Ecosystem Science with Urban Design
Urban Design was the hot topic during the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) quarterly research meeting on June 15, 2005.
Participants found common ground through cross disciplinary presentations and discussions to connect ecosystem science and urban design. This development creates new opportunities that are unprecedented and unique to Baltimore.
The meeting brought together members of the Baltimore design community, BES scientists, representatives of the Parks & People Foundation (PPF) community engagement programs, and urban design faculty and students from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University, to discuss Baltimore’s potential as a healthy, well-designed city. BES incorporates a watershed framework in order to understand how to structure cities to function as healthy ecosystems. Students and faculty are using urban design as a tool to reorganize space around urban geology, topography, water systems, vegetation, and historical building patterns.
The day long meeting consisted of presentations and break out sessions where attendees discussed their roles in developing further connections between BES research and urban design. Jackie Carrera, Executive Director of PPF, opened the meeting in the Brown Center at Maryland Institute College of Art, which she cited as an excellent example of contemporary architectural design and a fitting place to find common ground between ecosystem science and urban design. Ms. Carrera’s introduction was followed by a presentation by Thor Nelson of the Baltimore City Department of Planning, and Walter Schamu’s historic overview of the city’s urban design heritage.
Steward Pickett, BES director and scientist from the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, introduced the second part of the meeting by outlining the importance of urban design in achieving the main goals of BES. There followed presentations by Brian McGrath, coordinator of BES’s Urban Design Working Group and the Urban Design studio coordinator at GSAPP, and his teaching colleagues: Sandro Marpillero (urban designer and architect), Victoria Marshall (urban designer and landscape architect), and Petia Morozov (urban designer and architect). The Columbia faculty presented two years of student work under the headings of "water," "vegetation," and "people."
Graduate students of the Masters of Architecture and Urban Design Program at Columbia, Phanat Sonemagkhala, Justin Moore, and Morana Stipisic, assisted by visiting students from Aalborg University in Denmark, Dorte Jensen, Kirstine Iversen, and Christian Acherman, presented their designs for incorporating ecosystem frameworks into several West Baltimore neighborhoods. BES scientists Peter Groffman, Mary Cadenasso, Morgan Grove, and Erika Svendsen acted as moderators.
Sonemagkhala’s and Marpillero’s project, "Watershed of Fortune," created an urban nursery in the Franklin Square neighborhood alley gardens. These community nurseries incorporated water retention practices as part of a regional effort to reduce nitrogen input to Chesapeake Bay, but also created a new economy for residents who could sell nursery products to suburban gardeners. Morozov and Stipsic presented a project called "More Baltimore," in which new strategies for tree planting, water collection and mobile programs can be implemented within various school districts of Baltimore. Another project, "Point Cloud," aroused great interest for its innovative translation of ecosystem theories to an urban design model. Rather than working with bounded zones, such as neighborhoods or land use, this project involves a system of local points and five interlaced strategies: storm water, grey water, debris, vegetation, property ownership and value. The project aggregates the idiosyncratic, physical, environmental, economic, and social conditions of inner-block spaces to form multi-scale networks within the watershed.
As a result of the research meeting on urban design and the creation of the BES Urban Design Working Group -- which invites and includes participation from area architects, landscape architects, planners and urban designers -- there is a new kind and degree of involvement of science, education, and community engagement in Baltimore. This linkage of urban design with a sound scientific base promises benefits for both disciplines and the quality of urban life.
Story courtesy of BES