metropolitan areas, underground water-table elevation drops are a serious issue. Four hundred out of more than 660 Chinese cities are experiencing some degree of water shortage. This has been mainly due to the overuse of water supplies and almost no aquifer recharge, The lack of recharge is in part because all storm water has been drained away through pipes or through channelized river instead of percolating naturally into the ground.

A plan for the development of a new urban district, Qunli at the eastern outskirts of Haerbin City of North China, was begun in 2006. As part of the plan, some 32 million square meters of built space will be constructed in 13 to 15 years. More than 750,000 people are expected to live there. Floods and water-saturated land were frequent in the history of the area.

The design solutions include the use of simple cut-and-fill techniques to create a necklace of ponds and mounds surrounding the former wetland. While leaving a major core of the wetland untouched for natural evolution and transformation, the pond-and-mound ring surrounds the periphery of the wetland and creates a stormwater-filtering and -cleaning buffer zone for the core wetland. This also creates a welcoming landscape filter between nature and the city.

Plant landscape change over time

Undoubtedly gardens change with time. On the one hand, the elements that form the gardens can change with time, for example, water freezes and then melts. On the other hand, weather is also part of the garden landscape. For example, sun, shade, wind, and rain make possible the moonlight in the pine trees, the scattering and crisscrossing shadows, and rain falling on leaves.

Of course, among the factors controllable by designers, plants have the richest and the most obvious changes. Some plants' characters could express the time of the day, such as the short-lived epiphyllum (Epiphyllum oxypetalum), the hibiscus (Hibisus syriacus) that blooms at dawn and falls at dusk, and noon flower (Pentapetes phoenicea) that just blooms at noon. Some flowers bloom only in special meteorological conditions. For example, moss rose (Portulaca grandiflora) comes out in sunny days and closes when it is overcast.

The changes of life can be seen in the cycle of individual plants. For example, Chinese pines are plump when they are young, but vigorous when they are old. Plants, like other organisms, have finite life spans, Some can be as short as several decades, such as polar trees, while others can be thousands of years old, such as pine, cypress, and ginkgo. Because each specific species has its own life cycle, as time goes by, the appearance of the community will change. As time passes, plant species replace other plant species within ecological communities, leading to over all changes in the landscape. In the sense, within a day or a year, during the life cycle of individual plants and the ecological processes of entire plant communities bring rich changes to landscapes. Such changes are reflected not only in the plants themselves, but also the spatial characteristics formed by the plant's growth.

Stormwater management in urban area

With an increasing number of buildings and pavement occupying land surfaces in urban areas, rainfall and snowmelt will not soak into the ground. Instead, storm drains have carried large amounts of runoff from roofs and paved areas to nearby waterways in most developed areas. Pollutants such as oil, dirt, chemicals and lawn fertilizers are carried by stormwater runoff directly to streams and rivers, which are extremely harmful to water quality. In order to increase surface water quality and protect groundwater resources, urban development should be designed and built to minimize those hazardous ingredients in runoff. At the urban design scale, a multifunctional public open space system will slow, absorb, and filter surface water runoff with the goals of remediating contaminated water, reducing stormwater runoff volumes, creating habitat, and providing open space and environmental education opportunities to underserved neighborhoods.

These strategies focus on two primary objectives in managing mixed land use: non-point source pollution control and stormwater management. Plenty of best management practices (BMPs) have been developed and implemented to achieve both objectives. Moreover, effective and appropriately engineered stormwater management systems (SWMS) are considered as one of the most important water resource protection strategies. Design solutions are applied to address the most harmful impacts of non-point source pollution and surface runoff connected to urban development. It is important to emphasize the significance of the development of urban stormwater management to the future of urban infrastructure development. A multi-functioning system integrating stormwater management can reduce expensive sewer infrastructure expense while also protecting the water quality, and providing programmable urban open space. It is an applicable idea that works for towns and cities across the country, including mature cities where infrastructure is taxed by age and growth, as well as in places where industrial development has caused inhospitable polluted landscapes. With the new urban stormwater management consideration of the environment becomes a functional integral part. The design process proposes realistic strategies for repairing broken infrastructure that promises to provide a cleaner and healthier future. The microhabitats constructed in the design create an urban ecological corridor connecting existing open water areas to the developing post-industrial neighborhood. A hybrid ecosystem of existing nature and green infrastructure will provide an evolved urban habitat, which can promote waterfront ecology. The incorporation of nature, public space, and stormwater management will create a sustainable green infrastructure, balancing the relationship of ecology and urban development.

The planning and management of SWMSs involves the attention of stakeholder groups: from municipal to county to state government agencies involved in land use planning, engineering, transportation, environmental/natural resource protection and public health, to the private development community, and associated engineering/environmental consulting firms.

Wetland

With the development of the modern society, urban areas are becoming a concrete cell. High working pressure and terrible air condition are pushing people to find a natural space to escape from the urban areas. As a landscape architect, it is a trend to design a ecological landscape for modern people. People like to get closer to water, however, it is hard for people to experience both nature world and waterfront landscape at the same time. Wetlands has offered such an opportunity for designer to make a functional landscape solving the problems of human and nature. To have a better understanding of  wetland ecosystem is good to develop the value of wetland. In China, Hangzhou Xixi wetland park has shown a great work of a well-designed natural ecosystem.

Focusing on the advantages of wetlands, wetlands protect water quality by controlling excess nutrients and other pollutants, such as heavy metals. Wetlands provide flood protection by holding the excess runoff after a storm, and then releasing it slowly. Aquifers and groundwater are recharged by precipitation that drops into the ground and by surface waters. Many species of birds, fish, mammals are protected by the wetland. 

To design a sustainable wetlands ecosystem, it needs considering the participation of people. A green way with walkable road to let people get into the forest, some landscape infrastructures to give people space to enjoy the place, and people even can have a boat to the center of the pond areas. This wetland also can be a culture center of the nearby city, because it has the historical “footprints”, which may help people have a better understanding of the city. The city may have a drainage system connect to the wetland to share the exceed rain water and get the ground water for the city use. What’s more, nowadays, landscape architects and ecologists have paid more attention on wetlands design or research. There are numerous problems to be solved, not only for the human being, but also for the entire ecosystem. 

The red ribbon, Tanghe river park

The Minimum Intervention Approach to Urban Greenway
Dressing a “red ribbon” spanning five hundred meters by a background of natural terrain and vegetation, the “red ribbon” integrates the functions of lighting, seating, environmental interpretation, and orientation. Since the process of urbanization has destroyed the natural river corridor, the “red ribbon” will preserve it, and demonstrate how a small  design solution can achieve a dramatic improvement to the landscape.
Project Narrative
Site Conditions and Challenges
The project was located on the Tanghe River, at the east urban fringe of Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, China. The site is a linear river corridor, with a total area of about 20 hectares.
The following site conditions offered both opportunities as well as challenges for the design of this site:
(1) Good Ecological Condition: The site was covered with lush and diverse native vegetation, which provides diverse habitats for various species.
(2) Unkempt and Deserted: Located at the edge of a beach city, the site was a garbage dumping site with deserted slums and irrigation facilities such as ditches and water towers that were built for farming years ago.
(3)Potential safety and accessibility problems: distributed with lush shrubs and “messy” grasses, the site was virtually inaccessible and insecure for people to use.
(4) Use Demands: Along with the urban sprawl process, the site was sought after for recreational uses such as fishing, swimming, and jogging by the people who came to reside in the newly developed communities nearby.
(5) Development Pressure: The lower reaches of this river have already been channeled, and this process was likely to happen again at the site, meaning the natural river corridor was likely to be replaced with hard pavement and ornamental flower beds unless the new red ribbon design was implemented.

Design solution
A “red ribbon” was designed against the background of green vegetation and blue water. This ribbon stretches for 500 meters along the riverbank, integrating a boardwalk, lighting, seating, environmental interpretation, and environmental orientation. It is made of fiber steel, and lit from inside so that it glows red at night. It stands 60 cm high, and its width varies from 30-150 cm. Various plant specimens are grown in strategically placed holes in the ribbon.
Four pavilions in the shape of clouds are distributed along the ribbon, which provide protection from the weather, meeting opportunities, and visual focal points. Four perennial flower gardens of white, yellow, purple, and blue, act as patchwork on the former open fields, and turn the deserted garbage dumps and slum sites into attractions.
The bright red color of the ribbon lights up this densely vegetated site, links the diverse natural vegetation types and the four added flower gardens, and provides a structural instrument that reorganizes the former unkempt and inaccessible site. The natural site has been dramatically urbanized and modernized, two attributes that are highly sought after by the local residents while keeping the ecological processes and natural services of the site intact.

Criticism for the "red ribbon", Tanghe River Park

After many years, the red ribbon turns out some problems.

1. Maintenance: Lacking of well maintenance, some parts of this site have been demaged to different level, some lights are broken, the fiber steel is not strong enough to endure a long time, the color is fading or dropping, and some parts are disconnected.
2. Ecological disfunction: the “red ribbon” stops the frogs from going to the river to reproduce every summer. As a result, the number of frogs is decreasing dramatically. Since the loss of predator, the number of mosquitoes is increasing, and they annoy the people here.

Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes

This video teaches us how to do with our unused land. Pam Warhurst tells the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable hardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.

Dan Phillips: Creative houses from reclaimed stuff

Architect Dan Phillips shows us the houses he build in Texas, which using recycled and reclaimed material. His interesting speech inspires me to reuse those waste materials. Those brilliant, low-tech design details may help your become a creative person.

Janette Sadik-Khan: New York's streets? Not so mean any more

In this talk, Janette Sadik-Khan shows projects that have reshaped street life in the 5 boroughs, including pedestrian zones in Times Square, high-performance buses and a 6,0000cycle-strong bike share. This is very good speech to show how change the landscape in busy street and provide rest area for pedestrian. This talk is funny and thought-provoking. Hope you enjoy it.

Bat House landscape design

Why we need to protect bats?

Bats not rodents or flying rats.

Bats are Chiropterans: Echo locating, insectivorous mammals that have great levels of ecosystem

services for human primates.

Bats are not blind, but we locate openings, obstacles, and insect prey with echolocation.

Bats do not hibernate but go into torpor.

Bats are not vampire bats -they are in Latin and South America.

Bats do not want to become entangled in your hair.

Bats fear human primate predators.

Bats accidentally enter the interior of most buildings. They are trapped with no escape route out.

They are panicking under these conditions.”

Bats stress and energy expenditure of being trapped in a building often causes death.

Bats are in trouble due to habitat loss, disease, and pesticides used by human primates.

On Mississippi state university campus, I find a good spot for building bat house, and design the landscape for them, which may provide good habitat for them and educate people about bats.

 The site I chose for building bat house

This is the plan for the bat house.