Park use is up substantially and visitors are having a great experience now that the bulkhead has been buried and the park has a beach designed by the J.A. Brennan Associates team. Next spring native aspen trees and other vegetation will be added to create shade, beautify the site, and enhance the riparian habitat.
We’re starting a new office activity to keep our drawing skills sharp, fuel new design ideas, and just spend a little time together outside: sketch outings!
Thursday, during the lunch hour, Drew and I strolled over to Occidental Square to sit in the sun and sketch. It was a gorgeous day and the bricked plaza was filled with people sitting in the sun, eating lunch, and listening to live music. It took us a minute or two to find a spot to sit, as the place was so crowded. We eventually settled on a seat near the bakery and next to the chess game.
I decided to focus on the chess pieces in front of me. I was drawn to them because they were so huge; each one stood at least two feet tall. I worried that the pieces would be moved around before I could finish sketching each one, but the game was nice and slow. Drew had his eye on paving patterns in the plaza, and capturing people as they relaxed in the sun.
Sketching is a critical tool for designers, even today when nearly everyone has a digital camera on their phone. Sketching is not just about recording the facts of a sight; sketching is about truly seeing your surroundings. Sketching forces you to deeply observe a place and capture it on paper with lines, tones and textures. In this way, you see the space much more vividly and sear it into your memory. Taking a snapshot is certainly faster, but sketching makes the place your own.
Observation – through sketching – trains the eye to see patterns, composition, and themes. We all tend to see the world with a visual shortcut. We see: car, building, child. Sketching teaches us to really look and see how the car has a dented bumper, how the building has a torn awning, and how the child has an ice cream stain down the front of his shirt. Ice cream stains may not directly translate to good landscape architecture, but it’s a richness of detail that does turn into excellent design.
We’re planning to make our new sketch outings a weekly event. Although this first trip was just the two of us, this will hopefully become an occasion that the entire office looks forward to. In fact, I have a new sketchbook and a handful of watercolor pencils which need to get some exercise. Keep an eye out, because we’ll keep posting selections from our sketchbooks.
Last night Jim and Mike presented the schematic design for the 1st phase of Metro Parks Tacoma’s Swan Creek Park. The meeting was open to the public, and held at the Portland Avenue Community Center in Tacoma’s Eastside neighborhood, where the 380-or so acre park lies. The meeting was attended by neighborhood residents, former-residents, members of the Friends of Swan Creek, community gardeners, and other folks interested in the proposed improvements. The plan calls for a new gathering space focused around community gardening. This area will serve as a launching point for park visitors to venture off into the miles of wooded trails being added at the park. The improvements will surely give east side residents a good means to access and behold this gem of a park.
by Drew Coombs
Background
In 2008-2009 J.A. Brennan provided design services for a bio-filtration drainage system at Marra-Desimone Park. We collaborated with Davido Consulting Group to improve roadway drainage in this South Park neighborhood for Seattle Public Utilities (SPU). For more background info see here.
We return to the site two to three times a year to evaluate the performance of the plants and to see how the system as a whole is functioning. The focus of this article will be about plant selection and the success of certain species. I’ve kept the discussion to a select few plants as there is a diverse plant palette and I could get carried away…
Performance
With the early onset of summer I visited the site with my co-worker Meghan to see how the system was faring. Given that the local weather personalities had recently described the season as Junuary due to unseasonably wet and cool weather in our region I was anticipating the plants to only be performing at an O.K. level. To my pleasant surprise the majority of the plants looked robust, vigorous, lush, beautiful and healthy. (How many words can you use to describe a good looking plant!?)
Plant Selection
During design we carefully selected emergent marsh species appropriate for the wet and dry conditions of the bio-filtration system. The upland plants reflect the context and character of the Marra Farm community garden and urban farm environment. A selection of native plants and fruiting ornamental plants were used to attract wildlife and suggest the farm quality of the site.
Seeds versus Plugs?
Plants were an expensive part of the project. During design, to meet the project’s budget, we made a decision to use a combination of seed and plugs in the bottom of the bio filtration swale. The combination of seed and plugs of emergent species reduced the quantity of emergent plugs required and provided some savings during construction. (Emergent plugs are more expensive than seeds).
I have to say after four years, it’s not possible to distinguish the areas that were seeded from the areas that were planted with plugs. The system as a whole appears to be performing well.
Performance
The emergent plants species doing particularly well are the Carex sp (sedge) and the Scirpus microcarpus (small fruited bulrush). Both are content and performing as planned.
Of the shrub species, Cornus sericea ‘Kelseyi’ (Kelsey dogwood) and Salix purpurea (Arctic willow) look wonderful.
We used a select few groundcover species. The one plant that is struggling and has had a high rate of loss is Mahonia nervosa (Low Oregon grape). The site may have been too exposed for this particular plant.
Overall the plants are performing quite well and the system as whole is performing as designed. There is little evidence of invasive plants like blackberry or reed canary grass.
The performance of the plants is a combination of the selection but also a measure of the ongoing maintenance by the owner, in this case SPU and Seattle Parks. It is my understating that SPU staff continues to maintain the swale.
In conclusion, with proper maintenance and irrigation, it is apparent, given the right conditions during the early establishment period, that the application of seed in combination with plugs appears to be a successful approach within this bio-filtration system.
Landscape Architecture Related
“You have to build coalitions of unlikely partners to get parks built, restored and maintained.”
The long-standing tradition of landscape architecture and sustainability
The Real High Line Effect — A Transformational Triumph of Preservation and Design
Value of homes near wildlife refuges higher
A field guide about how we view urban plants, native and non-native
NW Related
Corps, Puget Sound Partnership agree to collaborate on levees
Seattle Center’s new food options and perhaps a new Bubbleator!
Competition for adaptive reuse of 520
Historic building in Bellingham a teardown?
Sea-Level Rise studies in Richmond, BC
J.A. Brennan is a member of the consultant team that worked with the City of Kent and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to design a Habitat Enhancement Channel at Riverview Park. This newly created side channel is part of a pilot project by the Corps to restore side channel and low-flow environments along the Green River for the benefit of spawning salmon and steelhead. Previously, J.A. Brennan developed the master plan for the park. For this project we were able to provide valuable insights to the project with our site experience and park design expertise, which helped coordinate the City’s park plans with Corps habitat objectives.
J.A. Brennan developed contract documents for trail design, planting and irrigation of approximately four acres of restoration area, including native aquatic, riparian and upland environments. Wooded trails and a new 200-foot long bridge, will provide public access to this restoration project, and educational signage and viewpoints will further enhance the visitor’s experience and provide information about the Green River ecosystem.
This spring I spent about 10 incredible days in the Land of the Rising Sun – Japan. In Japan, I found a complex story of a culture and landscape – a country full of contrasts and contradictions evident in its landscape, culture, and history. The island of Honshu is home to the world’s largest city, Tokyo. This first installment of my trip journal is about Tokyo–where my trip started and ended–an incredibly immense web of buildings, tracks and roads that has unalterably reshaped my perspective on cities.
Tokyo’s metropolitan area population is the largest in the world at astounding 32,450,000!1 The population density of 10,491 people per square mile is nearly 20 times as dense as that of my hometown, Seattle, at 543 people/square mile2. Tokyo is a bustling, if not overwhelming city connected by a complex array of trains and subways; Cars are present of course, but the design of Tokyo makes owning and storing a car inconvenient and expensive. In Tokyo, there are 308 cars per 1,000 people3, compared with Seattle, which has about 743 cars per 1,000 people.4
The immensity of Tokyois well-known. But how livable is Tokyo? Monocle’s 2011 “Most Livable Cities Index” compared 25 cities looking at criteria such as safety, international connectivity, climate/sunshine, quality of architecture, public transportation, tolerance, environmental issues and access to nature, urban design, business conditions, and medical care. Tokyo placed 9th; Seattle placed 25th.5
My own experience tells me that Tokyo is an active, exciting and convenient city. Goods and retail aren’t confined only to business districts; seemingly every street has a convenient store, izakaya (pub), and market. Tokyoites, by nature of the city’s density, deal with conflict and intrusions of personal space constantly. It was interesting to see how Tokyoites are unwary to such encounters; they display an amazing tolerance for such things – a matter of survival and sanity I would suppose. Road rage is seemingly absent. The Japanese people are incredibly polite and share a culture of collectivism. .
In some ways, Seattle cannot be compared to Tokyo; but, to me there is a lesson for us as we develop into a bigger and denser City — that it can be done on a scale beyond what we’ll ever see here, and can be done well. We’ll have to consider our dependence on cars and our notion of personal territory to make this work.
As much as anything, though, my observations of Tokyo have reinforced my conviction that public open spaces, parks and access to nature are essential to creating healthy and livable cities. Tokyo is beginning to embrace waterfronts as open space, and historic temples and the occasional park provide essential open spaces for people. In Seattle, we have a unique appreciation and relationship with our sublime landscape; environmental stewardship and community are vital components of our culture, and our commitment to parks and open space is strong, giving our city amazing potential to become one of the great cities of the world.
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Sources
1 Wikipedia, “List of metropolitan areas by population”
2 Wikipedia, “Seattle Metropolitan Area”
3WEC “Energy for Megacities” Study”: Tokyo case study by Paula Restrepo Cadavid, revised by Pierre-Noel Giraud 07/09/2010
4 Wikipedia, “World’s most livable cities”
5 “Metro Areas Ranked by Vehicles Per 1,000 Residents (construction, school)”
Cultural Landscapes: 86 properties on the World Heritage List have been included as cultural landscapes.
Michelle Obama’s new book: American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America
Check out the City of Tacoma’s list of non-toxic cleaning concoctions
Dinner in the Sky, an over the top way to celebrate a site! As mentioned in Landscape Architecture Magazine
Ranking Environmental Performance
Cleaning up possible invasive species attached to tsunami debris
Have a pre-summer Family Fun Day this Sunday on the waterfront
Updates on the Seattle Ferris Wheel, gondolas now attached! http://www.pier57ferriswheel.com/
Bike to Work month has come to a close and JAB is proud to have had 50% of its staff members riding. Few firms reach such a high level of participation! Together we logged 545 miles (not counting all the miles we forgot to record), saved approx. 542 lbs of CO2, and burned 26,714 calories. Time to bake more banana bread! Together we braved the rain and rode on 60% of our work days which ranks us in the top half of Architecture and Engineering teams and far better than the 42% overall average. Thanks to everyone for playing along. Who is up for Run to Work month in June?
Most beachgoers prefer a sandy beach for swimming and enjoying the shoreline. But – as happens so often in our seawalled and bulkheaded environs –sand washes away with the current or wave action.
Due to the dynamic nature of shorelines, most swimming areas require continual maintenance to keep them in the shape that the swimming public demands. When developing a new swimming beach or restoring an old one the first thought is usually: sand, bring in more sand!
To look at the situation with foresight, though, requires studying site conditions. Where did the sand go? Is a bulkhead or seawall impacting erosion? Often wind and wave analyses are required.
In many cases, replenishing with sand is not a sustainable solution. Sand blows away. Sand drifts away. Looking at the long-term picture and saving owner expense requires considering, and often implementing, a less-favored solution, replenishing or filling with pea gravel, which is a more stable material. Many revitalized swimming and hand-carry boat launch beaches in high wave environments use pea gravel.
Even pea gravel will require ongoing maintenance / replenishment, but will save money over the long-term, with considerably more infrequent replenishment required than sand.
The compromise:
Benefits
The other benefits of pea gravel: improved fish and wildlife habitat. Gravel provides spawning substrate for fish. This is something that appeals to the agencies and assists in the likelihood of permit approval.
What does creating a sustainable beach involve?
One consideration in the selection of beach material is the beach’s slope and the available land to place the preferred material. Coastal engineers study wind and wave action and build models that predict how material will move along the shore. The size and shape of potential materials are run through the model, allowing for scenarios that analyze different size materials, allowing designers to study costs and benefits of the materials. Examining the models allows designers to create a final design that minimizes maintenance costs and maximizes user comfort. Though pea gravel is more expensive initially, it is more likely to stay in place, and cost less in maintenance dollars over the long-term, resulting in a cost-effective, sustainable design solution.
Aesthetics: How to make it beautiful?
Landscape architects help select materials and design upland and nearshore plantings that are required by permitting agencies. Agencies typically require use of native plantings, and often, the placement of woody debris. With thoughtful design, these plantings and materials can create an attractive shoreline environment that blends wildlife habitat with aesthetics and public enjoyment.
How to keep materials in place?
In many high-energy wave action environments, gravel berms, or rock sills made with larger materials help keep pea gravel in place. The placement of these structures must not negatively impact neighboring properties.
Bulkheads/seawalls contribute to the erosion of native material or sand waterward of the structure. Over time, as the sand and other native materials wash away, walls are undercut and fail. Solutions involve removing the walls or burying existing walls and creating gentle berms that extend the beach upland.
The great debate of sand versus pea gravel will no doubt continue. Long-term sustainability, costs/benefit analysis, and improved habitat value make the decision to use pea-gravel the most practical in many situations.
j.a.b.LOG 
